Now the racing season has wound down I fancied flying some freestyle again, but nothing quite flies like my stretch plus race quads. In a flash of genius, it then occurred to me - why not fly freestyle with a SKEW_R?

I originally looked at just making a new pod, but then on reflection decided I might as well add a little volume to the body to cram extra goodies like a GPS and bigger VTX in there (the SKEW_R in its race form is a pretty tight build). To beef it up I added a carbon top plate and a very open canopy to hold camera, HD camera, and a Matek GPS.

I whipped up the first prototype canopy and fresh top/bottom plates, and converted my third race SKEW_R build, all looked good. At the same time though, I did fancy something a little bigger, so drew up 7" arms, ordered a sheet of 6mm carbon, and got to work. The resulting frame is surprisingly rigid, probably mostly thanks to the 6mm arms. Weight is acceptable too, at 147g with printed parts and hardware.

Build uses an Omnibus F4V6 recycled from another quad, a massive iflight 60A ESC with metal FETs that I never got around to using, and I ordered a set of T-Motor/Racerstar AirA 2508 1200kv motors, thinking on 6S with 7" props it could be both an efficient cruiser and an absolute screamer of a big quad. Weight comes in at 489g dry without GoPro, or 864g with GoPro and a 2200mAh 5S pack (need to pick up some larger 6S packs to try too). Just need a break in the weather to give both 5" and 7" versions a fly now - if successful the 7" will get LR converted with an R9 Slim+ and Menace Periscope antenna.