It was a beautiful day... well, as beautiful as 40 degree weather can be, I wish we were getting those temps now. Anyways... It was a good day to finally test my S500 for the first time with props on. I had done all of the usual pre-test and everything should have been good. As the GIF shows, I plug in the battery and step back to launch. I've learned over the months to hit the throttle with ease on a launch, especially on a new build. As I ease up the stick, it tilts backwards. Some of you may have noticed my mistake already. At least I believe it was the mistake. When I plug in the battery, I tilt the quad forward, and my guess is the gyro recorded that reading as level on power up. Notice when it tries to take off, it tilts in the opposite direction.  I'm not 100% sure that is what the cause was, but I have a strong feeling it was.

Unfortunately at the time.. It didn't even occur to me. I didn't even think of that possibility until I watched the video and noticed the tilt on power up. By that time it was too late. Not noticing my potential mistake, I was completely clueless as to what the problem was. All props were on correctly, all motors going in the same direction. So I took it home.

I REALLY wish I had thought to power it up level before giving up and taking it home, but I didn't. Now I am short two flight controllers and a receiver because I wanted to keep flipping wires around in ways that didn't even make sense, but I was running out of troubleshooting options, so the stupid kicked in and i fried a the first flight controller. Decided to try a KK2 flight controller that I initially bought to put on this before I decided to set it up with GPS, and I fried that one too, and somehow managed to take out the receiver with it. This was even more disappointing when I watched the video of the test flight, and noticed what may have been the problem all along. And it was something so simple, I could have possibly had the S500 in the air within seconds of the initial failure.

Needless to say the S500 is being put on hold again until I can order another receiver and another flight controller.

In better news, a bunch of parts I am waiting on for my 5" build has finally made the long boat ride to the states. I am hoping they will be here by next week. I still have a couple more packages that need to make that trip before building can begin, but we are getting closer!

Happy flying folks!