Hoverfly Hoverfly X-8s continue to be the work horse

[JZSlenker]

I haven't had a lot of time over the last several months to post or comment much but thought I would throw some positive cudos up here. It's been a very busy season for us over the last couple of months and our HF X-8s have continued to serve us well. While others continue to ***** about lack of presence on forums, FAA fining $10K to a MR aerial company, NTSB overturning it, complaints of HF GPS performance etc, we have been plugging away at the day to day work of making our clients happy while shooting great video on the best flying MR out there. Every time I have a break between flying for a week or two, it always makes me smile when I come back to the sticks with Hoverfly. At our production company, our equipment philosophy is that there is no one perfect gear investment. We view gear as merely tools to accomplish great creative things for our clients. HF has been a great tool in our production tool box. Last weekend I had the opportunity to fly some other MRs and I can honestly say that it is still true. Nothing flies as well as HF. BIG fan Hoverfly. Thank you.

 

[octocine]

I've tried some other flight controllers as well and still prefer the Hoverfly. I do hope they get the GPS going. I'm not interested in flying GPS, but sure would like the reassurance of a working RH function.

 

[JZSlenker]

We have GPS for failsafe situations and every time I've tested it, it works fine.

 

[octocine]

I got really frightened by the GPS. At first it worked great, then one day I switched to GPS mode and my flight controls reversed - yes, that's right, right stick became left and left became right. It was a very strange sensation. I then switched GPS off but elevator and aileron still caused the exact opposite reactions. Fortunately, I set it straight down and thought about it for a while. Finally I decided to fly again in a flat area and test it and it did it again. I've long been puzzled as to how this could happen, but the GPS has remained disconnected ever since. Any ideas? I'd love to give it another try, but would like to have some theory as to what I might have done wrong. I followed the calibration instructions carefully and feel confident that I did it correctly. I wrote to Hoverfly, but did not receive a possible explanation.

 

[mbsteed]

Our Hoverfly board has worked great (flat octo) - no GPS. As stated above this is our bread and butter go to ship.

 

[DucktileMedia]

I'm in. I couldn't bring a Dji controlled Heli to a job and feel as confident as I do with the hfp. But as much as it would be nice to have Rth, I feel I'm less likely to get in a situation where I will need it if I don't have it. Simple is best under pressure.

 

[Stacky]

3 years ago I bought my first HFP board. Cant believe how time has flown by so fast.

 

[mspencer1]

Finally! someone who has had the same problem I've had. My controls got all reversed somehow. It took me a while to figure it out but after connection to the setup program I saw the "Care Free Mode" was activated somehow. I've never used it before. Yet somehow it became activated. All my controls were 90 degrees off on a particular flight. This was following several GPS issues. The GPS was dead. No PH or RTH. Hoverfly never solved the problem.

I got really frightened by the GPS. At first it worked great, then one day I switched to GPS mode and my flight controls reversed - yes, that's right, right stick became left and left became right. It was a very strange sensation. I then switched GPS off but elevator and aileron still caused the exact opposite reactions. Fortunately, I set it straight down and thought about it for a while. Finally I decided to fly again in a flat area and test it and it did it again. I've long been puzzled as to how this could happen, but the GPS has remained disconnected ever since. Any ideas? I'd love to give it another try, but would like to have some theory as to what I might have done wrong. I followed the calibration instructions carefully and feel confident that I did it correctly. I wrote to Hoverfly, but did not receive a possible explanation.

 

[octocine]

Finally! someone who has had the same problem I've had. My controls got all reversed somehow. It took me a while to figure it out but after connection to the setup program I saw the "Care Free Mode" was activated somehow. I've never used it before. Yet somehow it became activated. All my controls were 90 degrees off on a particular flight. This was following several GPS issues. The GPS was dead. No PH or RTH. Hoverfly never solved the problem.

It's amazing that you tracked down the issue. Makes me wonder if I just did a bonehead move. I don't think I hit the Carefree mode switch, but then again most of my problems have resulted from operator error so I might have. Perhaps I should try it again with the carefree switch disabled. At least it gives me something to test.

I too have tried other flight controllers and though their GPS systems work well, I haven't found anything that comes close to Hoverfly for smooth flying. Sure hope they stay in business.

 

[Aerovideo]

How is hoverfly flight control when compared to DJI's?

Hoverfly is second to none when it comes to flying in manual mode or even auto level mode but don't ever depend on the GPS or altitude hold!

 

[mspencer1]

Hoverfly is the best at manual control. I've owned all the expensive flight controllers (Woookong M, Naza, Zero UAV, Hoverfly) and nothing comes close the the manual performance of a Hoverfly Pro Controller. Its the smoothest controller out there. It retains this smoothness while hanging a 20 lb load underneath.

Is that so? Before I was convinced that DJI make the best flight control. So I hope more people would share the idea

 

[DucktileMedia]

DJI is less linear feeling and certainly easier to fly. DJI throttle is based on throttle percentage not position, which is a much different way of flying. It is actually much easier to control altitude on a level shot than using the hoverfly pro. and overall I think the wookong I had did the job and flew pretty well. But I never trusted it! I kept expecting it to fly away or crash or twitch uncontrollably. That is not a good thing when clients are staring at the back of your neck. The Hoverfly in manual or atti is just so ridiculously smooth I would not ever expect more from anything. It is simple, and I feel simple is better under pressure. It seems to work with damn near any configuration with only 1 gain and somehow works famously. It is a less intuitive setup process, if you were to compare setups, DJI would be more like a mac and Hoverfly would be the PC. Where it fails is GPS, an LED status light, an enclosure, I say AH but others claim that is fixed. DJI is the Coca Cola of controller, very well marketed but perhaps not the best for you. Because they have become so large and have done a good job at making a well rounded product for the masses, they have succeeded in monopolizing the market. I think if Hoverfly had 300 engineers and a bunch of injection molding companies in their backyard they would be top of the game. But it costs a lot more to make things here than it does in China. At the same time things NOT made in China tend to have MUCH better quality control. mass production is great except when you are flying $15k in the air. then all of the sudden quality matters. As an example, I have had 1 naza that would never hover level. 1 naza that fell out of the sky. 3 damaged IMU boards where the usb port snapped off from lightly removing the cable. My wookong had a weird yaw twitch. And I never tried RTH because of the thousands of horror stories I heard. I am an experienced builder/flyer and I baby everything. I know others have had great experience with DJI but I dont want to risk everything at the mercy of someone else not caring if i got a lemon or not!

 

[Av8Chuck]

Quality is relative. I've had good quality things made in China.

Its been my experience that DJI is not very good quality. There's always something about their products that I find most users making excuses or ridiculous work arounds to make it work as advertised.

Phantoms are great trainers, it might have been nice if they were around when I started but you need to think carefully about using DJI stuff to build/f;y anything much bigger than the Phantom.

Gens-Tattu, nice to see you guys at NAB.

 

[tahoelight]

My flat octa with HFP is still my go to ship. It just works every time I go I fly it. it is predictable, smooth and reliable. No special ESCs, no weird transitions between Manual and Atti and is the only controller that I am not waiting for an upgrade on the firmware for. GPS unfortunaly is still a no go, so I tend to not use it for FPV flights in fear I don't have the safety net to return to home if needed. But, it is my work horse and nothing else will substitute for flying anything larger than a gopro.

 

[octocine]

My flat octa with HFP is still my go to ship. It just works every time I go I fly it. it is predictable, smooth and reliable. No special ESCs, no weird transitions between Manual and Atti and is the only controller that I am not waiting for an upgrade on the firmware for. GPS unfortunaly is still a no go, so I tend to not use it for FPV flights in fear I don't have the safety net to return to home if needed. But, it is my work horse and nothing else will substitute for flying anything larger than a gopro.

I completely agree! Having tried several of the others, I now feel confident that I'm flying with the best flight controller for filming.

 

[Stacky]

A huge amount of people buy MacDonalds but its not the best food you can buy, volume doesnt mean the best.

Really? How did DJI do that? We should learn some of their tricks, haha:02.47-tranquillity:

What strange to me is that people from everywhere use DJI products, phantom, S800, S1000, while the pros look down upon them, I mean, why people keep buying from them if they are not good enough?

You were at the NAB show as well? Had some fun?

 

[Av8Chuck]

A reason that everyone is buying Phantoms is because everyone know about them. DJI has done a great job at marketing them. Probably most of the people buying S800's and S1000 are those that are upgrading from Phantoms and have never flown another controller.

Most of the Pros that don't care for them have experienced odd flight characteristics, not necessarily fly-away's, but enough that you can't trust them with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment or in situations where very precise flying is required. That's not to say that you can't do that with an S800 or S1000, I'm sure some people do, but I think it's a trust issue.

Also, the S800 and S1000 price points are pretty high, close enough to products like the Cinestar and Droidworx for example that although they might require more setup professionals can manage it and they do trust those brands.

The Phantom is targeted at the mass or mainstream market with a lot of bells and whistles that those customers like, as nice as they may be they aren't really necessary for professional AP.

 

[DucktileMedia]

People buy dji because they have heard the name everywhere and they have a well rounded product. It is the only one that sorta has everything you need in a user friendly package. The software is friendly, it comes in a nice looking plastic box, it has great GPS, is tunable, and works well with larger Helis as well as small. But it is probe to the downfalls of poor quality control and frequent untested firmware upgrades. Dji strives to pump out more features at the cost of perfecting flight and along care of their customers.

For it the record I did not say china can't make anything of quality. I said they lack quality control. There is a big difference. China is more than capable of making as good a component as anyone else. What they don't tend to do is is focus on making sure every unit will work. They don't care if you get a lemon because the logic is that it is cheap and expendable. Their customers aren't their neighbors and won't throw Molotov cocktails at their building for selling things that cause public hazards. They just don't seem to care. It's all about volume and sales.