Flite Test | Tough Tilt Tricopters 

I have to say, WOW! This is one of my favorite episodes. I liked the dynamic that Josh and Josh had, I liked David's humor and accent, Peter is coming in to his own on the show and podcasts (which I have been catching up on recently), but I am REALLY liking Eric and his AP view on the multicopter builds/setups. This is something that I am interested in and the drop bracket for the servo and the tough tilt is simply genius. It is one of those, "Wow, that makes a LOT of sense!" type moments. Thanks to Josh Bixler and Eric for their informative videos and thank you to the rest of the FT crew for making these videos possible.

My first multi-rotor is David's Tri-Copter V2. I put on 3 - 450 Slow Fly motors with 12" props. She hovers at about 30% throttle with a 2200 3S motor. I learned a lot about flying mutli-rotors and building with this copter. You guys are the reason I am flying. Thanks for being awesome!!!!

I like Peter's Easter eggs. Like his tribute in this video to the possible ban of the green tipped 556 ammo.

that penta tricopter thing looked pretty awesome! Would love to see and hear more of it soon!

Thank you, I just turned my tricopter into a pentacopter and wow what a sweet flier. I had a little trouble with the parallel motors on one esc but now have it dialed in.

just bought one with the camera tray and the servo. Cant wait for it to get here!

12:49 That's awesome that you finally got a chance to try out a T-Copter Josh I have one and love it!

Love Eric's expertise on the show. Huge wealth of information.

Keep up the great work I can't believe what you have done for the rc community

Planning on a tricopterbuild soon and going to keep this in mind.

Peter that is the coolest Tri I've ever Seen !! Awesome work everyone from flite test :) Will be ordering a multi rotor kit ASAP !!!!

Maybe josh knew back then what flighttest would become. Nice to see the old field and pylon!

Another fun episode those tough tilts look strong as hell I'd love to see a build video on that DragonFly!

I just go and take out all my old 980's and build a X8 and then you decide to show me this Dragonfly. I love racing quads and multirotors, and I love building them, and I live to FPV but I also began just to learn AP and how to get good video- the Dragonfly is exactly what appeals to me- I have yet to get a good tricopter built I am happy with but love how they fly- I have Y6 here waiting for good weather to maiden, but that 5 motor rotor has my voter for the best camera toter yet.

Yay!!! thank you so much for having the power packs now available. great episode

Peter love the suable inclusion of your "green tip" ammo, are you guys all enthusiasts?

You guys have the best job in the world, I want to be part of your team. So jealous.

Bit "Old" vid but love it. Im running David W:s MiniTri (Got the baby and want the V4) LOVE Tricopters. New to all but the feel to them is amazing. Happy New Year to you all in the team, looking forward to 2017 and more awesome vids form you

Man I just love the multirotors

The profile of the dragonfly in the sky is so nice :D

Love the 5 motor setup! One day! Keep up the great videos!

Great video guys... Nice that you threw in quite a few tips - from lessons learned. *_cheers_*

That's a coincidence.. I've just posted P2 of my tricopter build series :P Anyhow! This tail-setup looks GOOD indeed! Thanks for all the design / test work you people did for this! Cheers and thanks for sharing :)

Holy crap guys, great video! Gonna have to order parts soon.

i love your work, and you guys add to my passion for this hobby!

Great vid!!! Really love your videos with multirotors.. Can't wait for more!!

Nice video but David needs to come back😭😭

those EMAX motors are sweet, i got some cheap, straight from the EMAX warehouse, and put them with cheap Mystery simon K ESC's, and kk2 with stevies 1.17 all wrapped up on a sk450 frame with 9 x 3.7 props. flys great even in windy wellngton.

Awesome video!! You guys should make a rocket then when you are high enough, release a glider, something like the space shuttle!

Thanks so much guys! love the work back to the principles! A refresh view of the much loving tricopter! I just installed a Naze32 into my tricopter and 12 inch props low kv motors and just love the sucker! plus flight times might have increase! lol Cheers and thanks again! Ed

I have had a Bat Bone since the week they came out. Realized I didn't know Multiwii and then stopped working on it. Never been flown. Just last week I set it back up and still don't know Multiwii but I will be getting this on the way soon as motivation to get my nose to the grindstone.

First warrantied Flite Test component... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

I like Eric's design with angled arms.Can you show us a little more on that? and that landing gear with gimbal-lipo-VTx mount too!!

You guys are awesome! Greetings from Germany

Great Work! Great Video! Excellent Job Guys!

Another great Vid, thanks guys at Flite Test

Research and Development -- Challenging, Fun, Educational, Design, Engineering, Electricity, Science. ?What else could you ask for. Most importantly pushing the industry forward for at reasonable price, Great Great job Gentlemen.

Please tell us more about that C-Go2 gimbal mod! That flight footage is awesome!

The whole team and I mean the whole team, you guys have very handsome minds and just like my Uncle Henry used to say " Pretty Snazzy "

motor redundancy is really great, I would recommend ballistic parachutes....they have saved mine

Love the 5 arm design! Why stop there? Add another motor to the bottom of the tough Tillt pointing down!!

Very cool guys, keep up the great work!

I love flying tilting tail pentacopters. Ive flown one prototyped at my shop. turns on a dime.

13:42 Thank You for the POT COPTER!!!

A tricopter with three of these would be pretty cool, so you could adjust the angle of the front motors to go even faster once in the air, sort of like a v22 osprey tricopter

You guys are great keep up the good work! I look forward to every episode you guys put out(:

Yikes! You only showed HALF the crashes?!? I was actually interested in building a tricopter, but now I'm convinced to look at other multirotor projects.

I have just had a look at your store to look at the power packs was verry happy with the price next build will b ft but will have to make the hard choice of which one I could just take one of each lol

my tilt never broke, the old landing gear nylon ones. ill still buy a tough mount because of how clean it looks, but scratch building is still a good option

I have been able to destroy almost every little piece that I've purchased for multirotors, but im not sure if im able to overcome the "Tough Tilt" :) Great video guys.

Something I think would be interesting to see would be a dragonfly configured so that the the two motors on the center spars are configured strictly as thrusters. Imagine the flat spins you could achieve with one running forward and one reversed. I would think your forward and backward speeds would be impressive.

Nicely done fellows

also i use bearings for my 360° motor turn and mini bearings for my folding blades, so if i flip, just turn the motors opposite way, and it still flies. now i need do make Landing skies that also go the opposite way,because if i land with the motors turned, it will land on its top.

All the OPTO escs I've seen have been more expensive than their bec'd counterparts. Also, checking individual components before wiring it all together is a good practice everyone needs to get into. It doesn't take much time or effort to run a bec through its paces on the bench before wiring things up.

Some really cool designs

I wish I knew when the ft 250 quad will come out so I know if I should wait or get the tri!

you blokes are great, thank you :D

I think josh needs to take peter's canopy for the bat bones and workshop it a little, then produce two or three types (military, civil, emergency) and put them up as a download/kit which contains all three. vinyl labels maybe? anyway I think tricopter canopies would be an excellent addition.

I want Eric's tail servo mount and landing gear brackets. Also, one thing I would like to see you guys address is what pdb you use, and how you mount one when you're not using an Electrohub.

You should do a hexacopter build or contest for best Fpv ship

With the 5 boom copter, add a second motor pointing down at the back and going the opposite way to the top So if you lose a back motor you don’t fall out of the sky But you also keep the great rudder authority

5:35 those are the biggest motors ive seen on a tricopter!!

Man, I like it when tricopter stuff comes out and I've also suffered a bit from not having a perfect tail tilt mechanism and doing it different on every build. BUT THIS IS MISSING THE POINT :-( The thing everyone misses with tricopter tilt mechanisms is the axis placement with relation to the CG of the mass you're tilting and I only realised it when someone on diydrones complained about it. When you use the servo to tilt the motor to the right is because you want to yaw left... but you're shifting the whole weight of the motor + prop to the right too, so there's an exactly opposite effect, you iniitially get some amount of force yawing you to the right. Same when you're trying to stop a yaw movement... The axis of rotation needs to be an average of 2-3cm above the motor base. And there are no kits or parts available for an easy build. Second, it doesn't matter how strong the mechanism is because it's the servo that breaks. So you don't want a direct drive or a same size gear pair like the Hobbyking stuff this video mentions (Trifecta), you want a reduction. You don't need a 180 degree range of rotation, even about 20deg would do for most people. You do want the mechanism to have the added torque of a servo with a simple reduction which is actually quite easy to achieve in a manual build.

... nice video and solution of the tilt mechanism :-) needs a strong servo but why you don't go to a simple swashplate solution?

I wonder if a break point could be designed in to the servo mount, sounds like a lot of servos are getting killed with the new supper strong tail pivot. Maybe just a single thin zip tie to hold the servo so in a crash rather then stripping a servo you just replace a ziptie.

If you lose the tail on the penta, maybe you could switch from tri copter to some crazy half inverted quad mode?

Thanks for putting some electronics in the store. Will 15in props make my quadcopter fly longer?

Just a thought, it would be great to offer a "quad to dragonfly upgrade" kit that has the tough tilt, servo, and an additional motor and esc. That way there is a simple/easy way to make a dragonfly for those that just bought the quad setup. (yep, I bought the quad and completely forgot that I would eventually want to make it into a dragonfly).

In you tough tilt video you show a tall frame . Also with sliding batt. mount. My question is it coming to the store, plans or what? Thank you for you time and help.

This got me thinking. I thought some would could make a vtail dragon fly thing. I challenge the community to make a vtail dragon fly. Make a vtail and y together the front to motors like josh. No tilt neared as well even though the tough tilt is really good

Good stuff guys!

Wish I wasn't so intimidated by all of this when I had money :/ As soon as I do, I'm jumpin' in. :D

5:06 Pentacopter! Cool.

Is there any plans available for Eric's tricopter? I love the look of that thing!!!

Great video, It would be great to se a Dragonfly build video

Hey flite test! It's my birthday!

If you lose the tail.... Have a switch that makes it fly in a quadcopter limp mode, if the balance can be achieved reasonably.

Great video! I love the tricopters! Could you try and make a mini tri? I havent seen any online. Keep up the great work!

Great stuff guys! Any idea when you'll have the racing power packs available?

Quality as always...

great job guys you have come so fare in just a few years ,and Eric do you want to sell me your mini racer quad ? that thing looks so dialed in great job

i made a switching octocopter. four upwards and four downwards motors and props. so if i flip over,i can use my downward ones to get back in air and flip180 degrees.

Loved the little ding noise and shiny tooth! The tri is great too. :-) Where do you film btw, the North Pole? So much snow. Our winters in Tasmania are chilly but no snow in Hobart and it's the only time the damn wind dies down! Cheers from Down Under and keep up the good work. :-)

What do you guys use for gimbals for a gopro? You should do a video on gimbals!

I want that dome body that's on Eric's tri-copter :)

Hey. have you ever tried to generate the counter torque of a trycopter by a flap under the Propeller instead to Tilt the whole Motor. this can be much better because there are less vibrations an no coriolis forces to handle

can you guys please make a video on how to make the landing gear and the camera mount?

The Movie guy Cameron has put out the call for super duper camera drone design and of course I said they should think about something like the Army's old VZ-7 . Big enough for any camera load and would be useful for moving stuff around shooting local. If you could fly it using a smart phone app so much the better.

I came here to find out how the tough tilt motor mount actually works so I can use it in a Scratch-built model. But there's no video of how it tilts or works. At the very end of the video I hear there's a build video of using it. Maybe that video is what I need to see. Better yet, SHOW US HOW THE TOUGH TILT MOTOR MOUNT WORKS!

i wanna see a big ass quad with Traxxas 2200kv motor:P

Hey, great show guys. Love everything you guys do. I was wondering what Eric used to cover his electronic on his tricopter? I couldn't figure it out. Thanks.

So my first question when looking at this (I do not understand what is meant with a spline mount, maybe that is it) is why don't you just mount the electric motor directly in line with the servo shaft?

What about a Y6 setup with yaw authority! Would be cool if there was a double motor mount with tilt.

Hey FT. I would really appreciate if you would show us how you mounted as installed the gimbal on your dragonfly build. Cheers

I am just getting into quad copters, are tri-copters harder to fly ? Could you do a video comparison of quad rotors and tri-copters (good vs bad etc) ? Also what would you rate as the best budget quad copter with video transmit capabilities ?

Could either Eric or Chad give your ground cameraman a little extra course - There were a bit more shots out of focus or with jerky movements this time :-) Otherwise great episode and good work on the tough tilt... When do you get a supplier i europe so we dont have to deal with customs/VAT/excessive postage costs... ?

That pentacopter (dragonfly) is so cool. Can you share its setup for Naze32?

mais um inscrito chegando aqui vídeo top show 😎👏👏🇧🇷

Just out of curiosity, how well would the Tough Tilt work for a Bicopter, or better yet, a remake of the Avatar Scorpion build that you guys did a while back? Would love to see something like that again

Oscar Liang is great