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Quick Start

Your first session with the delivered kit: from charging the batteries to a first manual flight. Follow the steps in order — the sequence is deliberate, and every safety rule in here was paid for in burned components or a crash somewhere.

Do not repeat our mistakes

If you fly an aircraft that someone else configured (a previous team, a teammate, your past self after a firmware reflash), check the parameters before the first arm: look at every FENCE_* parameter and at ARMING_CHECK in Mission Planner. A leftover geofence with FENCE_ACTION = Land, combined with disabled arming checks and a misconfigured EKF height source, destroyed our drone on takeoff — the full chain is analysed in the incident report of 2026-08-21. Five minutes in the parameter list would have prevented it.

1. Charge the flight batteries (Li-Ion, not LiPo!)

The kit contains three 4S Li-Ion packs and a SkyRC B6neo+ charger.

  • On the charger, select the Li-Ion program, 4S. Li-Ion cells are full at ~4.1 V per cell — the pack reads 16.4 V full. Do not use the LiPo program (4.2 V/cell): it overcharges Li-Ion cells.
  • Treat 11.2 V (~2.8 V/cell) as empty. Land well before that; our flight controller is configured to warn at 12.8 V (BATT_LOW_VOLT).
  • Charge on a non-flammable surface and stay nearby. Store packs partially charged if you will not fly for a while.

2. Power the transmitter and goggles (18650 cells)

Both the Radiomaster GX12 transmitter and the Skyzone Cobra X goggles are powered by 18650 Li-Ion cells. Insert them with correct polarity (the springs mark the negative end) and charge them fully before the first session — a transmitter that browns out mid-flight is an uncommanded aircraft.

3. Check the ExpressLRS bind

Transmitter and receiver bind via a shared binding phrase, not a button dance:

  • Transmitter: Radiomaster GX12, EdgeTX 2.11.5, internal ELRS module.
  • Receiver on the drone: Radiomaster XR4, ExpressLRS 4.0.0.
  • Binding phrase: drone1ffm / drone2ffm / drone3ffm — matching your drone's number. Both sides flashed with the same phrase bind automatically on power-up.

Power the transmitter first, then the drone (via the Smoke Stopper, see step 4, and with props removed). The ELRS status on the transmitter should show a link with telemetry (link quality/RSSI). If it does not, verify both sides carry the same binding phrase before touching anything else — details in RC & FPV.

4. Smoke Stopper before the first battery plug — every "first" plug

Non-negotiable

The first time a battery is connected to the drone — and again after any soldering, rewiring, or crash — connect it through the Smoke Stopper. It is a current-limited adapter: a short circuit lights its bulb instead of vaporising a trace on the AIO board. The flight controller and 45 A ESC live on one board; one short can total both.

If the Smoke Stopper stays dark and the FC boots normally, you may connect the battery directly from then on (until the next hardware change).

5. Prop guards on, props off for bench work

  • The BEE35 Pro is a ducted CineWhoop: fly it only with the propeller guards (ducts) installed, always, and especially indoors.
  • Remove the propellers for every bench test — receiver checks, parameter changes, motor tests, servo tests, companion-computer experiments. Motors that spin up unexpectedly on a desk are the most common way people get cut. Put the props back on only when you are about to fly.

6. Connect Mission Planner and read the Messages tab

Connect the flight controller to your PC via USB and open Mission Planner (see Ground Control Station):

  1. Select the COM port, connect, and confirm the firmware banner reads ArduCopter V4.6.3. If it shows another version, stop and read the Initial Setup page — parameter names differ between releases and unknown names are silently ignored.
  2. Open Messages (Data screen) and actually read it. This tab is where ArduPilot tells you what is wrong: PreArm: lines name every failed check, sensor init errors appear here, and after a fence-triggered landing you will find Arm: LAND mode not armable here — which means the vehicle is still in LAND mode, not that the battery is dead.

7. Preflight checks

Before every flight, in this order:

  • Battery charged (16.4 V full) and strapped tight — a shifting pack shifts the centre of gravity.
  • Prop guards mounted, propellers tight, correct rotation direction.
  • Nothing loose near the props (cables, camera ribbon, antenna).
  • Transmitter on first, model selected, ELRS link up.
  • Kill switch assigned and tested (see step 8) — you must know which switch it is without looking.
  • Battery connected; wait for the FC to boot and the EKF/gyros to settle.
  • No PreArm errors in the Messages tab / on the GCS HUD.
  • Flight area clear of people; bystanders behind you.

The parameter-side preflight (arming checks, failsafes, fence) is part of the Initial Setup and the danger box at the top of this page.

8. First manual flight — the rules

The first flights are manual, line-of-sight, without any companion-computer or autonomy involvement:

  • Mode: Stabilize. It needs no position estimate and no GPS — the pilot controls attitude and throttle directly. Do not attempt Loiter/Guided indoors before the optical-flow setup (Sensors) is configured and verified.
  • Location: open space or a netted hall. No people in the flight volume. Indoors means no GPS and no RTL — if anything goes wrong, you are the failsafe.
  • Kill switch: an arm/disarm (motor kill) switch must be assigned on the GX12 before the first takeoff. If the drone does anything unexpected close to the ground or a person: kill it. A dropped drone with prop guards is cheaper than any alternative.
  • Keep the first hops low (below head height) and short. Get a feel for hover throttle, then practise gentle position corrections. Budget real practice time — later autonomous tests rely on a pilot who can take over instantly (--takeover in the companion code).
  • Watch the battery: land at the latest at the 12.8 V warning.

Where to go next

Once you can hover and land calmly in Stabilize, continue with the Build Guide — it chains every subsystem page of this documentation into the full rebuild path towards autonomous delivery.