Personally I'm very excited to see that DJI has finally listened and provided us with a wide angle lite air unit. I'm a big fan of the O4 lite and will be updating my builds to support the new version when it's out!
Anyone else going to be building this into your projects? Curious to hear what your favourite cam/vtx combos are
Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but that gave me a good excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.
This is the same sub250g 3D printed FPV wing platform, now rebuilt with a slightly cleaner electronics install. I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far.
Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and test a couple of new settings.
Had to retire my main test wing after a very hard landing, so the electronics got moved into a fresh sub250g build.
Same FPV wing, cleaner airframe, ready for more abuse. Hopefully flying it tomorrow morning before the heat gets too high.
Anyone else here running drone parts in fixed-wing builds?
Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but honestly that was mostly just an excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.
This is the same sub250g FPV wing platform, now rebuilt and looking a lot cleaner. It uses a mix of lightweight 3D printed parts and drone-style electronics, which has been working really well for keeping the build compact and capable.
I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far. Still not completely sure about the colour combination though. I’d love to see more LW-PLA colours available in general, or maybe I just need to finally start painting parts.
Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and try a couple of new settings. Keen to see how it feels with a fresh airframe again.
Curious how many people here are starting to use drone parts in their RC plane builds? Flight controllers, mini ESCs, quad motors, FPV systems, that sort of thing.
Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but honestly that was mostly just an excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.
Still unsure about the colour combination. It would be nice to see more colour options available from LW-PLA suppliers like ColorFabb. I’m not really one for post-processing printed parts, but maybe I should finally start painting them.
This is the same sub250g FPV wing platform, now rebuilt and looking a lot cleaner. I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far.
Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and try a couple of new settings. Keen to see how this one feels with a fresh airframe and a slightly cleaner setup.
Has anyone here used AMS for multi-colour LW-PLA prints? Curious whether it’s worth the hassle for aircraft parts.
This started as a small handling experiment and slowly turned into a proper little park flyer.
I wanted to make a 600mm 3D printed wing that was slow, stable, easy to throw around a park, and fun rather than intimidating. It’s using twin 1003 motors on 2S, LW-PLA, INAV, differential thrust, and a fair bit of twist in the wing to calm the low-speed handling down.
It has taken quite a few geometry changes and tune changes to get here, but it’s now flying pretty much how I hoped: relaxed, floaty, and still lively enough to be fun.
Still refining it, but this one feels like a proper finished design now.
This started as a small handling experiment and slowly turned into a proper little park flyer.
I wanted to make a 600mm 3D printed wing that was slow, stable, easy to throw around a park, and fun rather than intimidating. It’s using twin 1003 motors on 2S, LW-PLA, INAV, differential thrust, and a fair bit of twist in the wing to calm the low-speed handling down.
It has taken quite a few geometry changes and tune changes to get here, but it’s now flying pretty much how I hoped: relaxed, floaty, and still lively enough to be fun.
Still refining it, but this one feels like a proper finished design now.
I've mostly been testing with little to no wind up until now but this morning there was a nice constant wind to play with.
Differential thrust is fantastic for turning hard into the wind and really helps to bank and yaw in 'lite' stall turn style maneuvers. Noticeably with this more dynamic flying I have some pitch PID to tune, noticeable pitch oscillation in some tailwind conditions possibly too much accumulation of error. Setting up Acro rates next to see what it can really do!
I think there are improvements in the geom to be made which I will carry forwards into the next project. All fun stuff. More about it on my page
After a few versions testing different twist and tail surface setups, I’ve spun this off as a chill park flyer — which is what I intended to make all along with this project.
I’m still developing the PID tune, as there are definitely gains still to be had. Next step is to find a bigger field, get the acro rates dialled in properly, and see what kind of aerobatics it can do.
It’s around 180g AUW, 600mm span, running on a 750mAh 2S pack with two 1003 motors. The airframe is printed in LW-PLA and runs INAV on an F4 flight controller.
Definitely a calm morning/evening aircraft. It can handle a bit of wind, but that’s not really where it shines. In still air, it just cruises around nicely and will fly for over 20 minutes.
I’m still refining the setup, but the maiden was a success and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
So many crashes and rebuilds last week on this one has got me thinking, what do you all do for repairing your planes?
On this micro wing 600mm span 190g park flyer I've been using tape and super glue which has worked surprisingly well.
I got some nice relaxed flights in while away on holiday last month, testing a few PID settings.
In the end the tune was a bit soft, which you can probably see in the footage, but honestly I still had loads of fun just cruising low over these fields.
Not every flight has to be about pushing speed or perfect tuning — sometimes it’s just nice to enjoy the aircraft and the view.
If you want to know more about this plane then check out my website
Prototype 1 of this little twin-motor wing flew pretty badly.
Not “minor tuning issue” badly — more like “okay, this is doing too many things at once” badly.
It did show a few promising moments, especially around low-speed behaviour and yaw response, but the overall handling was too sensitive and too coupled, even in stabilized modes.
I think the concept still has something in it, but the first version was trying to combine too many experimental ideas at once.
So Prototype 2 is about finding a cleaner baseline first: calmer geometry, better yaw stability, simpler control behaviour, and a platform that is actually tunable.
Once that flies properly, I can start testing the interesting details one at a time: control surface size, placement, twist distribution, and differential thrust authority.
I'm looking forwards to building this one up and getting it flying asap!
For more information check out my build page here.
Really happy to finally share some proper flight footage of BANDITO, my 3D printed FPV wing.
This flight shows how manoeuvrable and aerobatic the aircraft is. Fast rolls, smooth transitions, tight control, and the kind of handling that makes it surprisingly easy to throw around with confidence.
The tune and setup are still under ongoing development, so this is not the final limit of the aircraft. It is already flying really well, and will only get better from here as I develop Beginner/Advanced pilot setups.
Thanks to everyone who has been following the project so far. It has been a long road of designing, printing, testing, crashing, improving, and flying, and I’m really excited to finally share the footage properly.
If you would like to know more about this project check out my website .
This plane has been somewhat challenging to tame so far as it has a keen interest in destroying itself whenever possible. There are however, fleeting moments of greatness which are enough to keep me interested.
More to come on this one in the next few weeks, check out my webpage for more info.
BANDITO is finally live.
Sub-250g, 3D printed in LW-PLA, built for digital FPV, fast low passes, cruising, and generally doing stupidly fun wing stuff without needing a huge aircraft.
Specs:
- 600mm wingspan
- Under 249g AUW
- Up to 197km/h GPS speed recorded
- 20+ min flight time possible
- Printed airframe uses around 73g of LW-PLA
- Designed around a defined parts list and build process
Website link here:
Would love to hear what you lot think. Thanks to those who have followed the project along the way!
Here is a special 20% discount code: R3DPA
Hey everyone,
I’ve been putting together a small database of drone flight rules and responsible flying resources by country.
The idea is simple: give FPV/drone pilots a quick starting point before flying somewhere new, with links to the official sources where possible.
It’s not meant to replace checking the local aviation authority directly, but more to make that first step easier and reduce the “where do I even start?” problem.
I’m linking it here because I’d really appreciate feedback from pilots in different countries, especially if anything is missing, wrong, unclear, or outdated.
What I’m trying to improve:
- country coverage
- official authority links
- simple “before you fly” guidance
- making it useful without pretending to be legal advice
Thanks for any feedback!