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QuadYCopter video and performance review

If you do nothing else, skip to 48 seconds in the video below and watch the crash when I hit a tree and land right side up. I ask you how many types of models / electric helis can you punish with that poor piloting and keep on flying? If that had of been an electric heli, I would probably have been up for new blades, boom and miscellaneous other bent rods along with the time to take apart and re-assemble. The QuadYCopter is made from ply, 12mm x 12mm Tassie Oak booms, cable ties, 3mm aluminium and 3mm bolts (both nylon and steel). The two front arms are held in place with cable ties which means in the event of a crash, there is a fair bit of give without breaking anything.

The photos show the main booms are quite a lot longer than needed. That's the result of experimenting with the position of the motors and moving them closer into the centre. The unexpected benefit of this is protection for the propellers. I haven't broken one prop yet with this config.

The Y configuration of the booms is definitely easier for me to fly and keep orientation when compared to the symmetrical Quad. The bright red anodised aluminium landing gear at the rear is also a great help. In the video at about 4 minutes I do some "high-ish" altitude video and maintain good visibility, smooth flight and it descends quite well. Some configs I've flown haven't coped well when descending rapidly and wallow quite alot that sometimes ended up in uncontrolled oscillations that didn't end pretty. Not so with the QuadYCopter. I could descend quite rapidly and even up up the throttle quite aggressive when it got low and it would recover quite well maintaining a flat attitude.

The V-Tail config has good authority with plenty of yaw control. To be honest, in all my RC flying (mostly planes) I've never used the rudder (equivalent) until I started flying multirotor. The QuadYCopter can do some quite tight turns and makes a great prop noise when pushed hard. With a lighter touch, it will do graceful arcs producing some nice stable video footage.

Stability is good in "aerobatic" mode but in "stable" mode I'm still getting oscillation. I reckon some PID tuning should sort that out.

So for some ratings out of 10;

Durability: 9

Stability: 7.5

Aerobatic: 8

Visibility: 8

Simplicity: 9

Things to do;

1. Sort out the "Stable" mode.

2. Install FPV gear

3. Maybe install some LED strips.