Following the arrival of the longer screws, all 4 motors were quickly attached and their directions checked. Only one was incorrect and needed the wires swapping. Despite the colours of the arms clearly showing direction I also went with green propellers at the front and black at the back (as per the first quad) to give additional indications.

After a quick tweak of the PI values and a zeroing of the receiver inputs it was time to see how it flew.

The answer was surprisingly well. Compared to the earlier design there was far less yaw evident when lifting off and the extra indicators of direction made figuring out corrections easier. The shorter legs means it sits closer to the ground which appears to make it slightly less stable just as it lifts, but that was easily corrected. The main issue I ran across was some of the receiver leads came loose and didn’t seem to be seated as well as I’d have liked, constantly becoming disconnected. As I have spare cables it’s an easy fix.

As it was hovering around freezing when I was trying, I didn’t stay out long. The early signs are positive. Now if the gale force winds can just abate to allow me to tune the PI settings…