Since the remote ID news came out, I've been eyeing my fleet going, damn, only 1 drone is sub250 not including the whoops.  I'd hate to wait till the last minute to try and unload my >250 drones since I really like them.  Also you barely get good money for built 5 inchers so I'd have to take them apart and sell the parts.  What a pain.  Then it's trying to come up with a good sub250 that even somewhat mimmicks a 5 inch which I personally think is impossible - you just gotta live with these super light feathery things.  Kind of annoying. 

What are your guys'es thoughts and plans if any at all?  I am leaning towards keeping my 5 inchers and just writing them off as these regs start to sink in and it becomes more and more sketchy to fly >250.  Bah.  Lame.

Simple. Just ignore the regs and just keep flying them without Remote ID somewhere that there aren't any people. At least it will still only a civil offence to do that in the US if you happen to be unlucky enough to get caught.

I agree with Snow. No one will likely arrest you or even bother you.

Has anyone been following Ummagawd's development of a sub 250g 5" freestyle quad? Really interesting videos, definitely worth a watch.

I am but not because of the regs but purely efficiency and longer flight times

Of course you know, size has little to do with flight times, right?

No size may not but weight certainly does

(02-Jan-2021, 12:52 AM)coyote_dc5 Wrote: No size may not but weight certainly does

Really it is relative.  And bigger handles weight indiscretions better than smaller.

Frankly it is more challenging to make an efficient small quad than a big one.  And my hat is off to guys like you and Harry.

Remember a heavy left thumb will quickly destroy all your efficiency efforts in all quad sizes.

I've been following Tommy's little documentary. In fact, out of curiosity, I responded to this ad asking for people to build drones out here in So Cal. My question was if their initials was NBD lol. Turned out to be Umma & Co. From what i could gather, they were ramping up to mass produce RTF drones. I could only assume the recent series of videos is meant to build up to that big reveal. (They are way more of an actual company than I realized with very deliberate marketing.)

Still, and I do respect Ummagawd very much having built many versions of his Acrobrat, I just can't see a sub250 acting even remotely close to a 5 incher. Put another way, he had been preaching that the Acrobrat flies like a 5 incher for years. And now this documentary on his pursuit of a micro 5 incher? Cmon man.

And frankly, any of us 4 inch micro builders here (ifly, wll, etc) can just take the vertical antennas off and replace them with stubbies and you'd get the same thing he spent hours evidently coming up with. It's a micro biblade, basically.

explore micros for fun not for sub 250g, there is more than just: "super light feathery thing"
no micro will be like a 5inch, but no 5inch will be like a micro!
like with 5inches, there are many different sorts. you can get many different sorts of flightcharacteristics on a micro.
5inch has a lot downsides compared to micros, i dont see the reason for comparison "like a 5inch" or "near a 5inch". there are just much 5inches, no reason to look at it as state of art.

if you have that "feater feeling", just step down by the propsize or up by the motor and battery. its slower and feels like we use traditional 5inchers. ultralight is that "feater thing", same with ultralight 5inches or 7inches.
emuflight provide a feater where you can mimic more weight by software.

you might not get happy if you feel forced to it, but there is no reason why not to get in pleasure if you explore with another mindset :-)



i beleive a source micro with huge motors on 2,5" and 3-4s might give what you are looking for. 1106, 1204, 1206... on 650mah 4s/ 900mah 3s- it comes down like a stone, it decreases hight like a traditional miniquad, no feather-thing at all :-)

I have migrated to micros already for the most part, but that is because they are a fun challenge to build. I will not be turning in my larger quads regardless of whatever rules are in place. I will simply fly them in quiet open spaces.

The one thing that I could never do was fly my 5" around my neighborhood without drawing attention. The 2" and 3" fly almost unnoticed, so for my typical flight locations they work better.

In terms of character, the micros will never drift and glide like my mini's and Seven. We just need to fly smarter with our larger quads.

I've been watching a lot of Youtubes on the subject and I'm still confused by what appears to be a solution without a problem.

As a new flier that started in June and has worked my way up from a Tinyhawk, to a FreeStyle, to a Phantom, and now to a 4" GepRC Dolphin, my plan is just to stay <250g. The Dolphin feels very powerful. Probably not 5" powerful, but it's pretty darn good. And I'm getting 9:50 seconds using 850s on a 4" quad that's exactly 250g.

The important thing is that this law takes effect 3 years down the road. Over those next 3 years, I believe the new law will press manufacturers to develop lighter/stronger parts to give the performance of larger quads. Money will drive technology. The big losers here are the long-range fliers as battery technology hasn't evolved much in the last decade and I doubt that market pressure is large enough to lead to light enough batteries to support the LR folks.

(02-Jan-2021, 03:39 PM)Ljholland Wrote:  The big losers here are the long-range fliers as battery technology hasn't evolved much in the last decade and I doubt that market pressure is large enough to lead to light enough batteries to support the LR folks.

Remember, many land based R/C batteries are very similar to the larger batteries used on the larger quads.  So, even if the batteries currently used by the big quad pilots are no longer manufactured, the land based batts will fill that void.

And of course the Li Ion batteries that many LR guys fly with will still be there.

(02-Jan-2021, 10:00 AM)hugnosed_bat Wrote: no micro will be like a 5inch, but no 5inch will be like a micro!

This is where my appreciation is lacking. I don't know yet what you mean by micro characteristics. Honestly, my impression, is just that they are lighter more nimble things but with the momentum of a feather. It's that lack of momentum that makes it not fun for me as far as doing acro with a micro.

In fairness, I have not yet flown the Tinyhawk type micros mostly because I like to have some form of HD footage. Maybe that's what I'm missing out on.

[edit] I would add as a point of reference, my 3 inch Acrobrat with a 650mah 4S and light 1404 motors coming in at 249g on the dot auw was not very fun for me. The acro was just passable and I found myself pushing sticks all the way to plastic way too often. But my 3 inch Gecko with an 850mah 4S and pocket rocket 1408s is super fun for me. It just has enough weight (280g-ish) to give some semblance of momentum and I can throw it around closer to a 5 inch. So I can almost literally identify where the breaking point is for me and unfortunately it is just north of 250g.

Canada had had a sub 250g law for a while now. Everything I've flown in a city for the last season has conformed to this and it has been a great year for fpv. Sub 250 is not a death sentence the technology is already mostly here and after a year of micros I'd kinda wish my 5" could fly as precise as some of my micros do.

I'm looking forward some of the new gear this might spawn such as micro 4k cams with stabilization. DJI is also really hard to get below 250g so they will need to step up with some lighter air units or byte frost might take a bigger piece of the market than theyd like. Either way more sales volume to fatshark could help some progress with that system, hopefully they've learned their lesson with stagnating too long.