Man these things are fast!

[atomiclama]

Seen a quite a few vids of these quads zipping around but never really comprehended how fast they can go.

Starting to get a bit more confident now I';ve found a few nice sites to fly at.
So this morning I gave it full throttle and watched in awe as it dissapeared into the sky, couple of seconds later it was justa dot.  Bit to high for my liking.

Same for covering the ground, few seconds and it';s crossed a football field.

Need to work on my turns now.

[Col_M]

They can shift for sure, when I measured the length of a field I flew over once, it was ~100m long and my 450 covered it in about 5 seconds and I wasn';t really pushing it either, more of a steady cruise

That works out at about 45mph

[Hands0n]

What quads are yer on about?

My own Firefly 450 with Turnigy 1100KV motors and 3S LiPo with FPV kit hit 43mph last week as indicated by my OSD (so its satellite speed measurement).  Thats quick enough for me.

[atomiclama]

Out of interest anyway of getting the speed of these thing apart from timed distance which is going to be a bit hit and miss.

GPS data logged and analysed? Any SW to do that?

[Hamster]

I know it depends a lot on the setup used but are quads generally quicker than tricopters?

[Cloudbuster]

Out of interest anyway of getting the speed of these thing apart from timed distance which is going to be a bit hit and miss.

GPS data logged and analysed? Any SW to do that?

get an osd fitted and use either screen or fpv goggs !!! the osd gives GPS speed over ground !!!

regards rob 

[atomiclama]

get an osd fitted and use either screen or fpv goggs !!! the osd gives GPS speed over ground !!!

regards rob 

Not going down the FPV route.

Yet  ::)

[atomiclama]

What quads are yer on about?

Nothing special

X525 thing from hobby king, Turnigy 2830 1000kv motors 10x4.5 props and 3S lipo.

It';s more a statement of how much faster they seam flying them rather then watching them.

[Richlizard]

Must admit I do love the sounds of a good flyby.

Here is my ';dot'; in the distance. Wish I had flown it right past us now. Next time!  ::)

http://youtu.be/SyfXbRatjc4

[guest325]

Yup, they sure do go well - when I hoon around I get about 4mins out of a 3S 2200 when flying more restrained I get around 7mins!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p0_u9HCg5I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Col_M]

Out of interest anyway of getting the speed of these thing apart from timed distance which is going to be a bit hit and miss.

GPS data logged and analysed? Any SW to do that?

Timed distance is more hit than miss, if it';s used to measure speed records it';s good enough for a little quad especially at the small distances we';re talking about.

The average GPS in a quad operates at a 5-10hz update rate and has a ~2.5-5m resolution which isn';t all that accurate. Because GPS uses averaging to measure speed rather than instantaneous speed measurements, large sample periods and long distance = more accurate speed measurements, going short distances in short amounts of time = inaccurate 

They work well in things like planes or cars on a motorway which go relatively constant speeds for long periods of time but for quads GPS speed measurement is only really a rough guide.