This particular quad is a throwback to the very first quadcopter I owned and flew, in that it consists entirely of Shaun 'Nytfury' Taylor's old parts.
The similarity to other builds I own is definitely noticeable, although this is pushing the performance envelope quite a bit for me.
Frame is an original FPV-FlightClub Neutron-R in True Hybrid configuration - 5" front and 6" rear arms. The performance of this layout is something I love, and the original shark fin canopy is still among my favorites for aesthetics, even if it's not the most effective in taller grass.
Motors are F60 ProII's in 2350KV - great motors that came from Atmospheric Adventures, and this KV is actually pretty great to me for flying aggressive props on 4S and my preferred 51433 props on 5S. Shaun insists this is a 6S setup, but that's a bit spicy to my taste right now.
Matching props to the motor KV and battery voltage, 4S on 5149's are rad, and 51466 works well on both 4S and 5S depending on application. The combination of downprop and high KV (6S 2250KV and HQ 5.1x3.6x3 or Ethix S3 work brilliantly) is a feel I'm a fan of, but the efficiency promised of 6S setups isn't realized on this bird unless I'm incorporating a bit of throttle limiting. 75% is where I'm most comfortable, but 85% is where I want to push towards. Even with that very restrained setup, this is an absurdly fast quad, with most of the performance being found in the turns where it has an enormous thrust to weight ratio, and limiting throttle just keeps the battery participating for more than 1:40 at my pace.
The rest of the build is top shelf stuff -
PredatorV4 camera is the racing camera to beat in any application
Unify VTX is fantastic, clean video for flying 6up or more
Lollipop V3 antenna works great and mounts up cleanly
CRSF Nano running CRSFShot is full party mode.
RaceLite wires are always a favorite of mine, although Shaun prefers to run them up top - I may add a bonus set of these to the bottom and make it a full brightness quad. For night track racing, the front props are somewhat bright, but I can relocate those panels to the bottom.
Stack The new part to me is a full FL1 stack - running FalcoX on the WildWilly tune as recommended, this thing absolutely parties. It works out of the box, and the UI does start to make sense after using it in the OSD. The only major 'to-do' list item is going to be learning PINIO and getting the VTX onto a pit switch, other than that, this build is 100% ready to go.
I have been able to get this tune working well enough that I had to revise my process on converting my favorite Betaflight rates into FL1 (if you want to replicate stock BF SuperRate values, try 44/44 on Expo/Acro+), but once that was dialed in I was able to start flying this interchangeably with my other Neutron-R racing fleet. Despite the different FL1 feel, I'm already within the same tenth on shorter tracks, and having the luxury of a fully matching frame/motor/prop/camera setup to compare the two firmware options, this actually pushed me to rework the Betaflight 4.2 tune to be a bit sharper and use higher D-Gains and accept a bit more filtering to get a matching feel.
I have to put in a huge thanks to Shaun for building this - I genuinely feel like there are a handful of quads he's build that perform on a different level for their time period - I own two examples meeting that description, and the other four are in the hands of pilots like Minchan Kim, Alex Vanover, and Thomas Bitmatta.
There's nothing like knowing the exact quad you're piloting can do amazing things to motivate one's self to push the boundaries and improve as a pilot.
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Show stores (10)Guides & Reviews
AirbladeUAV has done it again and this time they've brought long range to the 5" class! Based on the popular Transformer Mini, the new Transformer 5" Ultralight adopts a lot of the same design philosophies with larger props and more payload capacity. It can fly upwards of 20 minutes on a 4 cell Li-Ion battery pack and in ideal conditions it's got a range of over 4 to 5 miles. In this guide I'll walk..
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With the release of the DJI FPV Drone cinematic FPV has become a lot more accessible, but you certainly don't want to crash a $750 drone! The QAV-CINE Freybott is a compact, lightweight cinematic FPV drone that can take a hit and keep going. It's a lot safer to fly indoors and around people. With a naked GoPro or the SMO 4k you can capture some great stabilized footage. In this guide I'll show you..
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Ah, I didn't know the Neutron Shark Fin canopy would also fit the Neutron-R. I'm having problems where the flip stick on my Neutron-R pushes through the mount on the Neutron-R canopy. Not good, with the angle it's at it pushes down into the stack causing much sadness as it destroys the VTX and/or FC. Just ordered a shark fin canopy, maybe not as good as the flip stick, but kinder & gentler on the stack.
Yeah, as a permanent fixture, I'd say the shark fin is preferable, although it's not as good as the taller ones, but I feel like it performs as well as the flip stick.
I like the flip stick version because I can leave them off 98% of the time, and just run the stick when I'm in a race heat (keeps me from tearing up stuff in turtle mode). This accommodates my entirely first world problem of wanting to stick 10 of these quads into one cardboard box to go out to races.
Where my stack builds end up, I have a cheap $9 VTX that takes the punishment, but the three layers of VHB tape holding it on seem to make the impacts less bad (but it does break the screens off)... so you're not alone with that.
Part of me still wants to migrate everything over to 533SB's, but micro cameras are so nice, and these are just plain gorgeous... plus I have all the spare parts I could ever want, and the desire to move stuff onto Proton frames.