Something Better || QAV-S 2 Bardwell Maiden, Betaflight 4.5, ExpressLRS 3.3

This is the second year I've been helping teach a drone class at a local private middle school and it's always fun to take the drone out and do some demo flying for the kids. This time I got to maiden a new build on the QAV-S 2 Bardwell edition. 

I'm running the AikonF7 and AK32 55A ESC with 2407 2600kv motors. Not the lightest build with the heavier hardware, but the power seems to more than make up for it, even though it's a about 30g heavier than my usual build with the Bardwell frame running lighter motors and 20x20 stacks. Still flying weight is under 750g with a Hero 11 Mini and an 1800mAh 4S, so not bad.  750g is pretty much my upper limit on builds, so I'm pleased.   Running old-school HQ 5x4x3 V1S props, and it still rips, though I usually prefer a bit more pitch. 

It flies pretty great, but it's a bit overtuned. Not too far off though, just need to back the P gains down a tad. This is with very little filtering as well. No gyro filters, 3 rpm filters, very high cut  and Q values on the dyn notches, and pretty high cut static D term filters. Still playing with turning off most of the extra features in Betaflight as well, so no dynamic idle  and very low thrust linear. Also RC smoothing very low with an auto value of 10. Just enough to get rid of the feedforward spikes and no more. 

Also I'm running the Betaflight 4.5 nightlies and giving Express LRS a try, so lots of new things on this build.  Coming from Ghost I don't notice a huge difference with ExpressLRS, but the lower cost is nice. I honestly haven't had any trouble with ELRS, and I was expecting it to be more of a pain given what I've seen from folks online, but everything has worked great for me with no trouble so far. I've got 3 micros running it, one with SPI and two with serial RXs and now this 5" build. I've done a couple of upgrades from the stock firmware on 2.5 for some receivers up to 3.2 and 3.3, and everything has worked great. Bind phrase binding has worked flawlessly. I have 3 ELRS radios now as well, and everything works great!

Anyway, this is just an uncut pack from flying for the kids. Nothing fancy and not the best flying as it's just an open field there where we can fly, but it's fun nonetheless.