This is not entirely a new build. I have had my Slamnasty on the bench for ages, waiting on a replacement Air Unit to be available to buy anywhere. In the end, I managed to get hold of a Caddx Polar Vista, and as the Slamnasty was always a bit of a style over substance build - far too much prop-in-view - I decided to swap out the working electronics and try a new frame.

I listlessly poked around online for a while, but nothing really piqued my interest, and then I thought to go and dig about in the Big Box o' Spares in the basement, just in case - and turned up an old Realacc Avenger 215 frame (in the early days, when I crashed a lot more, I would usually buy two of any frame I liked, as that was just a sensible and largely necessary precation). I enjoyed the analogue Avenger that I had built some years ago, it was compact and robust, and as the frame was dual stack I thought to see whether I could get the Vista in there. I could. And so I did.

It wasn't quite as easy as lifting the electronics out of the Slamnasty and dropping it into the Avenger, unfortunately, there was some re-soldering involved, but it was mostly drag and drop. There was a touch of drilling and grinding of the frame needed for leads and bolts, and I as ever had to print up a few bits and pieces - antenna mount, GO2 mount, but also a mount for the Vista camera. The frame was designed for good, old-fashioned full-sized cameras, which were rather huge compared to current cameras. So I needed a mount to make it touch the sides, but this also gave me a chance to push the camera forwards so that my view was no longer annoyingly framed by the camera cage - again, those old cameras were way longer.

I wasn't sure how it was going to work out in truth, but it looked the part, was a quick and easy build, and as noted the analogue iteration of the same frame was a fun machine - so I was cautiously hopeful.

And gosh, don't you know it, it turned out really nice. It's quick, agile, and smooth, that squat little frame really helps it zip about agreeably. And there is no rattle and bounce getting through to either the FPV video or the GO2 footage. Admittedly, there is a little bit of prop-in-view with the FPV, but it is so much better than the Slamnasty. Plus the Slamnasty was bottom mount, better for racing lines I am sure, but that slammed top mount of the Avenger give the flips and rolls an extra bit of snap and crack.

As for the Polar Vista, weeeellll... it's ok. I mean, it's pretty good, but it's still not as good as the original DJI cameras. The exposure switches in rather obvious steps and the image is a bit soft. But it's not terrible, and I haven't tried to fly in low light, which might be rather fun - so I'll reserve my final judgement about the camera. It works, that's the main thing.

Overall, I am very pleased with this sort-of-new machine. Here's a Maiden-ish flight - I think I can fairly safely say that this will do quite nicely...