What good is a 7 inch quad when compared to 5 inch drones? People like to call them “long range” but I have 5 inch quads that can do the same or better in terms of transmission range. My battery experience up until now hasn’t shown any flight time benefits either. As I consider building a cinelifter, the 7 inch drones feel like a strange middle ground. I don’t usually like the middle ground, so I started to consider selling my 7 inch drone. Before I sold it, I wanted to fly it one last time and make sure I gave it a real chance and test some ideas out to be sure.
What I Need a 7 Inch To Be
You can see the flight times below. The short story here is that for about 2 years, I had the wrong batteries for the 7 inch if I wanted any of the advantages that size of quad is supposed to give me. I was a bit shocked that the 1500 and 2200 had almost the same flight times, with the 1550 being providing longer flight times for 2 of the aircraft!
Flight Times
| Chimera 7 | Nazgul 6 | NewBee 5 | |
| 2900 mAh | 17 minutes 39 seconds | Not tested | Not Tested |
| 2250 mAh | 11 minutes 30 seconds | 10 minutes 3 seconds | 12 minutes 10 seconds |
| 1550 mAh | 11 minutes 39 seconds | 10 minutes 7 seconds | 11 minutes 48 seconds |
Flight times with different batteries
The Conclusion
Pretty simple one here, I’m keeping the 7 inch and making sure I have the right batteries to make it perform how I need to to. With almost 7 minutes more flight time, it definitely separates itself from the 5 inch and has a more defined and different use case, no more middle ground.
I should have done more research when I bought the 7 inch, I thought the 2200 mAh battery was what was called for and that mistake cost me 2 years of usage really. FPV can be overwhelming and it’s hard to get all the details right sometimes. Hopefully my mistake and lessons learned can help you on your FPV journey.