DJI FPV Drone Ludicrous Propellers by Master Airscrew - Review

Nice find

got a pair on the way!

Anyone know the specs on these?

Hello there DAFlys. Good day and thank you for sharing this video with us. Just a reminder that DJI do not recommend you to use a 3rd party accessories on your DJI FPV specially propellers. Propellers are one of the main components of the drone that should not be taken for granted when flying your DJI drone in terms of compatibility and reliability purposes. In addition using 3rd party accessories might cause damage or harm on your DJI drones and can void the warranty as well. Thank you and fly safe always.

I was going to buy some of these when I found them last week, but their website doesn't say their length or pitch.  so I skipped them.

Speak of the devil!  Master Screw reply my email today with the specs!


Here are the specs of our DJI FPV Ludicrous propellers:
Propeller diameter: 5.4" / 137mm
Propeller pitch: 3.2" / 81mm
Propeller Weight: 0.23oz/ 6.5g
Material: Glass Fiber Reinforced Composite
Hope this helps.

I purchased a set last week. I think they're useful if you like the colors. They don't sound any different and I didn't notice a difference in flight characterizes. I don't fly acro so maybe I didn't test thoroughly enough.  I think people are better off getting the prop adapters so they can use the same props as other 5" quads.

Same here  : Aside from aesthetics, I haven't noticed any difference.

HubertAile Posted at 3-25 07:58
Same here  : Aside from aesthetics, I haven't noticed any difference.
https://youtu.be/rjsmwfI5hEE

Howe you tried the GPS test to see if full manual speed is improved for you?

Duane Degn Posted at 3-25 07:33
I purchased a set last week. I think they're useful if you like the colors. They don't sound any different and I didn't notice a difference in flight characterizes. I don't fly acro so maybe I didn't test thoroughly enough.  I think people are better off getting the prop adapters so they can use the same props as other 5" quads.

In the review he does say to get the benefit you have to be full manual otherwise your software limited.

Another nice find DA.    

DAFlys Posted at 3-26 01:23
In the review he does say to get the benefit you have to be full manual otherwise your software limited.

I'm still too chicken to fly in manual. It's good to hear they're useful to those skilled and brave enough to take advantage of them.

DowntownRDB Posted at 3-26 09:56
Another nice find DA.

Cheers DT.   

Duane Degn Posted at 3-26 19:24
I'm still too chicken to fly in manual. It's good to hear they're useful to those skilled and brave enough to take advantage of them.

Hey,   I dont blame you,   I think Id start with something far cheaper to fly full manual.

I have a couple of sets being delivered today, and honestly anything other than the props supplied with the drone will be an improvement.

This improvement will probably not be noticed when flying in Normal or Sport mode, but I only fly in ACRO mode anyway. I’m not expecting longer flight times but with their increased rigidity and aggressive pitch I’m hoping for greater stability and control. Because DJI will not grant access to the PID Loop and filters the FPV drone is a bit of a bus in ACRO mode, so when flying aggressively there is quite a bit of overshoot, hopefully these props will go some way to correcting this.

As for DJI Stephen’s comments above, that’s ridiculous. That’s like a car manufacturer saying use our brand of tyres and nobody else’s. Like tyre manufacturers Master Airscrew have been making propellers, and only propellers, for more years than DJ has been in existence. So whose sage advice do I follow? Some representative whom copies and pastes from a script in line with the  company’s financial interests, or a company whom pioneered a lot of the science around propellers, and from whom I’ve received 1st rate service from for the last 20yrs?

If the MA props don’t work out then it’s no big deal. At least when I give MA some feedback I know it will be recognised and possibly lead to a design tweak if needed. When was the last time you found DJI to be so receptive?

I make no apologies if anyone feels butt-hurt by my comments.

DAFlys Posted at 3-26 23:35
Cheers DT.

You're welcome DA.  

Nidge Posted at 3-27 01:26
I have a couple of sets being delivered today, and honestly anything other than the props supplied with the drone will be an improvement.

This improvement will probably not be noticed when flying in Normal or Sport mode, but I only fly in ACRO mode anyway. I’m not expecting longer flight times but with their increased rigidity and aggressive pitch I’m hoping for greater stability and control. Because DJI will not grant access to the PID Loop and filters the FPV drone is a bit of a bus in ACRO mode, so when flying aggressively there is quite a bit of overshoot, hopefully these props will go some way to correcting this.

Even EASA dont recommend using 3rd party props though,  they class that as unsafe.

DAFlys Posted at 3-27 22:40
Even EASA dont recommend using 3rd party props though,  they class that as unsafe.

The key word here is “Recommend”. And there is no supportive evidence to qualify this recommendation.

And  when DJI cease production of the FPV Drone and its accessories, if they haven’t done already, will that mean you can’t fly the drone anymore if you don’t have the original props?

Anyone whom has the slightest understanding of propellers will be able to tell you that while the supplied  propellers may be adequate for tootling around in Normal Mode, and maybe Sport Mode, they are totally unsuitable for ACRO.  The flex of the material used is to large which will lead to weakness at the hub of the prop over time. Master Airscrew use an industry standard polycarbonate material, noted for its strength and resistance to cracking. Also if you look at the design of the prop you’ll see there are some significant differences. These design differences came about by taking certain properties of the FPV drone such as its weight, mass, thrust and breaking features of the motors, etc.

Now after saying all of the above will I see a great improvement? I don’t know as I’ve yet to test them. They arrived yesterday and today I’m back in hospital for palliative treatment for a degenerative condition, but I hope to test them before the week is out. To be honest I doubt they will be worse than the DJI props currently installed. But trust me, with the standard props the FPV drone performs like a pre 2015 ZMR clone in ACRO Mode. We are unable to improve the flight characteristics internally as DJI will not allow access to the PID Loops etc. So unless someone much cleverer than I can root the Drone to provide in the field tuning via the goggles, as we can with the DJI Air Units on our regular FPV Quads, external enhancements will have to do.

Nidge Posted at 3-28 00:59
The key word here is “Recommend”. And there is no supportive evidence to qualify this recommendation.

And  when DJI cease production of the FPV Drone and its accessories, if they haven’t done already, will that mean you can’t fly the drone anymore if you don’t have the original props?

I used the term recommend,   easa state they are considered unsafe.   

DAFlys Posted at 3-28 23:07
I used the term recommend,   easa state they are considered unsafe.

On my last video the only damage was to two of the props. 1 chipped 1 bent. I have a set of these MA props on the way they should be home by the time I am..

That organization is a government one it's a government one. Most governments can't find their hands if they were planted firmly up their rears. They say things as a cut and paste to cover their own butts.

But like you said Those are just recommendations. And they say anything is unsafe as a blanket statement to cover themselves.  Because they were able to label something as unsafe without specifically dealing with different situations tells me they're just saying it to cover themselves. Everything that's done isn't unsafe by definition. It has to be checked. And they did no checks. So their wording is inappropriate and unjustified. But it does cover them in the event that something goes wrong . It's like a doctor telling you You're going to die. But never saying when or why. He can never be wrong. Lol

Nidge Posted at 3-28 00:59
The key word here is “Recommend”. And there is no supportive evidence to qualify this recommendation.

And  when DJI cease production of the FPV Drone and its accessories, if they haven’t done already, will that mean you can’t fly the drone anymore if you don’t have the original props?

I'm dubious that these are going to help. I fly in manual mode nearly 100% of the time and the wobbling and bobbling in turbulence from the sloppy, loose tune is the most objectionable problem the FPV drone still has. It's fine in winds below 10mph or so, but when it gets above that (which is most of the time lol), I have to fly my Betaflight quads. They are orders of magnitude tighter even in the strongest winds and you don't get seasick like with the FPV drone in rough air.

Unfortunately, these props appear to be heavier than the stock props, which will just slow down the motor's responses rather than speed them up which is part of what's needed. They're probably just going to make the wiggling worse, rather than better. And since we'll never get access to the PIDs, we don't have a lot of options to fix this.

A better option, though, might be the Aikon prop adapters that allow fitting  M5 mounting hole props, like your standard 5" Gemfans, etc., that we use on our traditional 5" quads.

https://www.getfpv.com/aikon-dji ... er-mounts-4pcs.html

But even those props aren't going to improve the rotational inertia over the stock DJI's, so I've been hesitant to spend the money. Maybe one day when I have a little extra cash to try them, I might. Some have reviewed these on Youtube, but none of them have said anything about whether any traditional prop helps with the wobbling around in flight.

Otherwise, I don't see the MA props helping the situation over the stock DJI props. The DJI props are very light weight and track impeccably, despite the kind of floppy blades. And I've never seen one mistrack yet. So it's probably already as good as you can do.

But let us know if you see any improvement. Without the PIDs we're kind of stuck with it so any improvement will be an improvement.

HubertAile Posted at 3-25 07:58
Same here  : Aside from aesthetics, I haven't noticed any difference.
https://youtu.be/rjsmwfI5hEE

Exasperatingly, this review only shows us stabilized footage as all of these reviews of the FPV drone do. What we really need to see is unstabilized, raw footage. That's the only way we can evaluate if there's any improvement in the most stressing, debilitating problem the drone has - the wiggling and wobbling at high speeds and in rough air from the atrocious tune.

This renders these prop reviews completely worthless. We don't need to see stabilized footage. For prop reviews, we need to see how the drone actually flies with the different props.

luciens Posted at 3-30 03:56
I'm dubious that these are going to help. I fly in manual mode nearly 100% of the time and the wobbling and bobbling in turbulence from the sloppy, loose tune is the most objectionable problem the FPV drone still has. It's fine in winds below 10mph or so, but when it gets above that (which is most of the time lol), I have to fly my Betaflight quads. They are orders of magnitude tighter even in the strongest winds and you don't get seasick like with the FPV drone in rough air.

Unfortunately, these props appear to be heavier than the stock props, which will just slow down the motor's responses rather than speed them up which is part of what's needed. They're probably just going to make the wiggling worse, rather than better. And since we'll never get access to the PIDs, we don't have a lot of options to fix this.

Thank you for the reply, luciens.

Due to the weather I’ve not had much opportunity to test them other than to perform a few punch outs in my driveway. Interestingly in Normal mode (a mode I don’t use) the drone claims prop guards are fitted. I put this down to the slightly longer length of the props being detected by the Obstacle Detection sensors.

Anyway I have noticed the MAS props provide a bit more thrust for the same throttle input compared to the OEM props. They maintain a hover in ACRO mode at a lower throttle value, and punch outs feel more aggressive. Obviously Normal and Sport mode users won’t experience this. As for handling performance those tests will have to wait until both I and the weather improve and I can get to my flying club site. My tests above were done in my driveway, and to start power looping around the neighbourhood would incite pitchforks and torches from the natives.

I’ve searched for the Aikon adaptors but currently there’s none to be had in the UK, and post BREXIT quite a few mainland European dealers won’t ship to the UK because of the exponentially increased red tape. Similar issues to ordering from outside Europe. The MAS props were bought from Amazon and arrived 12hrs after ordering. You can probably tell I’m an impatient individual.

With regard to the drone’s handling in the wind I can’t say I’ve noticed what I’d call aberrant behaviour beyond what I’d expect from any of my other builds of similar size and weight. My flying site is 300metres ASL and exposed to all points on the compass so wind speeds of 15mph and upward are a daily occurrence.

As regards PID tuning. It’s early days yet, but I’m hoping that with the recent root exploit of the goggles we maybe able to access the PID’s of the FPV drone in the same way we can access the PID’’s of our Air Unit equipped quads with the goggles in the future.

Nidge Posted at 3-31 00:46
Thank you for the reply, luciens.

Due to the weather I’ve not had much opportunity to test them other than to perform a few punch outs in my driveway. Interestingly in Normal mode (a mode I don’t use) the drone claims prop guards are fitted. I put this down to the slightly longer length of the props being detected by the Obstacle Detection sensors.

If we could actually tune the FPV drone, that would totally transform it. Tho, in one of the prior updates (the 2nd one?) they did tighten it up a little bit, but I also noticed significantly hotter motors after that. So, there may be a limit to how tight we could actually get it.

But the tune as-is is still absolutely abominable. It's so loose and floppy that I just can't see how DJI could have flown it in testing and thought anything other than, lord no, this is miserable - crank everything up, P, D and I, and try again, lol.... Did they fly it in any wind at all? Surely they must have flown it on windy days...

It could be the power/weight is near a limit of some sort, but it's just a total mystery to me why the tune is so horrible on it. It could fly so, so much better and be so much more serviceable if we had the PIDs and could fix the miserable factory tune.....

luciens Posted at 3-31 02:58
If we could actually tune the FPV drone, that would totally transform it. Tho, in one of the prior updates (the 2nd one?) they did tighten it up a little bit, but I also noticed significantly hotter motors after that. So, there may be a limit to how tight we could actually get it.

But the tune as-is is still absolutely abominable. It's so loose and floppy that I just can't see how DJI could have flown it in testing and thought anything other than, lord no, this is miserable - crank everything up, P, D and I, and try again, lol.... Did they fly it in any wind at all? Surely they must have flown it on windy days...

I agree with everything you’re saying, but I do have a different take on the quad.

Being a freestyle flyer for the best part of eight to ten years I regarded the release of the DJI FPV Drone to be somewhat of an abomination for all the reasons that the FPV community in general voiced. It’s overweight, handles like an elephant on roller skates, and is  a one crash wonder. However I then started to look at it from a different angle. I’m not a Fanboy of DJI’s camera drones. I have a Spark and a Mini2 but I can’t say I get excited about pushing them around the sky. So I now consider the FPV Drone as my Mavic Pro equivalent. Rather than fly it like my five inch builds I treat the DJI FPV drone in much the same way as my 7inch and 9inch builds, and that is as a long range cruiser. I also don’t feel so much like a dirty girl for buying it as my wife works for a DJI stockist and I managed to get 25% discount off of a sale price, so I effectively got the Combo for less than the goggles on their own.

It seems I have more prop testing to do as while I’m typing this I got a notification from my local dealer that they have the Aikon prop adaptors back in stock, so they arrive tomorrow.

Nidge Posted at 4-1 01:37
I agree with everything you’re saying, but I do have a different take on the quad.

Being a freestyle flyer for the best part of eight to ten years I regarded the release of the DJI FPV Drone to be somewhat of an abomination for all the reasons that the FPV community in general voiced. It’s overweight, handles like an elephant on roller skates, and is  a one crash wonder. However I then started to look at it from a different angle. I’m not a Fanboy of DJI’s camera drones. I have a Spark and a Mini2 but I can’t say I get excited about pushing them around the sky. So I now consider the FPV Drone as my Mavic Pro equivalent. Rather than fly it like my five inch builds I treat the DJI FPV drone in much the same way as my 7inch and 9inch builds, and that is as a long range cruiser. I also don’t feel so much like a dirty girl for buying it as my wife works for a DJI stockist and I managed to get 25% discount off of a sale price, so I effectively got the Combo for less than the goggles on their own.

That's how I use my aircraft also. I'm not a freestyler, I fly for the view so I do lots of long range flights in straight lines holding my altitude. Only the occasional "gentleman's aerobatics".

But that's why the steadiness in rough air is so critical for me. If the video is bobbling around because of a loose tune, it's exceedingly objectionable. And I get fatigued quickly too.

My 5" and 7" Betaflight/F7 quads are enormously steadier than the FPV drone, even with stock Betaflight PIDs for the most part.  And I can and do tighten them up even more with PID adjustments.

I have to regularly fly in winds over 15mph and usually 20 gusting to 30, and the FPV drone is just a mess in the goggles in those conditions. My Betaflight quads present no difficulties there, just a little bit of bobble here and there even in winds up to 30mph.

The FPV drone, though, really is rather bulky, a little underpowered and overweight. So it's possible that it can't be made much better without introducing other problems like oscillations or other bad behavior. Even if we had access to the PIDs we might not be able to make it much better.

That could explain why DJI hasn't made it better either - maybe they're limited by the pure hardware too.

But we'll never know. It's a dead product now so we're stuck with what we have.

It's great in low winds though, so if the forecast is for lower winds I bring it out along with my regular quads....

luciens Posted at 3-30 04:26
Exasperatingly, this review only shows us stabilized footage as all of these reviews of the FPV drone do. What we really need to see is unstabilized, raw footage. That's the only way we can evaluate if there's any improvement in the most stressing, debilitating problem the drone has - the wiggling and wobbling at high speeds and in rough air from the atrocious tune.

This renders these prop reviews completely worthless. We don't need to see stabilized footage. For prop reviews, we need to see how the drone actually flies with the different props.

The plans are from the DJI FPV with internal stabilization of the drone. Without external stabilization!
Same conditions for both kinds of propellers at 05:23
The only stabilized shot will be the last shot filmed with the Gopro at 07:30

Duane Degn Posted at 3-26 19:24
I'm still too chicken to fly in manual. It's good to hear they're useful to those skilled and brave enough to take advantage of them.

Just fly really high and practice. The pause button will save you if there is a problem. That’s how I learned and the flying experience is so much better in manual.

Nidge Posted at 3-27 01:26
I have a couple of sets being delivered today, and honestly anything other than the props supplied with the drone will be an improvement.

This improvement will probably not be noticed when flying in Normal or Sport mode, but I only fly in ACRO mode anyway. I’m not expecting longer flight times but with their increased rigidity and aggressive pitch I’m hoping for greater stability and control. Because DJI will not grant access to the PID Loop and filters the FPV drone is a bit of a bus in ACRO mode, so when flying aggressively there is quite a bit of overshoot, hopefully these props will go some way to correcting this.

I’m not “butt hurt” and I happen to agree, LOL.

[ Last edited by Flight-Screen In 2023-9-21 10:39 Editor ]\n\nComments deleted