It was with much remorse this week that I tore apart my RotorX Atom RX122. I loved the thing, and consider the quad I really learned how to fly on. It was a great little build. The only issue with the design, however, was the structural nylon standoff configuration. Flying over concrete or hitting an unforgiving gate kept blasting the poor little guy apart, and I'd finally had enough of replacing the standoffs. While sure, that doesn't exactly break the bank or anything, it got annoying having to stop and fully dismantle the build and cut new standoffs as I needed them etc.

So then comes the Falcon.

The Falcon line of racing frames has just launched. Designed by Lazd, the frames come in three, four, and five inch minimalistic X quad variations. Now as this frame made its appearance I was actually in the process of designing my own 3" quad, being a 3D modeller by trade. When I saw these, though, I immediately shelved that project and ordered a Falcon 130.

The frame is simple, really; it's just a little X. The beauty of the build, however, stems from the attention to detail. The frames ship with enough standoffs, screws, etc. to configure your quad in multiple different ways. The 130 even comes with two different top plates, which is quite nice. As you can see in the photos here, the quad can be built in what I like to call an "every man's design," in which one doesn't need to get fancy and start sandwiching components or anything, but rather can just slap everything inside the body like a pretty standard build. On the other hand, if you look up some of the other builds using this frame, you can see it's also possible to do a much more advanced low rider style build, which will actually be capable of swinging 3.5" props.

The attention to detail and receptiveness to feedback has made this little guy quite a satisfying purchase. To that note, Lazd is quite transparent with his design philosophies and is incredibly receptive to feedback. He actually even jumped in a Google Hangout with me and some buddies as I was building the quad and excitedly jotted down some feedback and suggestions I had for adjustments based on my own personal preference. Talk about service!

Now, if you notice in the photos I've got my camera mounted in a little 3D print. This is a component that I am currently working on designing with Lazd and we will be releasing the models as an open-source of sorts deal through Thingiverse soon. This first design that I'm currently using allows you to mount your camera right in the cutout of the top frame. As it stands, and as it's shown in the attached photos, it could use a few tweaks, and we are on top of that. For the time being it was just a drop dead simple means of mounting the camera safely and securely. This print also doubles as a little holder for your X4R and creates the necessary space inside of the body of the frame to fit your VTX (in this case and ET200), allowing all of the components to be safely and securly situated inside of the actual body of the quad. In my opinion this is a super handy little mod that really caters itself to my build style, allowing things to be serviced with the minimal amount of effort while providing as much durability as possible. Keep on the lookout for this initial design to be available on Thingiverse as well as another mount design or two along the way. I will update here as those become available!