Imagine the capability if you taped a dual band HT capable of crossband repeating, to your drone and sent it up 400'!!

Here is a pic about 170' high. There are FS VHF repeaters on most of the peaks in the distance.

That is the thing that can't be emphasized enough.  One of these drones that is in the medium to high price range can fly high enough to not be seen and is silent enough that at that altitude they can't be heard.  Despite this they often have cameras that are high enough quality that they can see whatever they realistically want to.  If used by someone with a couple brain cells you are not going to see or hear them, and you most certainly are not going to shoot one down (unless you are really going to try to tell us you can accurately and reliably hit a moving duck sized object at 500-1,500ft in altitude; assuming you even know it is there).  The cheap ones (or ones operated by someone who is very inexperienced) yes you may be able to see and hit.

Spotting or knowing it is there is the key. But IMHO, anybody that thinks it's going to be difficult or challenging for a skilled marksman to take out a drone at 400 ft is delusional. There are a lot more skilled marksman out there than you give credence to. Leading moving targets is impossible for some, but simple for anybody that is well-practiced in doing so. Bird hunters, trap shooters, sporting clay shooters, etc lead their targets all the time, transferring that leading skill over to be used with a rifle is not that challenging. I got my foundation in competitive trap-shooting, and today I can easily hit moving targets with a rifle. IE, I shot a running coyote at 280 yds just a few weeks ago. Shot a running rabbit with an SKS rifle several years back at ~100 yds. In the grand scheme of things, drones take fairly smooth, fairly predictable paths, making them far easier to predict and lead than a wild animal.

That being said, knowing it's there is the key, if they don't know it's there, they don't know to shoot it... stay discreet and quiet...

Not if I know you are trying to shoot it down!

I laugh at this.

That is truth.

What about when it has a wine bottle hanging below it?
There may be a time that I need to share beverages and matches with my neighbors without leaving cover....

Lol. You can hit a coke can at 400 ft moving in the sky?
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A low cost unmanned scout to safely recon areas? Whats not to like!

It really is one of those things where you dont know what you dont know...

400ft?    Yeah no care in the world here.

I could take my drone up 1k feet or more if I wanted to. If necessary I have the equipment to fly miles out and back be it drone or fixed wing.     My next fixed wing will be able to do around 140-160mph in a dive while crusing for 15-20 minutes at around 50-60mph.


Maybe that first drone you shoot down is just a flying tripod recon drone....    the next one that comes might be something a bit more weaponized.

So question is...    are you a home/land owner looking to defend your property and be able to recon against a possible threat?   If so having your drone shot down kinda suggests what kind of intent your intruder might have.   Not to mention confirming they are armed.

Or...   are you somebody looking to intrude on some land and using a drone to further your own interests which may make a land owner pissed?

Rither way there are realities to drones and their abilities you are frankly naive about.

Here is a practical demonstration of reality.   Skills as well as tactics used to take down a drone.    Kind you this is on a square range and there are pretty limited angles of attack.    Mind you they got enough practice to start making hits.    Imagine if the drone started actually trying to attack you...

Some of the guys in this video I regularly communicate with through instagram.

If you want to see a bit of guns v drones...   check out this link.


Me doing a bit of obstacle avoidance when I discover peple moved into the areas I was flying...

Same drone as I flew in the video on the previous page.



Best defense against a drone would be attacking the signals that control it or the video link that the user needs to operate it.   But that has it's own realities and legalities.

Do your drones communicate with the outside world or are they self-contained?

Common skeet shooting distances are out to 25 yards with some stuff getting out to 47 yards, some said 52 yards.

400ft is beyond a football field away.

Not sure how the heck my shotgun patterns at that distance cause it doesn't pattern that far out.

Anyway, some of this is going to depend on what someone sees as a drone.

Tiny little thing that people fly in the house or low in the yard on a calm day, yeah I could see shooting it out of the air somewhat.

Some of the awesome stuff out there, I won't hear it or see it and that is why I am wondering if thermal would pick up the engine on it if it was an electric motor or whatever.  Partly depends on how good the camera is I reckon.

No MAC address or internet EULA type crap like the DJI.   But also means zero auto pilot or return to home.

Every flip and turn and roll you see is an actual full roll of the aircraft not some trick with a camera on the gimbal.   It is a freestyle/racing drone with a fixed camera angle.

A thermal should see it. The motors and body get hot. But the prop wash may diminish the heat somewhat.

For what I fly...

The motors and even the battery can get hot.  My motors are usually warm to the touch, my guess is probaboy around 105-120 degrees if I have been on them hard.    I pull around 100-120 amps at full throttle and 16 volts.

Not sure how a DJI would run to thermal given they are very efficient.   But then also depends on the background and the resolution of the thermal gear.

Thermal cameras mounted to drones/fixed wing has been done.

Our own LAbushman was flying night vision/thermal fixed wings with his Dehogaflier drone 4-5 years ago for his guided pig hunts for the family farms.    Youtube would provide you with results of what he was doing.

It REALLY shows what is possible if you have a very large patch of land and the kinds of resources available to act as dispatch/eye in the sky for a patrol on the ground.   But it wont be cheap and the learning curve is fairly substantial if you do not already fly and hqve your feet in the game for building/tuning/orienting/flying.

He operated a pretty sizeable ground station with an antenna tracker on what was probably a 2 meter fixed wing plane.    His range was good and quite capable along with an auto pilot like a pixhawk or other flight controller.

Try hiding from this...   good luck seeing it at night much less hitting it as well.   400ft up?   Hahahahahahaha...  uh no.

I'm just playing devil's advocate. Once you realize somebody is trying to shoot it down it could be too late. Anybody that thinks a drone is completely safe at a range just over a football field is in denial. Expert marksman live among every one of us, most of them quietly going about their lives. If they had a need or desire to shoot down your coke-can sized drone many of them could do it. My neighbor is an ex Swat sniper (verified), you would never even suspect he is in law-enforcement, let alone know that he was a sniper. I know of several ex SOF snipers around my area. These are just the ones I know about; how many more do I not know about?

We have trick-shooters that shoot aspirin out of the air, is it that much of a stretch for a coke can to be shot at 100 yds?


Can your drone still make it back home with a rotor missing? If not, it looks to me that the target is much larger than a coke can. Even if the shooter is trying for the brains, an incidental hit on an arm or rotor could take it down so you can't rule that out.

Can I hit a coke can moving at just over 100 yards? Liklihood of a 1st-shot hit is slim, but give me a 30 rd mag and I'll bet your drone is in the dirt by the end. And I'm not even a professional, just above-average skill level, plus above average training and practice, and I'm in my prime.

Look, I'm just playing devil's advocate. 400 ft is not that far away, unless you're doing evasive maneuvers or staying discreet, it's not out of the realm of possibility for it to be shot down.

And I wouldn't be so quick to judge how naïve I am. I don't know the most about drones themselves, but I do know some pretty high-level stuff about countering them, things I cannot share here (I believe I alluded to this on page 1). I'm not trying to piss on anybody's plan, just trying to point out the false sense of security many have in operating their drones. You can't just send one up and be the king of the battlefield; your absolute best option is for it to not be discovered, even then, there are counters.

And with that I'm out before I jeopardize my clearance or get into a pissing match with hobbyists. It's clear that my objective input isn't welcome. As you said, "you only know what you know" and there is a LOT that folks in this thread just don't know... because it's not public information.

The odds of you shooting one down are insane. You'd have better luck ebaying a jammer.
"high-level stuff about countering them, things I cannot share here (I believe I alluded to this on page 1" Jamming? duh?

Most of the "race" style drones use high RPM motors.  I don't have any real experience with drones (yet), but my experience with electric planes says you could probably build a "stealth" drone by using low KV motors with bigger props.  Silent....no.....but at 200 or 300 feet up I can't hear my planes at cruising speed except perhaps when directly overhead.  Put a high KV motor on full throttle and you can hear it a LONG way away.

And I have friends who have built fixed wing craft for the military that have helped give me insight and input for when I started out flying fixed wing.


This notion that people are flying at 400 feet being some kind of hard limit is a fallacy that you need to be less concerned about citing.   Whether it exists as some kind of FAA infraction or not is moot, flying above 400 feet is easy enough that is should not be counted on.    It is the same thing as a 65mph speed limit on a 4 lane freeway...  take note of everyone who is going 75mph or faster.

You can follow it, kind of ignore it, or just completely wipe your ass with it.

And as to the question regarding whether a drone might survive a hit by a couple bird shot pellets?     Yeah it might be possible for some of mine.    I smack them into shit ALL the time and other than a bent prop, which I bend back into place, they are tossed back on the ground and flying again.    Hell lots of times I crash through something, they mble around on the ground and land right side up.    I rearm the drone and fly back to myself provided the props are still on and it didnt tumble into weeds like a ball of yarn.   I fly back all the time with the thing vibrating like hell due to unbalanced damaged props.

Some flight controllers are so good that they can still fly back with x4 props breaking blades and becoming x3 blades.

I get the devils advocate stuff I really do.

But saying that a person with a gun shooting at the drone might be some kind of super skilled sharp shooter is about as baseless an assumption as thinking the drone is going to be hovering in one spot at 400 feet.   If I am flying over people that I suspect are going to be assholes, or have the mindset that is survival minded recon flying, try 1000ft or more being reasonable.   Altitude brings range thanks to better antenna line of sight to obstacles as well.


My rate if climb to 400 feet is less than 5 seconds and much to the chagrin of all the ARF pilots on the forum I have zero problems going above that if I need to.    I just make a habit to not do it if there are real aircraft in the area or if it is probable that they may be in the area.   It is also far more fun and challenging to fly within 5-10 feet of the ground or objects, nothing fun happens 100feet up much less 400+ unless something requires me to go that high or higher.

I have 7 racing style drones with KV ratings of 1450kv to 2600kv.

For those that dont know what that means, KV is basically a constant.

1000kv means that the motor does roughly 1k RPM per volt.   So 1volt 1,000 rpm and 10 volts is 10,000 rpm.

Lower KV is more torque for a bigger prop and high KV is a smaller prop.    My 1450kv motors are running 7inch props at 16.8 volts(4 cell) and my 2600kv motors are running 4inch props at 16.8 volts.

The 4inch drone is a 180mm(measured on diagonal from front left to back right motors) sized frame and absolutely screams.
When I fly at the park my 4inch propped drone will draw attention from across the park, it sounds like an angry pissed off hornets nest.

But when I fly my 7inch propped  280mm sized drone is much more quiet.  Once it is 100 yards away I can barely hear it and only if I am doing full power maneuvers.


Once I hit on more durable props the 7inch will likely be one of my favorites to use, it is smooth and the low KV motors are more effecient which should allow me 8-10 minute flight times.    I will likely rebuild it into a longer range 1 mile+ free roaming quad.



I have a pack of airsoft 2 minute smoke bombs that I am looking to strap to one of them at some point to see if I can play a bit of Blue Angels style aerobatics.   It will also allow me to test payload capabilities along with CG and handling effects.

Rotor Riot recently did some smoke bomb formation flying and it was pretty damn cool.

Oh and I have also been passenger in a vehicle while flying, taking off from a moving vehicle and flying a drone while being in a moving vehicle is kind of interesting.  Being your own chase plane in a vehicle that you are in is almost an out of body kind of experience.  That was done while my skill set was what I would consider average with barely 3 months of flying.   At my current level I would almost be tempted to try flying UNDER the moving vehicle given enough ground clearance.   Have flown under my parked truck on two different occassions while trying to push my skill set.    Taking off and landing from a moving vehicle would not be a problem.


The world of "drones" is a pretty diverse group of aircraft.    Every time I fly I draw attention and it has yet to be a negative experience.   Old ladies with scooters, old farts that seem like they woukd be yelling at clouds in their free time, everyone is curious given I go from being Johnathan Livingston Seagull one moment to an angry  Neo from the Matrix the next.

People see the thing flying and it just blows them away because it is so alien to the stereotype of what they hold to be a drone.

I have a second monitor I can hook up so that 3rd parties can view my video feed and see what I see.   I dont fly off goggles like manh racing drone pilots because I want to keep awarness of my surroundings.   On one hand I am not super mobile because of my ground station tho.     The guys with goggles are more mobile and can operate out of a backpack.   2-3 drones on their pack with a couple batteries, props, goggles, and transmitter and they are good.


My primary focus in firearms is long range shooting/varminting based.    The next time I hike a hill to go shooting I will be doing it with one of my drones with GPS enabled.    As I fly over range markers I will note the distance to home on the OSD.    I just walked areas that may be inaccessible and now my range card is accurate to distances within 10 yards of the spots I flew over.

There doesnt have to be people/threats but there are certainly capabilities available.    Dehogaflier is an example.

Guys just be smart with these things. One of these things can cause a aircraft to down. Remember those guys in the helicopters and planes wanna go home to their families also. If you don't need to see anything please think twice before sending one high up. And know the difference between NEED and Want.

Indeed.

I have said it time and time again, I generally have no need to go much beyond tree top level.    I can go as high as my signal or battery power would let me but I dont even have the desire much less the need.

Years ago out in very remote areas I have been up as high as 800-1k feet.   Found it was boring and too much like actual flying with responsibilities and such with regards to flying, that is beyond being ready to bring the thing down in a hurry if you hear an actual aircraft.

But within the context of a survival discussion and expressing a need to do a wide variety of things, which may include a danger to your life by a threat you are scouting for, being able to go higher than 400 feet is a good thing.

Not to mention if you are at the base of a mountain or foot hill area.   The spot you may want to scout might be high ground.    If you are limited to 400 feet AGL by some DJI bullshit then you might not be able to pop to that ridge line and see what is on the top.    You likely cannot fly beyond the ridge line by much due to LOS for radio/video signals...

But consider this video and whether or not you can gain a tactical advantage or avoid a possible bad situation with such a drone...

Good luck hiding in the rocks...   or maybe you can find that critter that you spotted and flush it out.

Hey what is on the other side of that hillside?   Nothing?  Oh good I dont have to hike it.   Thank god I can go above 400 FT AGL.



Survival use of a drone to scout for game animals?   Hell possibly even herd a game animal into a position to shoot it?

I have even communicated with my buddy over a mile away when doing a ground based control link range check ona fixed wing when my GMRS radio wouldnt transmit but could receive(likely interference from my control link on a harmonic).

I could see him on my video link and I could control the plane.   I could hear him just fine on my radio link ask me something but he couldnt hear my reply.   He figured out that an elevator wiggle was yes while a aileron wiggle was no...     he would ask a question over PTT and I would reply through the craft...


I could do the same thing with my drone thanks to it having an on board microphone that transmits video back with the audio signal.    Laminate a piece of written directions on the bottom of the drone...   i can control lights through toggle switches.   Green for yes or red for no.

If I wanted to I can land the drone at their feet and as long as the video link has LOD and they dont destroy it, unplug it, and inspect it,
I can communicate/respond.    Can even attach a GMRS radio if I wanted and land...


There are a lot of possible uses.

If shtf to the point that I am using a drone to check my AO I am not worrying about passing aircraft.
If seal team 6 sniper's take out my drone at 400' I have much bigger issues than losing my drone.
I more want to know if there are a bunch of town folk on the other hill building up courage to come after my stuff.

So what's the "Best" drone for shtf for the un educated.
Easy to fly? good camera? flir? Good flight time?
Able to deliver a package.
Able to carry 10/22 would be fun.

So without getting into specific models etc what would you guys say an ideal set of features one would want for this kind of shtf use?
GPS vs no GPS
range?
live video feed?

Not an easy answer...

I will tell you this...

You think Black Rifle Disease is bad?

Wait til you get hooked being able to fly.

I spent years shooting thinking it was fun but I guess I grew out of it or it just got too expensive.   Whatever the reason was, after spending tons of money on guns, I wound up moving onto cars.

I still love driving and I still love my cars...

But after getting to fly, all my car projects are suddenly in hold.    I have spent more in the past year on drones than I have on my cars...

If you know yourself pretty well and like knowing how things work and why.   I would say you definitely need to learn to build.

Can get a cheapish drone to learn to fly LOS(line of sight versus FPV which is on board forst person view) and get some hand eye coordination.   Then start moving onto live feed.


My drines fly pretty well at night if there is some IR source available, they are 600-700TVL CCD and CMOS cameras that flip to black and white when the ambient light drops below a certain level.    Have done LOTS of flying at night to include 4th of july.

There are some FPV drone flying RC simulators out there for the PC and even your phone.

I would try to find people in your area with both types of drones, photography/consumer level as well as racing/hibby level so you can get an idea of capabilities.


I have an addictive adrenaline junkie side of me.   As much as I truly love driving my cars, flying the drone helps scratch the itch.

And I can say there are definite attributes that could be put into a survival role.

All of this.
Im not worried about a plane, or a a shotgun, im just wanting to keep an eye on the area from time to time without having to stick my head out.

For me?   Because of how I fly?   Range and video.

DJI does have some outstanding range performance right out of the box.   But I have zero experience with them.   You would have to talk to others about how the thing wants to connect via wifi and do updates before it will fly.

I have none of that, I plug in and turn everything on and I am gone.

But then I am flying 4-6 minutes at a time tops.    DJI has the efficiency game down pat, long flight times that are 15-20 minutes with ease while yielding high definition recording.    But then you are not doing canyon dives and weaving through obstacles either, especially if it failsafes and wants to return to home.

If you want true thermal get ready to spend at least 2k on a camera alone, not worth it in my book.   Better to have IR flood lights and try to operate within those areas and develop your own plan of action for night flying with CCD or CMOS.


There are sections of youtube that are truly your friend.   Painless360, JoshBardwell, FlightTest, RotorRiot, ProjectBlueFalcon(great dude former military that died a month ago in a bike crash), IBCrazy(for radio/video link theory much of it is HAM band stuff for freq and power output for true long range).   Forums?   RCgroups and FPVlab.

Taking out a drone at 400' lol!!!

Uglygun I may have to start blowing up your PM box when my crap finally gets here from China.  I was an old school 4 channel / nitro RC plane guy (a _few_ years ago).  Finally figured out my Taranis after a bunch of head scratching.  Then decided to jump into building a quad from parts instead of buying.  Betaflight looks like a whole 'nother level of learning curve above Taranis/OpenTX.

Betaflight is cake...   all of the Youtube accounts Painless360, ProjectBlueFalcon, and JoshBardwell cover that GUI in such depth that you cannot go wrong.   Setting up PPM or SBUS for the rx to flight controller is about the hardest step.    Flight controller can often have around 12-16 channels of stuff you can do with only 4 of those channels being for control.

Flight controllers do matter these days, avoid a NAZE32, old tech and not worth it anymore.

Look for an F3 or F4 based board that has an included OSD so you can at least monitor battery voltage and your RSSI.    If you wanted to bring in GPS then INAV is the one to use but need to make sure board will support it and the UART for it.  Painless360 does a good INAV series.


For those wondering what the biggest difference is between a Racing drone and a DJI style drone...   beyond the aerobatics it would be the video link.

Where DJI is running a high definition digital video link that comes to your phone or tablet screen...

Racing drone pilots are flying on analog at much lower resolution/definition.

The difference?

Latency.     The racing drones are flying so fast that we dont have time to wait a 1/3 of a second for our video to hit our screens before we can react.

Our analog signals do two things.   First they get to us much faster allowing us to avoid obstacles.   Second the analog signal doesnt just blink out totally, there is a certain amount of static/snow you will get when your video signal isnt happy.   Kinda like old antenna TV from the 80s-90s.    It may not be a great signal but you can still see through the snow and this can be important.

On many of the digital signals, it is all 01's and 00's.   You lose a few of those and the entire signal is just gone.   It has to restablish that and decode it before it will give you anything.

On analog, you are flying along and start to see snow and often times you can punch out to get altitude and better signal LOS and recover your video.

Also on analog you can goto some crazy antennas with a variety of frequencies to gain rediculous range on HAM bands.    You often wont need to worry about increased TX power if you put some thought into how and where you are flying.   If you grab a 12dbi helical directional antenna and fly within it's sensitivity you can get really far out there, far enough to possibly out fly your control link even.  

On HAM bands you can push way the hell out there if you really wanted to but again the need versus want while weighing the risks.


I got risky with flying an acrobatic drone with close in but risky proximity flying to trees/objects without properly orienting first. I watched the river swallow up 500 dollars worth of drone and HD camera and wash it down the river never to be seen again.

There is lots of what they call DVR goggle footage of drones on youtube, worth taking a look to see what the video quality looks like.


Also interesting are the new microdrones.   I can build a TINY brushless 110-120 drone that flies almost as well as my bigger drones.    And it uses tiny little 2 inch props and fits in the palm of my hand.    My brushed 110 I use to fly around in my house and chase the cats.

In the right kind of scenario, if I went full basement dwelling bachelor for life mode...

I could put an antenna array on the top of my house for better LOS for signal coverage, and take off/land from inside my house while being able to damn near fly a 100 yard radius around my house with something 4x4 inches square.   Flight time of about 3 minutes would give me time to do one complete circle and a bit of play around "hey what is that".   Much more limited distances due to the various 2 story houses in my neighborhood and the noise floor of 5.8 and 2.4 but yeah, drone central right from my couch or garage.


Then there are near nanos like the BeeDrone or Inductrix, barely larger than a book of matches, just limited video tx power.



And if you really want to be a dork...   you can always go ground pounder.   No need to fly so you can pack some real battery weight on that thing and take off with an 1/8 scale crawler.   Strip the lights off of it or put them on a toggle.    Then go drive down to some bushes and back in.   Now you can have a  camera parked and silently running in the spot of your choosing.

With large slow moving props and some LED backlighting on the bottom adjusted to match the sky illumination behind it, you won't know its there.  

NatGeo has a series called Breakthrough that did a focus on drones.     The Darpa level invitational competition had automated drones coming in with fair regularity and still not being defeated with any real reliability.

They also were not allowed to actively jam the GPS signals due to the location they were at.

There was one team trying to attack DJI by hacking into them and messing with them causing them to enter a return to home or signal failsafe.   But some of the drones were operating on another protocol, possibly lightbridge, and the team wasnt able to hack it.

I would LOVE to have had a chance to come in there with my racing drones and see if they were able to actively jam.

The competition used slow moving drones and it gave the team time to work.    I really wonder if they would be able to get up and running on my control link or video link in time to jam it or make it unuseable before I could reach the objective.    Some of the teams I would have been able to flatly embarass.

I can tell you from my own experiences flying that the GPS antennas used on RC models are prone to interference.   On fixed wing craft all RX usually go on one side of the main wing and all TX usually go on the extreme opposite side of the wing.

On a drone it sucks because even the CCD/CMOS camera can interfere with the GPS antenna.   Have had problems with this myself trying to run an older OSD setup where the antenna for GPS was close to my plastic cased FPV camera.


Building these things needs a bit of understanding of where interferrence and signals may be coming from and being able to troubleshoot in a methodical manner.

Also, For decent useable info on drone defense.

Picture of Mavic Pro at about 393 feet. Focal length is 42 and is really over 50 when considering
the image sensor size. Looks like I caught a bug off to the left. Now imagine if it was painted
blue or light gray. You can hear a very faint buzz but there is no way to tell where the sound is
coming from.  


Attached File

I was thinking of recoil weight and suppressed sniping of those pesky varmints in the garden.......
Miniaturized version of rods from god
But a 5-7 works for me to

And what exactly is shtf to you? Cause theres a whole lot of aircraft in the skys of texas right now with fellas and ladies like myself in them. Some would say thats a shtf situation. So you have no care about killing a few soliders/police/fire/medical people?

Dad gum.  Posts like this is why I have a love/hate relationship with these threads.

Now I have a bunch of you tube videos to watch that will probably cost me a lot of money.

But thanks, this post has a ton of info & was written in a way that I understood it.  Mostly.

That's nice francis...

Practical reality can live with responsible drone use...

Should try it some time...



My bet?    I can fly a drone down in that houston mess while aiding in some efforts and never be a threat to any of the aircraft in the area.

But then there are a variety of scenarios where you can obviously be as responsible or irresponsible as you choose to be.   Go figure.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.   Try not to chase it too hard.   Want a taste?   Go youtube Mr Steele, StingerSwarm, WildWilly FPV, JohnnyFPV, Rotor Riot...


I have a 500 dollar order of batteries I placed 2 weeks ago that still hasnt shipped.   Now I am pissed because I wanted those packs for going to visit my dad this weekend to go fly.


My recommendation?   Get 80C or better batteries because when you are ready to rock the big motor/esc/props you will pop lower C rated packs like popcorn.

My 70c rated 1500mah packs are all puffing and dying because I fly them too hard now with my higher performance builds.

Dont spend a lot of time on 3s packs.   Get like 4.   Learn to fly with like an 1800-2200kv build on a 6inch prop.   Or maybe 2200kv-2400kv on 3s with a 6in prop.

Use at least a 25amp ESC, 30amp with multishot even better(dont worry about dshot protocol), to give you headroom for your next step.


Next step?  4s batteries. These WILL BE YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER.   1300-1500MAH 4S WITH 70C RATING A GOOD START, 80C OR HIGHER EVEN BETTER.

When you are ready to goto 4s batteries, if you are on 2200-2400kv motors switch out to a 5inch prop.   If you are in the 1800-2100kv motor range you can stick with 6 inch props on 4s.


My next build is going to be 6s capable.    Plan is to be able to do 3s or 4s packs with hopefully a 7inch prop, or maybe a 6in by 3blade.    That will be my efficiency setup with like a 2200mah pack.     Then when I want to hurrrrrduuurrrr retarded I will throw some 5051 props on with a 6s 25.2 volt pack and be spinning the hell out of the motors on a 1300mah pack.



/edit


The drone racing community has by and large been one of the better more helpful communities I have participated in.   There is a very broad knowledge base on youtube that have done years of youtube build videos.

Stuff from the past 6-9 months being some of the best.

A fairly hard fast rule?   210-250 sized drones with 5-6 inch props with motors matched for those props in the 2100-2400kv range will do 90% of your flying.   210 will only fit a 5in prop where 250 is usually good for 6in.    I fly Martian frames(an Alien rip off) because I would rather fly a 30 dollar clone frame than a 95-115 dollar Alien frame.    Save the money for upgrades to flight controller, escs, or motors which have a higher impact on performance.

Having designed, built, and flown over a dozen professional grade fixed and multi-rotor vehicles, I can state with some authority that if silent running was a requirement, I'd have no problem making whatever I needed. Interestingly, one of the most recent multirotors that we bought off-the-shelf and replaced some of the noisier components on is <<AMAZINGLY>> quiet, yet it can lift upwards of 10lbs.

Back in 2001-2002, I had a group ask me if it would be possible to have a backpack-able drone that could fly 60mph 5 miles away and stay in the air for an hour. Back then, lithiums didn't have the current deilvery capacity they do now. So, we used NiMH ones. It could go 60mph -OR- it could stay in the air for an hour, but not both. It had twin ducted fans and could haul ass. Looked spiffy, too. One thing we unexpectedly found out was that the ducted fans would actually draw more air over the elevons and make them much more effective. I have a video of doing the Pougachev Cobra maneuver with it.

I was flying FPV before FPV was a thing, back in 2002-2003. It's quite fun unless you have to be "under the hood" all the way thru landing. I did it on a hand-launched bird that I modded from a hobby plane. Different motor, prop, battery, and added an analog video downlink. Even back then with the crappy lithium batteries, I got 45 minutes in the air. On landing, it was trivial to set up a good glideslope from the camera. It was all good until the grass came up about an inch from the camera lens. My associates were wondering why I jerked back all of a sudden.

Decent directional antennas, antenna trackers, long range telemetry and video downlink are all within a price range of a "prosumer" today and they'll only be getting cheaper. We were flying fully auto takeoffs and landings back in 2004-2005 with a 15lb. fixed-wing. These days, it's "child's play" to do that (assuming you don't care if you hit anything

Camoflage paint jobs can make the vehicle less visible, even when you don't want them to be. Ask me how I know. I did up one in a Russkie sky camo paint job. I thought it was really cool right up to the point where I had to fly the thing and it dissapeared the first time it passed a cloud. D'Oh!. On fixed wings, the underside of both the wings and fuselage are dark due to them being in the shadows. LED lights can help change that and they're light, cheap, and don't use much power. Conversely, painting the vehicle like a bumblebee (yellow on top, black on bottom) makes it very visible under almost all conditions. So if you want to make your presence known, there are ways to do that, too,

Yes, having your own drone could be beneficial when SHTF. Heck, imagine if a whole bunch of folks in Houston could have flown their drones around their neighborhood and saw the water rising. They could have not only known about it, but could probably have seen a way out from the air that they wouldn't see from the ground. Course, your drone would have needed to be waterproof to fly in the rain, which is no small feat. I'm going to be trying out using my little hobby drone to haul a fishing line up and over a tree to hoist up a ham radio antenna. Beats trying to use a slingshot.

Somebody mentioned cameras. If you needed to see something up close and personal during the day and dusk/twilight: 36X Zoom camera with NIR shutter that can be turned on or off If money is no object, use this one: Canon ME20F-SH

Good FLIR cameras run multi-thousands of dollars. But, if you're able to haul a cell fone up in the bird, use the Seek ones: Plugs into Android or iPhony

It's a great time to be interested in drones!

Yeah, right now I have this:


Im in KCMO, so I'm sure there's a racing community, but I've yet to bump in to them.

Good post. Interesting camera...

Drones are only $90??? How much can they carry? Build miniture tomahawks? Mount a sword on it and charge?

I have one of those drones from amazon. Mine is the non flight hold version and it was $40. My friend has dji and other higher end drones. And while he says it flys great and video for 40 it is no comparison to dji/mavic. Also these cheaper drones are so light that wind can really take these things away if you go high. Winds might be 2mph on the ground but 200 feet up it could 10mph.

@Banditman  I would imagine, with all these places making sticker sets, you could change the color and make it near invisible.

You have that right, but right now it is a good idea that I can see it. I have only had it a couple months.

Trying to plant the seed for my SO to get a drone and get interested in operating it.

Where's the drone in the picture???

All I see are tiny pieces of food, etc., on my monitor...

Analyzing the RFI in and about a drone WRT desensing receivers and otherwise interfering with various signals it needs to receive, suggests the market for used higher end spectrum analyzers will expand...

I expect the problems can be easily resolved by folks with experience in that field.