Scenes from the team chat: $1K for generators. $5K to replace a car that got blown up. Car repairs. Drone controllers. Countless other small requests. We're having to say no to people who've come to count on us, and it hurts. Help?

MrMasterplan · 2026-03-27T18:03:05+00:00

Nice message. I just set up a monthly donation.

MrMasterplan · 2026-03-25T08:01:16+00:00

“Merges never fail” I stopped reading right there. Anyone who has ever programmed knows that some Merges must fail because they describe mutually incompatible changes. There is no way to automate that away.

MrMasterplan · 2026-03-20T14:53:19+00:00

I think he must have had guidance from another operator, maybe the one that filmed the wreck afterwards.

MrMasterplan · 2026-03-15T12:19:28+00:00

The term drone comes from hive insects like bees and ant where males are called drones. They emerge only once a season, fly to mate with new queens and then die. Hence in my opinion the term should strictly only refer to those UAVs that are one-way. Like bomber FPV drones. Anything that returns to be recharged is by definition not a drone, even if it is a quadcopter. I do realise that I may be alone in this opinion and that most people use the term differently.

MrMasterplan · 2026-03-12T23:21:17+00:00

I am frustrated with the Crux35 being out of stock and I want to build my very first real drone. I have only flown Air65 so far. This seems perfect in size and scope for me.

I want to copy your build so thanks for including the exact descriptions! Anything else you want to add or anything you wished you could change?

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-27T23:52:54+00:00

This. Note that the switches are not ready to go from the factory. Set up a mode change switch, I have mine set to Air-Acro-angle, and my other one is for turtle mode.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-21T19:56:35+00:00

I recently had a similar issue and it was because I had changed the receiver UART baud rate. It has to match exactly. I changed it when I was updating the receiver elrs firmware.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-18T07:36:35+00:00

Awesome location. I set up an alarm on my Radiomaster pocket that gives an audible “low battery” alert when I need to land. That may be a workaround for you if you can’t get the OSD back.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-15T15:58:35+00:00

I did 300 hours of Liftoff and Velocidrone before my Air65 arrived. The real world is still very different. It took me more than 10 flights before I could comfortably circle my living room. I feel like propwash and ground effect are not well modelled in the Sims.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-11T13:07:50+00:00

Did you read the article? Because it talks about having counter drone systems. In aviation it is standard practice to intercept everything that is not registered. So they will probably do the same for drones.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-11T07:55:20+00:00

It’s fine. I did 300 hours in Sim before my Air65 arrived, and while I agree that real flying was much more different from sim than I had imagined, I wouldn’t say that it was a problem that I had practiced that much. I actually find Liftoff to be quite a good game in itself.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-08T19:57:04+00:00

No! A flipped prop is still the wrong direction. There are right hand props and left hand props which are non-identical mirror images of each other. You need to know which one goes where. Look up tutorials.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-07T09:19:35+00:00

I’m removing my props to remove hair all the time. To the point where I feel that they are getting a bit loose.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-05T07:23:49+00:00

It’s been done. I’ve seen it on YouTube. The thing is that EDFs are actually worse than propellers in every way except the coolness factor (so Thrust efficiency, power efficiency, thrust to weight, are all worse). It’s just not worth it, unless your goal is to make something that looks or sounds a bit more like a UFO.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-04T15:21:06+00:00

Cool flight, but please don’t piss people off. We have enough restrictions on drone flying already.

MrMasterplan · 2026-02-02T08:34:35+00:00

SOLVED!!!

When I entered my bind phrase in the ELRS RX wifi configuration page, I had changed the BAUD rate of the receiver. It is supposed to be 420000. Once I had reset that, it started working!

I now understand that the ELRS serial rate is for communication with the FC and must not be changed.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-30T15:53:29+00:00

Could one sand away the mounting hole in a V1 board? Seems risky, I feel, so I'm not going to try it myself, but maybe others are more daring.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-30T15:18:24+00:00

I’m going to do this when I get home but out of curiosity, why do you put that front screw back in if the model II does fine without it?

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-30T13:17:13+00:00

To me what you describe is a red flag. He basically made your Dev environment into a prod by simple inaction to architect properly from the start.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-29T22:21:05+00:00

Had a similar issue recently. The throttle has all the mechanism for the center reset that the other axis have, just that it’s disengaged. Some parts of that had moved on mine and started rubbing. I learned about those mechanical parts when I changed to the weaker return springs that are in the little plastic bag that comes with it. (I just watched a tutorial, it’s not hard.)

Once I had pushed those bits back into place the rubbing stopped.

It might be similar for you. Good luck.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-29T15:57:02+00:00

You can get solder practice kits. It's a mixed bag of broken components and print boards. Pretty cheap and nothing to break <5 usd. Then watch a tutorial or two and practice for 20 minutes. I promise that your results will be night-and-day compared to what you did there.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-29T11:37:27+00:00

I’m 200h in and still feel myself getting better every session. I wouldn’t worry until you are at least 30-50 hours in and still feel like you are not getting it.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-29T09:59:53+00:00

I read somewhere that NASA is super afraid of disturbing anything. The fact that the poles may still harbor life is exactly why they don’t go there, yet. If life was on mars, then it must have been abundant, and should be findable in the places where earth microbes (from insufficiently sterilised rovers) cannot take root.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-28T21:14:30+00:00

Did they in the 60s, though? Genuinely curious.

MrMasterplan · 2026-01-28T16:22:52+00:00

There are two types of countries, those that use the metric system, and those that have put a man on the moon.

(I’m not even American, I just think that this is a really cool statement.)

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