 Here on Rotor Riot, you're used to seeing us fly the highest performance quadcopters that are available today, but today, we're doing something different. We're flying caveman quads. These are the quads we all started with, the old, oh, what is this? Hey guys, I brought my quad for the shoot today. What? What? We're flying old quads, ya punk. This is an old KK2 flight controller that has a built-in screen and built-in buttons you don't plug it into a laptop. Which sounds cool, but it's, okay, it's kind of cool. You can set everything up in the field just with the little tweedly buttons, but it's also kind of super lame because, like, you have to use the tweedly buttons for everything. This is the first time in my life I've been glad to have motor stuff enabled, because I can just, like, ah, I'll put it down. I don't have to flip it like, see? That's what I'm talking about. Let me see. That's what I'm talking about. Where did you come in at? What was your first, like, quad flight controller? Uh, it was the KK2 board. You flew KK2's before. No. That's so funny. Try it. How can you have been doing this that long? Since I was 10, I started with flight tests. Literally watched the first F4F Wildcat episode. Me too. And then I flew the Batbones tricopter. Most people don't realize this. I was in it for a while. You've been doing, you started with the flight test tricopter. I started with the flight test electrohub on multi-week. Electrohub. You came into the hobby before me. Yeah, I remember when I was getting into the hobby in, summer of 2014, I was reading about the KK2 boards and I was like, oh, cool, it's kind of an LCD. But then I found all these other posts about, like, no, just get an A32. It's so much better. I was like, that was like right on the cusp of when the KK2 was fading out and people were jumping in the A32. So I got lucky. Oh, so you came in at a really interesting time. Even though I started on MIDI quad, like I started on 250 size quadcopters, essentially. I always thought we would eventually like go bigger. Like, there was this end screen that Winnestal used to use on his YouTube channel. And it's him standing at the top of a hill and there's this sunset and he's holding the tricopter over his shoulder and I'm like, oh, that guy is so badass. I want to, I want to be holding my big, my big drone. And we just, nope, this is, we still fly these little boys. Well, we have X-Copters now to be fair. Yeah, but why? You know, like, this is going to get better video in the next class. Like, for what I want to do, there's no reason to fly a big drone. I got to tell you guys, these are bringing back so many feels for me. This literally was my first quadcopter, not a KK2, but this frame. And just look at, like, how it's constructed and you can, like, see all the parts and how they go together. This is the one thing. I have my Xiaomi Yi. This is not period correct. That we have, that we have a 3D printed GoPro Hero 7 mount. That's a... Yeah. Foxy or Lollipop. Yeah. We talked about using, because you actually have some of the, like, OG big immersion video transmitters. Yeah. But, like, those are finicky. Older video transmitters are finicky. And I was like, we don't want to waste the episode just being like, we can't get on the right channel. So we put up, we went with the modern video transmitter. This was Chad Kaeper's design, the knuckle quad. The mini quad. The original. Where he was talking about, like, why not take a quadcopter and skill it down. And they were kind of like, eh. Right. And now it's like, fast forward. This is the slow, this was the small one back then. So I think the four of you guys should each get a quad and you guys maybe, like, try and hit the course with it. Well, Alex already got this. Like the case. Yeah. Try and run the course. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. I want the detail. I think we should put all four quads up. Because, like, because when these quads were prevailing, it was so, the hobby was so much smaller than it is today. And so it was way less common to fly with people. Like when you were flying this type of quad, Sean, did you ever fly with a buddy? No. No. So, like, you never see, like, you never got to, like, fly in formation with these quad. So I think we should get all four of you guys out. Let's just do a formation flight. Like a simpler formation without gates. And then we'll have to set up a, we'll have to set up a NASCAR and, yeah, exactly. Just set up a NASCAR and I'll chase, I'll just follow the leader. I'm flying the Enicopter and it's got the old, I think they're Simon K ESCs. These are all just stock firmware with the KK2 board. But it's a KK2.1. So it flies better than when Bar-Wa was flying. You gotta fly high. Yeah. Oh my God. I have a saying, if you look good, you're gonna fly good. And this thing looks the best. So we'll see. You don't think that the, the V-tail is gonna give you any performance advantage? No. This has a NAS32 on it. You get a NAS32? Oh, okay. So you got it. You got the lucky quad. This is clean flight. I was just going for the QX7. Cat 1 armed. I'm armed. I'm shaking. Here we go. Oh my God. Oh my God. My race are crazy. Oh my God. Everyone see me? Oh yeah. Yeah. Here we go. We're going forward. We're going. All right. Come on everybody. All right. This pace. It's so shaky. This is so cool. This is awesome. I wonder what a full throttle punch looks like. Oh. A full throttle punch looks like the quad tumbles and falls out of the air. I went full throttle and the quad went, nah. Do I have to dive it? Dive it? I did. I dove it. Yeah. It's a bit sketchy. Yeah. All right. I'm going to do a power loop over the trees. Oh man. Go for it. Go for it. Go, go, go. Hold it. And now off it. Uh oh. Where are you going? That thing flies better than I would have thought. They had no FPV friends. So like I literally flew solo every time I flew and it sucked. It is so much more fun flying with friends. What's the damage? Got a broken arm. What we do today is we build quads out of carbon fiber. They're small quads and we build them to crash the crap out of them and they don't break. And we assumed that they would break anytime you crash them and the goal was to make them as repairable as possible. So these are like three quarter inch poplar wood booms that you can buy at the hardware store and this was a brilliant freaking idea that you could just put a new arm on. But look how much work. You have to take all the zip ties and all the motors off. It was legit a step in the right direction but it's so different from how we think about quads now. I wasn't even going that fast. Oh this one's going to be more of a hassle to fix. It really doesn't take that much longer to fix an arm on one of these quads as it does on a regular quad if you have the right tools. You mean like a power drill? Yeah like a drill. And wood dowels? Yeah well I brought those. I had to already pre-cut to the right length. And bullet connectors? When you go to the field with your regular quad do you not bring a specialized carbon fiber arm replacement to replace a broken arm? No because the Skylighter arm never break you know what I'm saying. Is it hard to see your babies just wrecked like this? You've spent so much time building all these. This one a little bit. This was the first quad that I ever flew a TV on. So you actually have like some sentimental value to this one. Yeah this one here. The one that Barwell broke. Wow. All I did was throttle it up. I was like let's see what a full throttle punch out looks like on this quad. I'm sorry that I raised the throttle. So Sean built all these quads. I went over to his shop to see what had to go into one of these and it's an alarming amount of work. You really take for granted how quickly you can put together like a really modern quad copter that can outperform a lot of these. So these are really built with a lot of love and care and creativity. I built so many of these back in the day that I had tons of parts laying around. I've always been a little bit crazy about buying stuff and I always buy way too much of everything so that I have spare parts because I don't want to be down. One of the things that drove me crazy was that if my quad crashed I would be down for the day and I couldn't fly anymore and I hated that. So I always have eight of everything. One is none and eight is Sean. Yeah. This thing flies great. Yeah. All right. We're going to go up high. Half front flip. Yeah. Rubik's Cube. This is fun. So we came here to the race course with the intent of racing these things. But then I started thinking what if we played a game of quad but instead of actually spelling out anything is when you crash and your quad can't fly anymore that's how you lose. But if you crash and your quad can't still fly then you're good. So you have to match tricks but if you yeah because this will actually be it's not like you're going to mess it up and still pull out. If you mess up you're probably going to go down and break some wooden arms. All right. Let's do it. So just in case you're a little newer here and you haven't heard of game of quad it's kind of like horse for doing tricks with the drones. So one pilot will set a trick like do a power loop around something and the competitors have to match that trick. If they're not able to match it they get a letter first one to spell quad loses. They don't know that we're going to be able to do a spelling because there's not a lot of margin for error with these things. So it's spell it or crash it out. You lose. What's horse rock, paper, scissors, shoot, there's two scissors so I say papers out so you're last. That makes sense. That's fair. That makes sense. Just go again. There were more scissors. Go again. Alex took too long. He's out. No, no, no, no. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. All right. So first, second, third, fourth. Let's go. If you have seen game of quad before you're where most game of quads take forever because everyone's super lenient with the rules like oh can I get a second try? I'm going to try again. Judge Drew don't give up. I'm going to do like a half flip roll through the gap in the trees. I can't. That was it. That was a like a look back half roll. I'm rolling. Okay. This is the smoothest. This is like flying real steady. Half back flip. Half. You did it. He's still up. He's still up. Oh God. Oh God. Sean. Sean. Is the quad broken? We don't know. If he can flip it over and take back off I think it's okay. Can he have turtle mode? Wait, wait, wait. So did he accomplish the trick? No. He did the trick. He did the trick. He's on the ground. I feel like he finished the trick and then crashed. No, you have to. Judge Drew is spoken. He's on the ground. Okay. If he can't do a hover right now, it's an elimination. That's a props are okay. Yeah. Okay. So we're fine. It was this and a broken prop. Props are okay. Yeah. As long as the quad itself is. It's like if you break the wooden arm, you know. No, it's fine. No, it's fine. All right. Cool. Oh, little shudder there. Little shudder. No practicing. Oh, no practicing. I didn't do the trick. That's a warning. I did it. I did the half back flip. Half roll. All right. Bring it in. Barbell, you're up. I have to be at 25% throttle before some of the motors begin to spin. And then if I raise the throttle too quickly, it falls out of the air and breaks. So thanks, Sean, for fixing this. I appreciate that he fixed it, but it was all for nothing because it's just going to break instantly again. Yeah. All right. All right. Here we go. No way. Oh, God. Did you see that? Did you see the roll rate? Because you dropped the throttle anyway. No, the roll rate just, it went, it did a double spin. And the time it took me to just go, boom, it did a double spin. I lowered it. Oh my God. So let's see if it broke. Yeah. Fortunately, it landed straight upside down. Maybe it'll be okay. Can you hover it? Hey. Hey. You stumped half the guys. How does that feel? I'm impressed with myself. Yeah. Yeah. I did a freestyle trick and I gave Joshua a letter. So Sean's going to set the next trick. What are you going to, what are you going to do, man? Really want to try to do an inverted yaw spinning? I don't know. Do it. At least one spin. At least one. I'm going to go really high. Oh my God. Oh no. Oh no. Oh God. No. That's a fail. All right. It ain't happening. That's it. That's a letter. There's no way. There's just no way. No. It won't even try. So that's a letter then? I'm not upside down. I wonder what it has something to do with the gyro. Okay. Just go really high and be upside down at full throttle. There it is. There it is. He did it. He did it. I'm counting it. I'm smoking. I'm smoking. I'm smoking. Okay. That was a half turn. That's not that hard. Honestly. All right. Would you not count that part of it? Come on. All right. So we have to do a half inverted yaw turn. Just go up and do a 180. Okay. I want to see you guys try this. Okay. There you go with the love video. Oh my God. That was a 180. What are you talking about? That was a fall over. That was a tumble. One more try. There was no yaw. One more try. I got like... Oh, there you go. That was it. That was it. That was it. That was it. That was it. Well done. Why do you have a disadvantage now? Well, I have the worst flying quad to start with. And when you're upside down, you have to lower the throttle as much as possible. Otherwise, you pull yourself down toward the ground. Also, when you yaw, the motor speed up, which pulls you down towards the ground. To climb, you need to raise the throttle. And when I raise the throttle, my quad falls out of the sky. So, normally what you do with a yaw spin is you would full throttle, climb, flip over, full yaw. I can't do any of those things. I can't do any of those things. Just commit. This is garbage. I got it. I'm going to take it out here. It's wobbling a lot. I'm going to raise the throttle and climb gently to a height. Oh my God. Here we go. Oh my God. It didn't yaw. Oh no. Save it. Save it. Save it. It didn't yaw at all. It was completely out of control. Try again. This is terrifying. I know. Sean, are you sure you're okay with this? Higher. Higher. Higher. Higher. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. That was actually pretty clean. That was clean. That was really good. I'm just pissed at all you guys have clean FPV things. Oh shut up. That's BS. Your quad file is good. I can't see though. You have a naze, okay? That's true. You have a naze. That's true. Okay. Look at him climbing out. That was a lot of power. Yes. Oh. Oh man. I thought you were going to eat it. So that means against all expectations, Sean just got his second letter. I got to set the check now and you didn't think about this. I want to do something that's going to make him just all get eliminated right now. So I think I'm going to power loop this gate in between the trees. Within the trees. Within the trees. I know what it is too. It's through the gate. Oh my gosh. Out of the tree. That's it. That's it. That was harder than I thought it would be. This is officially where I'm out. Let me go first. Can I practice? No. I didn't practice. I didn't practice. I don't know what my rate's at. Come on, Barlow. You got this. Go faster. It's easy now. Take it easy now. It's done. It's done. It just fell out of the sky. The minute I raised the throttle it just rolled out and fell out of the sky. It's done. My strategy worked but I'm sorry. It's broken. The arm is broken. The arm is broken. It's a different arm. Look at that. The camera is a big disadvantage. But this squad flies well. This squad can do this. It's just whether he can see. Oh, my God. One of those gates. Hit one of those gates. Oh, no way. He's up. He's just got to get through it. He made it. Oh, my God. What? Oh, my God. You have the best image, which should give you an advantage flying. Camera. Here we go. Yes. Make it through it. Make it through it. There you go. It's it. Wow. Nicely done, Sean. I have the interjection to make in this episode. Back when KK twos were a thing, was anyone doing through the gate power loops underneath the trees? No. Why not? They could have. I know. I've wondered that because I've gotten chances to fly. Not this old, but older stuff and the things that are capable. What is it? I mean, there's a reason. It's because as a culture, we develop this collective knowledge of what we can do and what we want to try to do. It's not necessarily the equipment that was holding us back. It was our minds. Power loop the dive gate, but go through it. Maybe with a roll before I go through it. If you had pulled that off, I don't know what I would have done. So I'm very thankful you crashed. You got to try. But you try. You went all in. So do we have to do his trick or do we have to set up your trick? No. You have to do my trick. No. You have to. Take your radio. So my strategy is I'm going to do an easy trick that I know you can probably beat me up because I get a letter, but then I'll just do whatever trick you do. So we're going to go up this dive and then you got to go down the other dive. In one power loop? No. Just like that. You just got to get down. He's intentionally setting an easy trick so that he doesn't crash out. And then he's just going to keep trying a letter. That's some high level game of quads. There you go. Nice. Shut up, man, over. This is a lame strategy. There you go. I take the letter. This is it. This is where Sean wins. All right. Now Sean sets the trick. So yeah. So Van Over gets a letter, but because Sean built four quads, there's actually a two times multiplier in the event of a 1v1. So Van Over gets two letters. No. So it's KW. That was in the fine print. Sean? Yeah. I'm going to power loop. I'm going to do what Conrad said he was going to do. What? He crashed and I won. No. I'm not making this one up. You actually do get two tries on your last trick. This is true. We've played this before. You actually do. I'm not making it. Wait, but only if his quad is still flying. Please be good. It's good. It's good. The moment I break his zip tie, it's going to be, nope, you're done. Drew never said he was an unbiased judge. I said I'm an effective judge. He called a power loop with a roll and then into the dive gate. So he's going to do a roll and he's going to go through the dive. Almost. He did. He did go through the dive. One more. One more. One more. Oh my gosh, one more. He kind of went through the legs. There you go. Oh. Yeah, you go up. No. No. No. Attempt. That's called the van over again. All right. I'm still going to be, I got this. I mean, if that's the level of the trick we're doing where there's actually, Actually a challenge, actually being a sportsman, actually pushing the limits of light. Are we good, Drew? Can you get out of my way please? I'm good, Drew. We're so salty right now. This is your mom. Oh boy, here you go. He's going to nail it. I can feel it. He's going to nail it. Nice guy to get back through the dive. That was your one try. That was one try. One try. One try. You got to get the dive. That was it. That was the trick. I was the trick. You didn't even dive. I dove. I didn't get at least as good as Sean did it. He was good as Sean did it. Not anywhere near as good as Sean. It's done. That's the dive! What do you want me to do differently? Roll up, roll and dive. That's what I did! And he did the same thing. He was, like, literally below the level of the game, but he flew back up and went through it. Barclay, you're still diving, still diving, still diving, still diving, and I win. You're right. And I win. Fine. Second place to the best pilot in the world isn't bad. Listen, I'm sorry that I kept stacking the deck against you so much. We just wanted someone to have a fair shot. You're clearly the superior pilot. No, he was great. You're clearly, you won. Fair and square. Not even fair and square, beyond fair and square. Let's see just how far you can push this thing. We'll be recording. A lot of fun flying. How about you guys? My quad flew like crap and now it's broken. You guys broke all the quads. Sorry, Sean. Sorry, Sean. Hey, it was cool because we got to fly with friends, right? And yeah, and I really don't think that, like, when this was what people were flying, you got to do this as much and fly together like this. And we definitely didn't ever see these quads do some of the tricks that we saw today. Pilot skill and everything has progressed so much over the past few years, and while you still can have some fun with something like this, I think the modern mini quad is just more durable. It can take a better impact and just flies better. The reason Pilot, one reason why Pilot skill has improved so much is the ability to go hard, crash, and keep trying as opposed to having to spend a bunch of time fixing it afterwards. So if you want to get good, you either need to fly modern durable quads or just have a, have a Sean. Have a Sean. Guys, thank you so much for watching this episode of Road Ride. If you really liked this episode, you're new to the channel, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button down below and check out our store because that's how we're able to do what we do here and make awesome videos for you guys. If you fly, leave a comment. What was your first flight controller? When you got into the hobby, what was the latest hotness? Did you come in on an F4 Betaflight D-Shot awesomeness or maybe Open Pilot like I did, or did you come in all the way back when we had header pins and screens and the KK2 goodness? Let us know. Thanks to Conrad Ferrati for coming out and joining us today, and thank you Sean for building these and letting us wreck them, dude. It was a lot of fun. You can do both their channels in the description or you can check out some of Ferrati's racing and Sean's adventures here in Florida. All right guys, thank you so much for watching and we'll see you on the next one. You know like in Fortnite when you get killed and then you have to just watch the rest of the game? This is kind of like that. Spectator mode activated. When you kill someone in Fortnite, is it like a dance you do? I've never played Fortnite in my life. Thanks for just automatically assuming, Drew. You floss, you dab, you do the Fortnite things. No, I've never done the Fortnite dance in my life. Do you not know that the floss is the Fortnite? Wait, is the floss your Fortnite?