Ken Heron on the FT Aviator

[RCdancer]

 

[lightbg]

Wow. I guess if I get my GoPro up and recording and put a review on YouTube I can be a horse's butt just like Ken.

Jake

 

[TheWolfen]

Yeah, while I'm annoyed that I still haven't gotten mine despite my ship date coming and going, I can't say I think much of his 'review'. I suspect there are multiple variables in play here so I'll reserve judgment until I get to try it for myself. Hopefully he's just wrong.

 

[PAW]

Without me taking a position on this, here's Ready Set Drones take on the product which is counter to Ken Heron's

 

[TheWolfen]

Without me taking a position on this, here's Ready Set Drones take on the product which is counter to Ken Heron's

His experience was much more in line with what I've seen. Perhaps it's a Phantom/Aviator issue? Time will tell. Happily, they've already fixed the landing issue.

 

[Jim Flannery K0UNX]

I've had mine for three weeks, and love it. I think Ken should have a good strong cup of coffee and try again. It's similar to flying a real helicopter with "improvements." For instance, in a real helicopter, you hold the cyclical in your dominant hand, and the collective in your non-dominant, with your feet operating the yaw control. With the FT Aviator, you are holding the cyclical, but your thumb and index finger control the collective, and a "twist of the wrist" is your yaw control. That makes it a WHOLE LOT EASIER! All in one hand. Very natural! And being a multi-rotor craft, you don't need to apply anti-yaw, since the yaw is "balanced." What a pleasure!

 

[Jet skier]

When Reddy said drone pushed the stick forward slightly you could see the drone jerk quite a bit, not normal

 

[lightbg]

I've had mine for three weeks, and love it. I think Ken should have a good strong cup of coffee and try again. It's similar to flying a real helicopter with "improvements." For instance, in a real helicopter, you hold the cyclical in your dominant hand, and the collective in your non-dominant, with your feet operating the yaw control. With the FT Aviator, you are holding the cyclical, but your thumb and index finger control the collective, and a "twist of the wrist" is your yaw control. That makes it a WHOLE LOT EASIER! All in one hand. Very natural! And being a multi-rotor craft, you don't need to apply anti-yaw, since the yaw is "balanced." What a pleasure!

This vid actually is Ken’s second try. The first time he came to the park totally unprepared, opened the box, and tried to fly. No Preparation at all (at that time Fluidity already had a software update) , no Bluetooth connection, no organization of how to set up his equipment, etc. As a first time viewer I was not impressed with his casual approach to a lot of flight prep fundamentals, and, for me, this vid confirms a bias in his evaluation.

If he’s the pro how come mine works flawlessly?

Jake

 

[Drone on]

I have no interest in acquiring the FT aviator, but I thought his review was a poor effort.

I thought that at the very least he should have gotten the drone up 200 feet and then evaluate it's responsiveness.

He has been flying for a long time, and has muscle memory around the DJI joysticks, so any change, let alone a radical departure, is going to be completely foreign, and require adjustment.

I don't know what P***** him off, but he is too influential to be putting up that kind of review. At most, he could have said, 'well, I've tried it, but it's not for me'.

 

[Northwood Mediaworks]

Whilst I find Ken's channel entertaining most of the time, in this instance the title of his video is not fair, and during the video he does not make that same claim, and reading here, that is illuminated by the opposite point of view. Not cool, that title, not cool.

 

[BBerry]

I’ve flown my M2P with the Aviator and was pleased with it. I have noticed that the higher your altitude the smoother the movement of the aircraft. In the video, the aircraft appeared to be only about 4 feet off the ground. This could explain the “jerkiness”.
I received my Matrice 210 V2 last week and I haven’t attempted to fly it yet with the Aviator. It’ll be a while before I try that out.

 

[Jet skier]

I think ken is trying to show the whole experience of setting it up and using it.Itlooks like a great concept but I think dji needs to make it so it isn’t so klunky with the connectivity

 

[Dragonfish]

He can no longer be impartial without looking silly in his own mind.
He simply went too far bashing this product in his first attempt...
Ken simply cannot and will not give this product a fair review.

 

[Vegasdad]

I have no interest in acquiring the FT aviator, but I thought his review was a poor effort.

I thought that at the very least he should have gotten the drone up 200 feet and then evaluate it's responsiveness.

He has been flying for a long time, and has muscle memory around the DJI joysticks, so any change, let alone a radical departure, is going to be completely foreign, and require adjustment.

I don't know what P***** him off, but he is too influential to be putting up that kind of review. At most, he could have said, 'well, I've tried it, but it's not for me'.

Stop... we all want honest reviews not some Bill The Drone reviewer who is only worried what the supplier might say.

 

[Vegasdad]

He can no longer be impartial without looking silly in his own mind.
He simply went too far bashing this product in his first attempt...
Ken simply cannot and will not give this product a fair review.

2 times and it doesn’t work please.

 

[Drone on]

Stop... we all want honest reviews not some Bill The Drone reviewer who is only worried what the supplier might say.

I think a more honest review would have made mention of the pros and cons. All I got out of either 'review' was jerkiness of stick response and less than great build quality.
Again, I'm not interested in the product, but I would have liked to have seen some reference to the separation of the camera control from the drone movement control, which I see as a significant advancement offered by the controller.

 

[deleted member 877]

From the very beginning, I thought it was a somewhat flawed concept simply because of having to daisy-chain two controllers. My crystal ball tells me that DJI will buy them out (which is probably what the FT Aviator guys set out to achieve) and then eventually release a new optional controller for those who want to move away from the traditional Dual Joystick type of RC.

 

[twoheadlines]

I guess I am in the camp of reserving judgement until after FTA has arrived.
If I did have any beef with Fluidity - I have sent emails to them - it relates to their fairly poor communication processes around shipping dates. It doesn't have to be exact, but simple updates to keep those of us who have pre-ordered in the loop would be great.

A follow up to another comment around "muscle memory". I fly both a M2P as well as a Yuneec H520. The controller for each have some quite distinctive characteristics which in my view require that each flight should begin with a minute or two of "muscle re-familiarisation" on take off - flying the box, pitch and yaw all have slightly different input requirements. I suggest the FTA is likely not to be any different, especially when transitioning from familiar control surfaces to a "new" control surface.
I am pretty sure you will not see/find one competent, safe, private or commercial pilot transition from one type to another, without a minimum level of training first. UAV pilots, however gungho they might consider themselves, should not be any different - in my book!

 

[mmoguls]

Wouldn't a gain adjustment help the situation?

 

[lightbg]

Wouldn't a gain adjustment help the situation?

In addition to the 5 position switch on the base of the FT ( which subdivides "photo-sport" on the DJI tx.) each axis is proportional - the more distance you input the throw, the more response you receive. Almost like expo on a heli tx., except you don't need to dial it in - it's touch responsive.

Jake