A Testing But Triumphant Day - BTW League Race #2

Nov 24

3 min read

What a day! It was challenging at times, but in the end, a great success. Our resident Race Director, Kai “Blueprint” Longshaw, put in a huge effort to get the timer running perfectly — hitting all the right cues at exactly the right moments. And then… after a quick lunch break, it completely fell apart.

Ah, the joys of modern tech! I love living in an age where we can build our own programs and make magic happen — but sometimes, I wish they worked as reliably as a hammer 🔨. By the end of the session, that hammer was starting to look like the perfect troubleshooting tool for our timer...

Racing League Highlights

Despite the technical drama, the racing didn’t disappoint. We witnessed some incredibly close battles as Blueprint and ScoobyAir took to the skies once more. Unfortunately, after the earlier timer fiasco, the pressure caught up with Blueprint — resulting in a DNF after he couldn’t complete his laps. The banner of doom claimed its first victim!

Had he finished, the points might have tipped in his favor, making ScoobyAir’s final race a real fight instead of a parade lap. In the end, ScoobyAir only needed to cross the line to secure 4th place, leaving Blueprint in 5th, shaking his head at the fickle nature of technology.

For the whoop veterans it became clear that they will need to up their game. Our newest BTW Club member, Pickle FPV, officially and impressively made the jump from freestyle pilot to whoop racer! Hot on the heels of James TX and MiniRollsRule, Pickle pushed the “experienced” (read: older) pilots to fly harder than ever.

That pressure led to a major mistake from MiniRollsRule in the first finals race — a crash that left him stuck and at the mercy of the banner of doom once again! He finished last in that round but came back determined to chase down his long-time rival, James TX.

While those two battled gate for gate, Pickle FPV quietly slipped ahead on points, earning a well-deserved 2nd place overall. But in a final burst of composure, MiniRollsRule delivered a clean flight in the last race, scoring just enough to take 1st place by a single point.

All in all, a day full of tension, triumph, and lessons learned — both for our pilots and our timer.

My Race Whoop Build

The BetaFPV Air65 is the basis of this build. It's a great and powerful whoop from stock with just a few tweaks to make it my own.

🔸BetaFPV Air 5in1 Flight Controller

🔸BetaFPV Air frame & canopy

🔸Tiny Whoop Pinch Camera

🔸702 x 26kv Tiny Whoop Neon motors

🔸Gemfan 1219s triblade props

🔸Peek nylon screws

🔸Dogcom 320mah 1S batteries

💡SHED LOADS OF LEDs 💡

But honestly, the biggest improvement was sitting down and tuning it to how I like to fly. Night and day better now that it's done and I'm already back up to race pace after a full whoop fleet refresh for this season's racing.

Pick one up here:

https://betafpv.com/collections/air-series/products/air65-brushless-whoop-quadcopter?sca_ref=4303495.60eZD6U5Tk