What A Journey

[Blade944]

For a little background, I have been flying RC aircraft for many many years. Currently in the hanger I have close to 40 aircraft ranging from 3 meter gliders to 250 size racing quads. I am definitely not new to flying rc.

with that out of the way, here then is my journey to deciding on the Yuneec Typhoon H.

I decided last fall to document abandoned farmsteads and other interesting points of interest in rural Saskatchewan Canada. If you are not familiar with Saskatchewan, it has a reputation for being flat and boring and a mostly overlooked area of Canada. Since moving there I have discovered that it is a beautiful place and wanted to share that beauty with others. So I started looking for an aerial platform that would get the best footage at a price that didn't require selling a car to pay for it.

Like most that start looking for a video quad I looked at acquiring a DJI Phantom. After reading 100's of reviews and countless videos something seemed hinky about DJI but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.
At this point I started branching out to find alternatives to the Phantom. Which when you really don't know who the players in the market are is actually a little difficult to do. The solution is to find every online shop and check out what they sell. It became very obvious that the choices available for a drone with a quality 4k camera are limited and most offered a GoPro camera. I am not a huge fan of the GoPro range of cameras ( that fish eye view is terrible for cinematic footage ) and I was looking for an integrated system.

The first I started looking at was Walkera. I had a chance to fly a scout and although it flew well it just felt cheap. Soon followed by Hubsan with the same results. Then I found the Autel X-Star Premium. Here it is I thought. Great camera. Loved the orange colour. The drawbacks for me was needing a phone or tablet in addition to the aircraft in order to fly it. And although I appreciate the smart batteries I like having more control over my batteries and would much rather use my own chargers to regulate charging and storage levels. These were things I was willing to overlook and thought I had made my choice till someone in one of the other fixed wing RC forums I am a member of posted a picture of the ST16 transmitter/groundstation.

I started researching the ST16 in order to come up with an answer to the question that had been posted and found the Typhoon H. To be honest, it was not love at first sight. At first appearance those spindly arms worried me a bit. I had assumed, from previous hex experience with other models, that there would be some flex on the arms that could contribute some jello to the video. But I dove on and researched the **** out of it.
And the more I read the more I started to appreciate just how wonderful the Typhoon could be. And as I was reading post after post and all the comments on Youtube videos and threads in Rcgroups it finally dawned on me what struck me as hinky with DJI.

DJI is the Apple of drones and their fanboys are even worse than Apple fanboys. Every thread about any other drone is flooded by posts claiming the DJI products are the greatest things since sliced bread and everything else in comparison is automatically crap. And it wasn't just a few posts here or there but on every single video or discussion thread. What really caught my attention though is that I found very little evidence to back up their claims. The camera on the Phantom is good, but not great. The gymbal seems to have all sorts of difficulties staying level which is quite a big deal for me. The transmitter feels like a toy and by all accounts the customer service from DJI is near the worst in the business. I also feel strongly that the Phantom series is grossly over priced in comparison to their competitors considering you really don't get much more for your money.

The choice in the end was actually very easy. The yuneec Typhoon H is simply head and shoulders above its competition on many levels. What really made the decision easy was the option to use my own chargers for the batteries and that amazing transmitter that was fully integrated without the need of an external device. Full disclosure though, I haven't bought one yet. I have a limited budget for my RC hobbies and am in the process of selling off some of my current fleet to finance the purchase. (contact me if you are looking for any planes or quads ).

I'll be here regularly but I am not a heavy poster. I'll jump in with answers or information as needed but I don't ask many questions. I tend to research issues to death before I start asking.

 

[ArnhemAnt]

Nice intro. Welcome to the group. Sounds like you have done some solid research, which is always a bonus.

I look forward to seeing some of that aerial footage once you get your H.

 

[Steve Carr]

Welcome to the secret world of the H. Shhh....keep it quiet or a fanboy will bomb your house with spam.

 

[PatR]

A very well spoken ambassador for our hobby, and the Typhoon H. Pleased to have you join us


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[Blade944]

Thanks for the warm welcome.
The more I read about the capabilities of the Typhoon H ( or as Irixguy on youtube says it "Haitch" ) the more I am convinced that this is the most versatile video platform for a single user.
CCC mode is the best waypoint implementation I have yet seen. Plan out your shot by actually flying it first while setting your transition points along the way. Brilliant. The ability to take the same path over and over again in one smooth motion is terrific compared to the other stop-reorient-and go waypoints.

 

[Steve Carr]

Thanks for the warm welcome.
The more I read about the capabilities of the Typhoon H ( or as Irixguy on youtube says it "Haitch" ) the more I am convinced that this is the most versatile video platform for a single user.
CCC mode is the best waypoint implementation I have yet seen. Plan out your shot by actually flying it first while setting your transition points along the way. Brilliant. The ability to take the same path over and over again in one smooth motion is terrific compared to the other stop-reorient-and go waypoints.

To be fair.....the biggest failing with Yuneec is documentation. You have to rely on multiple sources to get accurate information nearly all of which comes from owners. And you are correct about CCC as long as you don't try to split the hair on altitude. You need to allow plenty of vertical over obstacles. The bird ain't perfect, but it's darn good.

 

[Rayray]

Hmm, here I thought I was the "middle of nowhere" member.
I already welcomed you, but after reading your nice post I thought I'd add just a comment to it.

This group of forums under the DronePilots Network has no connection with the manufacturers. For example our sister PhantomPilots forum hosts the P owners, quite a large group of them. At the bottom of every page here you will find links to all other DP forums.

Many Yuneec owners also own DJI and other brands, but on this forum they are asked to not bash Yuneec and to be respectful to other members. Every brand of drone, like every brand of vehicle, has strong points and some that could be improved. The market ultimately decides winners and losers, that is not up to us to decide.

 

[Blade944]

Hmm, here I thought I was the "middle of nowhere" member.
I already welcomed you, but after reading your nice post I thought I'd add just a comment to it.

This group of forums under the DronePilots Network has no connection with the manufacturers. For example our sister PhantomPilots forum hosts the P owners, quite a large group of them. At the bottom of every page here you will find links to all other DP forums.

Many Yuneec owners also own DJI and other brands, but on this forum they are asked to not bash Yuneec and to be respectful to other members. Every brand of drone, like every brand of vehicle, has strong points and some that could be improved. The market ultimately decides winners and losers, that is not up to us to decide.

I noticed the sister forums. Thanks for that information.
Maybe my feelings on criticism between camps was perhaps not clearly outlined. I have no problem with criticism of any kind as long as it is informed and based on clearly stated reasons. My issues, and the reason why going to other boards for information is almost a fools errand these days, are with a small group of individuals that seem to be among the first to reply to a post or video with nothing but trash talk about other platforms. Inevitably it leads to flamewars and a complete unraveling of the discussion.
This board is a very welcome breath of fresh air.

 

[Blade944]

To be fair.....the biggest failing with Yuneec is documentation. You have to rely on multiple sources to get accurate information nearly all of which comes from owners. And you are correct about CCC as long as you don't try to split the hair on altitude. You need to allow plenty of vertical over obstacles. The bird ain't perfect, but it's darn good.

You're right about the lack of proper documentation. It is a big shortcoming across the board in the RC community. The unfortunate side effect is that the net is flooded by conjecture, guesses, and anecdotal evidence. It also doesn't help those who are brand new to the hobby and have no previous RC experience to draw from. My background made for a transition period much shorter than that of some-one new to flying but there was still a pretty steep learning curve.
What helped me was not flying with GPS or Altitude hold. In fact, I've never flown with any kind of position hold and I always advise new flyers to pick up a cheap quad like a Syma X5 to actually learn to fly before depending too much on the technology.

 

[PatR]

You are another that has learned the right way, not dependent on position hold technology to enable flight. Stabilization for sure but all technology is prone to failure at some period in time. You've been flying RC to know that.

You mentioned the repeat-ability of CCC earlier. There's actually a much better flight controller for this kind of feature, namely any APM product from 2.6 up through PX4, Pix Racer, and a couple others that is vastly superior to anything else on market, with extreme accuracy in position and altitude. With an extensive suite of user selectable flight modes, including one named "Spline" from which things like CCC sprang from, the only thing limiting it's exposure is the company that was providing much of the funding for code development folded through gross mismanagement. That was 3DR. There are a great many commercial/military/industrial platforms utilizing this flight controller and perhaps a few "consumer drone" platforms still on some store shelves but for the most part anyone using it must be willing to learn the systems at deep level to take full advantage of them. An up and comer in this area of flight controllers is the Vector from Eagle Tree, a company you may already be aware of from your RC activities.

The DIY multirotor operator has some very nice technology they can use but for the consumer operators they are limited to what comes already installed and set up in the aircraft. The limits imposed by consumer drones is both a boon and a bane. Someone brand new can have much too much functionality which only confuses them. An experienced user always wants more but understands that expanded functionality always comes at a price, be that reliability or $$. They also understand it takes time to write, test, incorporate, and proof new stuff.

Walkera incorporated a form of APM/Pixhawk in their aircraft but have failed to work through some coding errors that are the only thing stopping them from producing a pretty nice system. Many have been good at liberating the open source code in the Ardu based systems in order to improve their offerings but just about all that have tried added or altered the code to suit their company's design intents. Unfortunately the people they have had designing that code appear to lack an understanding of what they are doing. In doing so they have managed to screw up something that works very well when left alone.

Coming back to the H, something I have liked about it from day one is the modular design, and that like became more pronounced when it became evident they were not content to produce an aircraft that would remain in a single, original state. Nor would they require people to buy a new model every time new features were added. Through firmware updates the H versatility has expanded considerably since the original release, and I expect more of that to continue as time moves forward. As previously mentioned, Yuneec's documentation leaves much to be desired but there are now enough people using them and exploring the limits to assist the new people coming into them. I now have two of them and am quite satisfied with what they can do.

Glad you caught the Apple comparison. That is indeed a company worshiped by Yuneec's prime competition, who models much of his operation after the philosophy of Steve Jobs.

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