So... I broke down and went out to fly the Chroma today. No wind, early afternoon, a totally unobstructed flying area at a friends private runway. Hadn't seen the guy in 9 years so the logical thing to do was tool over there and ask to borrow his runway... Birds of a feather and all that, no problem, good to see ya, have at it but you have to look at my motorcycle collection afterwards. Hell yea. Doesn't hurt the place doubles as an RC field for FOGS like me (effin Old Guys) on weekends. I wanted a large and clear area for the first flights and this worked out perfectly. For the record, I made the first two flights without the camera for reasons I'll go into later. Yep, I screwed up a couple times and found out this thing is surprisingly durable...
I didn't get too deep into it this time around, using the two primary flight modes and dabbled, or perhaps more accurately, dribbled, in the Agility mode (meant for that to be Stability Mode but, oh well) a little, which is how I found out it's durable. Do not power up or try to fly the quad without first raising the GPS antenna. GPS and the compass are co-located in the same housing and if it does manage to let the motors spin up with the antenna down there's a high probability you will crash.
First Flight
I'm going to be blunt, in Smart Mode there's just no way a rank beginner can crash this thing unless they run into something. To avoid doing that just let go of the sticks. It stops right there and hovers, and now that center loaded throttle stick makes sense.
You don't have to know anything to fly this in the Smart Mode. One thing they cannot hit is themselves because in this mode the copter has what's stated to be a 15' - 16' safe circle around the transmitter that it will not penetrate. I found that circle to be considerably less than 15'' but it never came closer than about 8' to me. In "Rabbit" mode it's not terribly fast, toolin' around somewhere between 5 and 8mph. In "Turtle" you can walk faster than it flies.
After everything boots up, connects, and starts talking to each other (when it says "Hello Pilot" on the user screen) you're ready to hold down the red button for a few seconds and the motors start to spin. Wait a few more seconds before it's ready to start talking to the motors, advance the throttle, and up you go. When you're as high as you want to be, let go of the throttle and that's where it stops. If you want to descend you have to pull back through the center point and hold it there to keep descending. Let go of the stick during descent and it stops and hovers right there, and that hover is
very stable. It's smooth, casual and no surprises. Maneuvering in this mode is very similar to APM's Loiter in Super Simple except that no matter where the quad is relative to the take off point it moves to the stick direction, pull back and fly back, push forward and fly forward, copter orientation does not matter. I did this at all sides of the take off point with the same results. An RC beginner can bang the sticks all over the place with impunity, the Smart Mode is a self defense mode and protects both the quad from the user by limiting aircraft reaction to stick input and doing everything with grace.
Switching to Angle Mode (also called AP [aerial photo] Mode in Horizon videos) and things change a little bit. Everything is still fairly smooth but the quad reacts a little faster to stick input and you have to fly it. Right is right, left is left, forward and back as exactly that and tied to copter orientation. Here you are fully responsible for directional control while altitude is still controlled by the FC in the same manner it deals with Smart Mode. It's starts to get a little more fun here, being slightly faster than in Smart Mode. You no longer have a safe circle to save your bacon so remember to duck if you're a newbie.
Geo Fence
Because I don't trust anything the first time around, or the second through fifth, I set a max altitude of 180' and a lateral fence of 400'. It works. The quad will achieve your set limits and will not go any further, regardless of how long you hold the sticks thinking it might go further. There is no auto return when hitting the fence, it will just sit there. I found my fence limits to be pretty close to the max distance I could fly it and maintain visual orientation. The max allowable altitude limit is ~3200' AGL. The max allowable lateral distance is a bit over 8000'. Please set these to something a bit more reasonable when you connect to the GUI the first time. By default they are at the maximum allowable.
RTH
I tried triggering RTH at various distances and altitudes and it functioned reliably in the three flight modes flown. Checking with Horizon provided information that stated the RTH altitude is manufacturer set at 30'. If you are lower than that it will climb, but may do so while moving forward. If you are higher than that it may hold the higher altitude or start descending to 30' while on the way back to the take off point.
You cannot adjust the RTH height. Keep this in mind when there are obstacles higher than 30' between the quad and the take off location when flying. It did violate the 3m safe zone when landing in RTH, but aagin came no closer that 8' to me. Although the telemetry noted a read on 18 satellites the landing position was off several feet from the take off position.
Agility Mode
You must be on the ground when changing over to Agility Mode. All that safe and serene flying, with all the associated stick banging you had been doing previously will lull you into a sense of complacency. If you're not ready for it Agility Mode might be considered more of a spastic mode if you hit the sticks fast or too hard. This quad suddenly has a new personality where it's quick, there are no maneuvering limits, and very responsive to the controls. It took all of about 5 seconds and three feet to be upside down and sliding on the runway. I'm a slow learner so did that twice before settling down. Now this can be fun! Don't use this mode with the camera attached unless you make some additions to the gimbal mounts. More on that later. No damage done aside from a couple of scuffed propellers on the top side. There is more to this than meets the eye and worth exploring.
Hover
The Chroma is rock solid in hover with virtually no drift evident. Agreed, there was no wind but it did a great job of holding position. Look at the quad's shadow in the first video looking at the house for reference, and the straight down to the runway view later in the video. There was no drift when yawed in either direction. Once planted, it stays there.
Video
I did not play with the video very much this time around, and what I did was shot in 1080p/30f just for kicks. I'll shoot and post more in other formats later. None will be massaged in any way. I have no video processing software on this new Windows 10 computer-yet. I simply plugged in the micro SD card and copied the files to folder. They downloaded in MP4 format. I was not able to get the camera to trigger the shutter for stills as it's supposedly capable of so no still shots were made. I made no effort to shoot a well composed and planned video, and had a devil of a time with the video screen because of glare, suggesting the installation of the glare shield is a must. Again. there are no post processing alterations to the video. What you see in the link is straight off the micro SD card in the camera. Oh, a micro to regular SD adapter is not included with the copter kit. If you can't directly download from a micro SD card you'll need to pick up an adapter. It comes with a 16gig card so you may want to pick up a class 10, 32 gig card while you're at it. The first video; YUN0001 was shot while in Smart Mode. I shot a second, shorter video in Angle Mode and was not happy with the gimbals's horizon performance.
First Flight, Smart Mode
Second Flight-Angle Mode
For those so inclined, both videos can be downloaded for you to try out your post processing methods to see how Chroma video might work out for you. Both originate as MP4 in 1080p. Some 4k stuff later.
Post Flight
This thing is absolutely geared towards the beginner that knows nothing about RC flight or quad copter operations. To that purpose it works relatively perfectly. I need to RTFM to see what I may have done wrong with the still shot function, and delve much more deeply into the less automated flight modes. There may well have been a camera calibration missed during the initial set up, which could explain other gimbal issues experienced. My thoughts have the advanced flight modes as an area where the quad can come alive for the experienced user that's not afraid to explore a little. Remove the camera during your initial explorations though. She can get loose and wild in those modes.
The gimbal needs some help at the anti vibration sleeves. I call them sleeves because these are not the balls as usually found on Tarot style gimbals, and are much, much softer than what you've seen before. You
must run a couple of small zip ties or loops of light fishing line through the dampeners at two corners to assure the camera remains attached to the mount if high G loads are experienced. With some help from a Great Dane this Chroma was knocked onto its side in my living room a couple of times and with one knock over two of the dampeners separated from the mount. The dampeners are all that holds the camera to the mount. That camera runs $600.00 so find a way to assure it stays where you put it.
Just about every thing you can break is plug and play replaceable, with spares available from Horizon. Gear, GPS mast, FC board, video card, camera, etc, are all user serviceable. That's not a bad thing. The external stuff is removed by disconnecting an electrical plug and depressing a finger tab, then lifting clear. A set of hex keys is provided for accessing FC and video boards. I did not fly either battery used down to minimums but flight time was quite good. I never really thought about how long I'd been up and flight battery voltage was displayed on the screen at all times so there was no worry about running one too low. I'll have to time a few flights going forward to provide more accurate flight time info.
Personally, I think just about all of the "consumer drones" are over priced, and this one is no different in that respect. It's too early to make a call on how good it is/might be for the experienced flyer or advanced aerial imagery person. For the beginner it's a definite "Go". More exploration in the Agility and Stability modes is in order, both of which have me very intrigued
