How Small Can an Autonomous, Long Range, HD UAV Be?

What would you do with this powerful pocket drone? It flies for about 20 minutes and can cover 12 miles as configured.
Thank you to my friends for their generous time:
/ sweettreatsbyjana
/ rctestflight
/ nicholasrehm
Consider becoming a Patron: www.patreon.com/user?u=65589116
If you are interested in Bambu Lab 3D printers you can use this affiliate link to purchase: shrsl.com/29j80-2yn7-1cwx9 It costs nothing extra and helps sustain the channel.
People keep asking about the hotwire cutter, so here you go: speccnc.com/
There are many ways to accomplish the same thing, these are simply the components I used for this build:
store.mrobotics.io/mRo-Contro...
www.fpvpro.com/dragon-link-rec...
www.vapcelltech.com/h-pd-41.html
www.insta360.com/product/inst...
www.racedayquads.com/collecti...
www.getfpv.com/diatone-mamba-... (I used the 7500kv)
emaxmodel.com/products/avan-m...
microbirds.com/ultralight-mic...
www.mateksys.com/?portfolio=m8...
www.pololu.com/product/2836

[@fpv_jim]

DUDE! This is amazing! please sell this airframe as a kit, this is one of the coolest plane concepts I've seen!

[@frankvandermaarel5524]

Can we maybe have the plans for this build so we can make this ourselves? I think that would be awesome!

[@lukegilliam3139]

Yes please. Like what airfoil and the dimensions of ths plan form

[@bambusgott4106]

Time to build a cnc hotwire cutter! :-)

[@thinkflight]

We shall see how much curiosity this video generates to decide what the best next step is.

[@crossflow5567]

Yeah, this little plane is AMAZING

[@richardlimbeck5090]

Yes a nice build video with plans would be wonderful

[@skinnyflea2628]

This is not only a great fpv platform but also a fun autonomous test thingy. I want to build one now!

[@alwayscensored6871]

Me too.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

no, did you not watch? it can only be a fpv platform or an autonomous platform and we must FIGHT to determine which it is ;)

[@BuckeyeStormsProductions]

I'd love to see something like this pulled out of a backpack (or even a hip pack) and flying an autonomous search pattern during a wilderness search and rescue mission. Maybe have it ship video feed back to a small base station with visual processing software to spot potential points of interest, and tag them with GPS for further investigation.

[@iteerrex8166]

Indeed, or even a group of them sweep an area, specially at night with an IR camera.

[@__WJK__]

@@iteerrex8166 - Thinking same, adding effective IR would be incredibly helpful.

[@Cristieagle]

Yes, indeed, for uhh... "wilderness research". Mhm. Yup. Totally. Can add in a thermal camera for better resolution and a laser desginator so we can easily track where we spotted each uhh... animal.

[@thirtythreeeyes8624]

@@Cristieagle Search and rescue means humans

[@edsheridan7838]

first of all lower your voice@@Cristieagle

[@crispinodell519]

I so enjoyed this video. I have flown FPV quads for years and this video really makes me want to get into trying autonomous flight. Again thank you so much for a great quality video.

[@foggyshores5986]

So freaking cool! The build went completely over my head. I literally need the "for dummies version" on how to make anything like this...or just happily overpay for a turn key build.

[@kwadkenstine4988]

Hi , ESC ADVICE , to run smaller dia motor , increase or advance commutation timing to increase torque . increase the pwm frequency in stages to increase efficiency and also raise or lower ramp up power to better match the hysteresis of the magnets and the windings. this helps prevent desyncs and reduces motor temp , And finaly change to d shot 300 or 150 for a more stable less prone to noise signal , Cool project .

[@ZaksterBlue]

That flight footage you inserted is gorgeous! Great little plane; well done!

[@1Esteband]

Bravo 👏 great project! For about 10% of the cost you can use an omnibus F4 controller that would provide all the functionality you need. I think for those of us in the hobby of flying things untethered from a computer FPV would be more rewarding. Using expressLRS with a runcam split and a VTX with the omnibus F4 OSD. I’m definitely interested in building the FPV version.

[@LinuxinaBit]

If I remember correctly, the camera you used has a way to rotation stabilize shots with it's built in accelerometer.

[@thinkflight]

I'm not exactly sure how the innards of the GO2 work but yes it is stabilized and always rotates the correct way.

[@TweakRacer]

@@thinkflight I think he means horizon lock.

[@raven_fpv]

Fantastic little guy! As many of others have already suggested, it would be nice for a build list, how to make it and any other info needed to create one of our own!

[@scotty562]

If you sold them as a kit with instructions I'd buy one for sure. Nice work!

[@helicocrasher]

Cool plane - cool video. Love your channel. I am just tinkering myself with a long range 47 cm wing. 2s 16850 LiIon. AUW 190g. Motor 1106 did not work 1404 is now perfect. Can cruise more than 1h.

[@jjollyday1]

Wow! Beautiful footage

[@u.h.f6512]

love the build and the views, thank you

[@TimsBitsnPieces]

Just wow... some of the footage is fantastic... well done on this one guys.. fantastic.

[@chauvusfpv43]

Another great design and incredibly light👏👏

[@maartentoors]

You are a true aero-artist, please show us more of your combined genius!. Love from Amsterdam !

[@nomen_omen]

amazing shots!

[@oljobo]

Happy to find this! Subbed!

[@talisman3d595]

Great concept and execution, as always. My goal one day is to some sort of combination of this + Samm Sheperd's optimized flying wing to figure out the optimized components and airframe for longest endurance. Thanks for making these videos.

[@6227836jschulz]

I could provide a .f3d file of the body of sams wing.

[@skinnyflea2628]

Samm Sheperd was a legend.

[@ezrarichardson279]

I’ve built several of the Samm Sheperds optimised flying wing designs and let me tell you that they’re amazing!!

[@spartan3299]

@@ezrarichardson279 My RC hero!

[@ezrarichardson279]

@@spartan3299 Thanks! I wish he was still with us. He had some of the best content. I loved his designs and he was a really big inspiration for me in the beginning! I still don't feel like my plane did him justice. But at least I tried!

[@gator1984atcomcast]

Big Bear Lake. Outstanding video on so many levels. 😮

[@jmac3394]

Very cool project. Footage is amazing. Might be fun to see into some of the route programming. I know it's Ardu but i think you're inspiring folks... You have a gift of demonstrating things in a simple way that are complex

[@smackfpv]

Nicely done with the Insta 360Go camera! Daniel is maybe a bit off and it may be a bit too small to properly FPV with digital but would work for analog. Good fun to send small aircraft out on autonomous missions and have it return! Oh, and I would buy a few as really starting to have fun with the sub-250 world.

[@DreamFlyEcuador]

Man this content has gotten to an incredible level. With its own style and personality. Thank you!

[@thinkflight]

I appreciate that!

[@hoagy_ytfc]

Some totally beautiful footage :)

[@murdockfpv5397]

Outstanding Kavin! If your using a blheli esc you will probably need to lower the number of poles in the blh_ settings in the full parameter list to get those 11xx motors running smoothly.

[@roberthensley6889]

This is an amazing project! I may have to build one for myself.

[@thinkflight]

You should!

[@davidclothier8446]

Great project, great video, liked the humour. Thanks for showing us what is possible.

[@fpvburg]

What an AMAZING area footage. I love it. Good music 🤘🏻

[@ruperthartop7202]

Great video, thanks for sharing

[@joistein]

Awesome video with so good HD video abd wonderful landscape.

[@OverlordOverkill]

Never flew a drone myself and drones here are pretty rare (urban European environment), but I love watching the building process, the result and the flying in your videos. It seems like such a magical experience. Watched al your videos and looking forward to seeing new ones pop-up on my feed!

[@thinkflight]

Gratitude

[@DavidCook42]

Cool project!

[@JH-tc3yu]

Dude what this is amazing and my head is swimming with the possibilities

[@mikebergman1817]

What a gorgeous little airframe. It reminds me of the mini ar wing, but smaller. That insta360 go2 is such a wonderful little camera.

[@MatthewRayFlicks]

I love this. I have been obsessed lately with sub 250g aircraft

[@gator1984atcomcast]

I can't say enough about this video. Some of my favorite haunts: Big Bear, Owens valley. My FPV version of a friendly drone is the ZOHD with KoPilot FC. The future is here. Great Job!!

[@sentencj4x4]

Just simply NICE!

[@seaham3d695]

Great video

[@spartan3299]

I love it! I'm flying the Nano Goblin fpv fun in a carry anywhere size. I would really like to fly this and Sam Shepard's wing. The gasers at our club tolerate my fpv and overly complicated slant to our great hobby.

[@pinerguard53]

Awesome video. I fly all sorts of RC but the autopilot setup intimidates me. I’d be interested in seeing a video on that topic. Great job.

[@thinkflight]

Check out Painless360 on KZbin, he has a lot of great videos on the subject.

[@mercedg]

I absolutely love this

[@chio2011]

Genius! I LOVE IT!!!

[@thirdiii171]

Wow amazing!

[@GigaBrand]

Dude, so sick! Either fpv or autonomous flight would be so nice with this build. I’ll join the others in a request for plans! this would be an excellent starter wing.

[@skysurferuk]

A cracking little machine, nice one. 👍

[@thinkflight]

Appreciate that!

[@paulsharpe3794]

Hi there another great model and some stunning video

[@MHdeJong87]

Really cool!!

[@hotpot321]

This is the best edited video you've posted. Congrats! Keep up the great work man!!

[@thinkflight]

You noticed! Thank you

[@ezrarichardson279]

Definitely a step up in production quality in this one! Got some tips from Daniel I’m guessing?

[@hotpot321]

@@thinkflight it's almost screaming at us!! You have always had great planes, great ideas etc. Now you're presenting them in a much more entertaining way. BTW Daniel is 11/10 at entertaining

[@sakarrc5001]

I don't know, but for such a small wing, it's extra stable. It would be good to share your PID settings so we all can have such stable footage on our wings :) Thank you! My smallest LR/Ardu wing weights at 1080g and is way more unstable than this. Lots of respect for you. The best builder out there!

[@philthayer4087]

It’s the insta360 stabilizer

[@sakarrc5001]

@@philthayer4087 Yeah, but it's not only that.

[@rohansully584]

Sweet little thing!

[@doraluzurdaneta9520]

Very nice vídeo ! I like.

[@AerialWaviator]

Great looking design, and awesome video edits! Seems the Tiny wing can capture very stable video. No wing wags, etc. :) Love how most of video was about the plane doing fun stuff; exploring new environments, meeting people and other creatures. Didn't really get an intro to see the lated editor of the plane, until ~10:16. Thanks for some tech insights from 10:40. Realize build was a collage of 3-4 wing design prototypes. Nice to see all the early variations. Would love to know more about the design specs. Took some notes (likely missed many details) Maybe you could add real specs to the video description if so inclined. Realize, you may be still considering tweeks, etc. -- wingspan looks to be 14-16"? (35-40 cm?) -- weight

[@thinkflight]

It wobbles but the G02 stabilization removes most of it.

[@eltio77556]

Let s go man love this project

[@fredraket]

I think I just discovered a great channel 😁👌 awesome work

[@thinkflight]

Welcome aboard!

[@mikelarin8037]

I would love a nerdy video explaining the full setup and other items needed to run one of these. I fly micro planes already with the same motors and servos. But I run regular hobby grade tx rx. Ivr got my first cheap fpv setup on order already but uav would be fun too. I see the rx you posted that this is using. What do you need on the pc side of things to connect to the plane and program your waypoints?

[@thinkflight]

I prefer Mission Planner on the computer side, but how ArduPilot works is too much to cover in a video. However there are an incredible amount of resources compiled on it out there. Check out ArduPilot.org for starters.

[@flightready1587]

Awesome video and project. I am working on a sub 250g autonomous quad build and you inspired me to work a plane next. I am curious if the Dragonlink was a recent purchase?

[@yonaswarzman5902]

love you , great content

[@thinkflight]

Love you too :)

[@blissbouwerij4033]

YEAH, Well done mate! Beautiful footage, Run the same flight paths throughout the year - People will pay for that realestate.

[@condor4679123]

Very nice. I wish DragonLink would have the Nano available. I have a couple of airframes waiting for it.

[@peterxyz3541]

I ❤️❤️❤️this channel!!!

[@idrone5218]

i just stumbled across this tiny wing and it is so cool. great job! between you and Daniel ya'll make some awesome stuff. i searched how to make this but can not find it.

[@spaul85vin-husky]

Expresslrs happymodel ep2 rx - 0.44g with antenna. I'll just leave it here ) For blheli with small motors - you shold play with esc settings (via blheli suite) - esc frequency and demag compensation.

[@azimyth1542]

I would love to build/buy one of these! Perfect plane

[@bambusgott4106]

Really Amazing Project! The Dart 250G is a perfect alternative for people who dont have your building skills and tools. It will fit the same use case.

[@thinkflight]

Indeed!

[@vitorpaixaofernandes1328]

Awesome! +1 Waiting for further information to build myself. Greetings from Brazil

[@NicholasRehm]

Thanks again for helping me train my drago- I mean drone, Kavin!

[@thinkflight]

lol

[@TheJclone]

LOVE IT!!!

[@mozzen456]

wow this was insane

[@HarveyCohen]

A mist net might make a good retrieval device, particularly if you and a helper can position it in real time to catch the drone.

[@Londrino]

The long range from uav setups is always cool, but I like flying it myself.

[@davebooth9871]

Have you ever tried coating a polystyrene air-frame in your kevlar/resin mix, waiting for it to harden, then using acetone to dissolve the majority of the polystyrene to reduce weight? Light weight but incredibly tough wings.

[@thinkflight]

I have not, food for thought...

[@nullptr472]

I don't have experience with RC planes (or making them) but I have played with 3d printers. Does this sound reasonable: 1. design wing (or segment) in CAD 2. print the skin of the segment with a single permiter and the core of the segment as a 'solid' piece 3. slide skin onto solid core segment and apply kevlar / cf / glass + resin 4. once cured, slide wing + skin off core (more complex wing geometries would require a core that could collapse inwards) 5. (optional as skin should weigh on the order of grams) dissolve skin (with acetone, water, alcohol depending on filament) this would have the same result as what you are proposing, but allow for a 3d printed base part (easier fabrication) and require less material to be dissolved

[@gngn2973]

It's a bird. It's a plane. Nope, it's your friendly neighborhood -Spiderman- Drone.

[@comsterfpv9668]

Wow, that F7 board looks really cool but is a budget buster. I'd be interested in switching to iNav on a small, cheaper board.

[@alifares5591]

Very cool

[@mattynov]

Fantastic work, as always! Do you have any helpful resources on how you built the Li-Ion battery pack? I'm also working on an autonomous

[@bonafidepirate]

Impressive!

[@502stingray]

Nice build guys, really nice build! I love your weight savings! Every single gram counts.

[@user-iy7lc7df5m]

WOW! Magnificent! And I got question about your drone. What is the data transceiver you used in such a tiny drone? How could it work in such a long range(12 miles)?

[@ghostedyoutuber263]

Nice Benelli!!

[@spartan3299]

The shortage of Nano Goblins is taking its toll on the Friendly Drone idea. We need you to counter the angry drone perception!

[@thinkflight]

The NG was the OG friendly neighborhood drone :(

[@sterkfpv2192]

So jealous of those landscapes! How does it handle wind? I've built a small plane like this but it's unbearable for fpv, and down where I live we haven't had a

[@vasya88]

This is highly awesome, would be mighty awesome if you sell the CADs or plans :)

[@wobblingjester4638]

the nano goblin was always very well received and people still look for the kits. i would humbly suggest there is room for a well designed nano fixed wing fpv platform. it would be amazing to fit an HDFPV goggle feed on a very light frame. so if you are monitoring for interest that's one more plus one on a well designed nano frame. the optimal would have been a nano goblin new or used but just didn't luck out with finding one quickly enough. bought a dart 250 but only after the nano goblin looked prohibitively expensive to find new or too time consuming to find used edit: update to be more specific about a real time HD FPV feed (instead of HD recording)

[@philthayer4087]

Cool! Easy to replicate with "DEAD SIMPLE 24" wing plans and dollar store foam board (no cutting). I'll use Inav since I know it already!

[@q.e.d.9112]

I want two! One to fly around shooting cool stuff and one to fly around shooting the other one, for even cooler stuff.😉😉

[@sacrificialrubber779]

Where is that flying club and that lake?? Incredible footage!!

[@timschmitz9581]

I think its a great FPV AND UAV platform

[@nob0dy27_]

please show us some more details about this!! plans etc, i'm honestly very interested in building this thing for myself

[@missiletm]

Finally! A plane Harry can’t crash!

[@thewatersavior]

Can we get a 3d Printable version of this in PLA+ as a comparison? Awesome.. been trying to make some that can print on a 100x100 bed and wrap in tape

[@madsloper]

Cool DIY, looks like a nano goblin and I have nano DL Rx for a few years now. Although, I'm not sure about the telemetry on the nano DL Rx.

[@Tiebox]

@6:40 "how are these birds not freezing to death" lol. Answer: The same way you are not freezing to death but with a oily coat that keeps them dry.

[@Vousie]

There's lots of tinyewhoops running 0802 motors with blheli_s, so it definitely can run tiny motors. There are a few settings in blheli_s and blheli32 (whichever of the two you're using) that should be adjusted for the specific motors you use. For the standard uses - 5-7inch quads, with around 2306 motors - the default settings are pretty good but I expect that the reason the tiny motors didn't work is because they do need some settings adjustment. There's a few videos on youtube on what each of the settings are for.

[@marcuswright8998]

Like to see more on how the dragonlink and mission planner are setup. That's always pain for me too.

[@electrosync]

Awesome project! Why not have have the best of both worlds: automated flight and FPV by swapping out the Insta360 Go2 for the Caddx Peanut (same form factor, but FPV capable).

[@thinkflight]

You have to add weight for the tx and drag for the antenna, but totally possible!

[@didierneeferc]

Can you make a full build and setup video on this awesome little bird?

[@user-me9we9lv1n]

Is there now a ARF Kit availible for this awsome little plane?

[@gus8378]

How stabilized is it, or how stable is the DVR from the FPV? Can you fly proximity, or race with it?