Syma X4? I 've given up trying to get the Hubsan X4 to fly, it 's just too unstable, and got a...

[G+_Steve C]

Wayne, I've tried practicing with the Hubsan X4 for hours and hours, the Blade MCX too!  The best either of them will do is stay in an area of my yard about 8' square if there isn't any wind.  Note that I'm not really able to "fly" it since I can't really make it go were I want it to with any sort of control, all I can do is try to counteract the direction it wants to go on it's own in it's attempts to get away.  Like Taylor says it will want to crash into anything close by such as the fence or a wall if it gets the chance so you have to be in a large open area.  However just fighting it for control all the time stops being fun after a while so I eventually get frustrated and put it away.

[G+_Steve C]

Taylor, probably 90% of Youtube videos are fakes like all the ones showing impossible basket ball shots, perpetual motion and anti-gravity machines running or the Elio car running that doesn't exist!  My favorite is a skier going at a high rate of speed down the mountain then doing a jump from one hill clear across a wide valley and landing on a mattress several hundred yards away on another hill.  I don't know why so many people make them, maybe they are paid or get free products from the company for their time?  If you don't believe it check out the ones for the 2 channel copters that are show flying indoors and are seemingly able to go around furniture and obstacles when there is no way to steer them. 

[G+_Wayne Black]

Once you get off the ground, any drifting should be eliminated with the "Trim" buttons. Drifts to the right, trim left until it's stable. Drifts forward, punch trim button a couple times back until it stops. With no wind, your quad should remain in one place without touching the pitch/roll stick.

No quad out of the box will behave without a little trim adjusting. If you can't adjust drifting with trim buttons, something else is wrong and needs to be addressed.

[G+_Taylor Graham]

Saying your quad "wants to crash into anything" is like saying your car wants to crash itself because you don't know where the brake pedal is lol. I never said it "wanted" to do anything. I just said you cant expect it to fly itself. Are you trolling?

[G+_Wayne Black]

Steve C

I'm sorry that you're that untrusting of people. It would be very difficult to fake those quad videos (=$$$$$$$ of CG and then it probably wouldn't look right). Those RC pilots are just that good! IT TAKES PRACTICE! Lots of it!

If you can't understand that, I'm done here.

Good luck!

[G+_Steve C]

Wayne, you are living in denial, actually it's very easy to fake the videos these days. Neill Blomkamp the director of Elysium and District 9 got his start making similar videos on his home computer with "Alive in Joburg" back in 2006 but it's a lot easier today then it was back then.

[G+_Wayne Black]

Steve C

So I'm in denial! LOL!

You win!

[G+_Steve C]

Seriously, check this out.  About 45 seconds in trucks start hovering and flying but you know they can't really fly on their own, right? 

[G+_Taylor Graham]

Well Steve, you've got us. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Wait, I think this guy has a point: That video is totally fake. Here I thought everything on YouTube was real! I've been deceived! Those home videos I posted... Totally fake. My daughter probably doesn't even exist since I posted a video of her. This is terrible!

[G+_Steve C]

Just because of you guys I went back over to Frys to buy an X5C and return the worthless X4.  I didn't buy the X5C before because of the high price at Frys where they charge $90, almost twice as much as everyone else. They claim to have a Low Price Guarantee and Price Match so I took some print outs of the item on Amazon showing it's cost to be around $58.  Well they won't match Amazon or Ebay or anywhere else actually selling the X5C!   They said they'd match Newegg or Sears until I showed them the price there is $62.99 then they wouldn't match that either!  So much for Price Match or the Low Price Guarantee, guess it's all a SCAM!  Since I can't justify spending $90 just to find out if it will fly or not I didn't get the X5C.  Maybe I'll order one from Banggood or something.

[G+_Steve C]

Oddly Frys has the X5C on sale today for $49 with a promo code in email so I'm going to get one after all!  I don't expect it to be able to hover or fly as well as Quadcopter 101 shows in his Youtube video but if it even flies at all without crashing all the time I'll be happy.  BTW, does anyone think this video is real?  It looks like fake CGI to me but if it's real then all the trolls who keep saying I need more practice can finally be put in their place and should shut up for good since the guy is shown flying it with no hands!  Maybe it's magic?

[G+_Wayne Black]

You REALLY don't understand much about quad copters, do you?

I have one of these (actually 2) and as he said, with no wind it's very stable and yes I can even let mine hover with no hands on (actually thumbs) and I use no CGI.

I don't lie. And you call us "Trolls"! LOL!

[G+_Steve C]

Wayne can you explain how a $49 quad can hover like a $2,500 one when it doesn't have a GPS or even an altimeter or anything to locate it's position?  Actually I do know a lot about quad copters since I've been buying and trying them for years but I've never found one that was even remotely stable or could do any of the things claimed for it. The rabid fan boys have been making incredible claims for copters since the first 2 channel ones came out but none of them were even flyable.  The X4 was so unstable it wouldn't even stay in my yard!  Well I'm headed over to Frys to get an X5C to try and find out if it's really magic like everyone says or just more lies and hype!

[G+_Fulton Martin]

I'm a newbie with an X5C, and I have more or less control of it, depending on where I'm flying. On the street side of my house, I can hover it and maintain position with minimal movement of the sticks; in the backyard it's much more difficult--it'll zoom way up as I send it out; I have to chop the throttle and recover it as it nears the ground, and to keep it hovering within a 10' cube takes all my concentration. I'm thinking it's affected by the plethora of wifi signals in my neighborhood, which might explain the Mojave guy's success with the hands-off hovering--not much interference out there. (I have one of the 'upgraded' X5s on the way, and will be interested to see if it's any better.)

[G+_Ben Reese]

Yeah, interference from WiFi sounds like a plausible issue. Have you tried flying it inside? Would be interesting to see how it differs with the microwave running since that causes interference on wifi in my experience.

[G+_Fulton Martin]

Range isn't a problem indoors, but now that I think about it, it's not too easy to control there either. I'm going to take it out to a park on my bike ride today and see how it handles away from (most?) electronic interference.

[G+_Steve C]

Fulton Martin, It sounds like you are talking about the X4 but the X5 flies much better than that. The Mojave guy's success with the hands-off hovering was due to having someone off camera flying it for him, they won't really fly hands free. However in one of the Mojave guy's first videos he complained that the X5C was unstable and flew weirdly then somewhere along the line he got one with updated software and it flew much better in the second video. The one in his second video flies a lot like the one I just got, it's remarkably stable and pretty easy to control.  It flies like I had hoped all the previous ones like the Hubson X4 would do but none of them ever did. If you ignore the third "hands free" video that's obviously a fake then you should expect it to fly like the one in the second video, that is, you should be able to keep it in your yard within a 10' range without crashing into the ground or zooming way up.  You can even make it appear to hover for a few seconds at a time if you stay on the controls to counteract the direction it wants to go and fight against any wind.   If yours can't do that you might have one of the first ones. I'm not sure how to go about getting a software update for it though.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Yeah, I still don't think the hands free video was fake. If the gyro is set to level and the trims are adjusted as needed, there's no reason the craft couldn't hover that stable on its own with no wind. My Hubsan doesn't usually do that, but I haven't touched the trims at all either. ?

[G+_Ben Reese]

I would assume the gyroscope used in these flight controllers are very similar to the ones found in our smart phones. Look on your app market of choice and you'll likely find an app for testing the gyroscope by just reading out the numeric values the phone receives from the sensor (on the Galaxy S3 and probably others you can dial * #0* # to get a whole test menu). What you'll find is that they are extremely sensitive and it's practically impossible to make the numbers completely stand still. With that precision, it's completely possible for a small microcontroller to keep a quadcopter relatively level which is all it takes to prevent the drifting. ?