Tinyhawk II Race review: the perfect 2 inch micro quad?

by Jack

Introduction:

Emax's Tinyhawk product line has become famous among FPV pilots, from TinyWhoop enthusiasts to extreme freestyle flyers. Recently, Emax announced their new TinyHawk II Race, a new FPV quad based on the TinyHawk II platform, but featuring some significant upgrades for fast, exciting outdoor flights and extended air time. The question is: is the new II Race worth it? Is this your next quad? Let's find out.

Unboxing:

Right out of the box, I was very impressed by its build quality and design. The 3k carbon fibre frame feels sturdy and the drone's compact size and weight means you'll have a hard time breaking this one! In the package Emax has included the drone, 2 batteries, a hardware kit, a screwdriver and with mine I received 2 sets of Emax Avan Blur 2 inch props. Assembly is fairly simple, as simply popping on the propellers and then screwing them in with the provided allen key screws is all that's really required. However, I do have some recommended BetaFlight changes for you to have a better flight experience. The II Race uses a unique dual PH2.0 connector. Luckily it is solid pin so voltage sag isn't too much of an issue. It does mean that you'll need to use 2 1s batteries and make sure they're at a similar voltage or one could get overdischarged. It makes it very beginner friendly though. Some people recommend adding an xt30 connector, but personally I don’t think it’s necessary, as charging 1s batteries is very simple and gives good performance.

BetaFlight Setup:

The first required step is to bind your radio transmitter to the quad and I find this easier to do in betaflight, as it is not necessary to push any buttons on the drone itself. The binding process can be done by first putting your controller into bind mode and then opening the CLI (command line) and typing in the command "bind_spi". Make sure that the mode for binding is set to Frsky D (D8) and check that the channel mapping is set to TAER1234 (mine was set to another one by default). To learn how to bind an Emax e6 transmitter, click here. Next, I changed the maximum arm angle to 180 and set up turtle mode on a switch. After that, I advise making changes to the switches for angle mode, arming, turtle mode, and beeper to the switches that you are comfortable with. Another recommended change is setting custom rates, as I personally found the default ones a bit slow for my liking. I used Le Drib's rates, which can be found on the Rotor Riot website for free. Finally, the last change is setting up the OSD to your liking.

(The only changes I made to it were adding the average battery cell voltage and enabling RSSI).

Flight Performance:

For a 2 inch quad, the Tinyhawk II Race performs remarkably well and I was pleasantly surprised at just how smooth it flies. To put it simply: it’s pure fun.  It is extremely agile and quick in the air, and can do any freestyle trick that you'd want to do. The hang time is great, meaning that inverted yaw spins close to the ground and last minute roll corrections should be easily achievable. It also handles the wind very well, but with it being such a light 2 inch quad it does tend to be affected slightly more than a 5 inch would be. However, this  is easily corrected by slight adjustments and its 80km/h top speed means that it can fight most winds no problem. I will mention that there was a fair bit of prop wash coming out of hard turns and some acro maneuvers such as inverted yaw spins or rubiks cubes. This was hardly an issue though as with a little throttle input it was back to flying smoothly as before. I attempted some racing with the quad as well and, no surprise, it was super fast and nimble enough to complete the courses perfectly well.

Compared to the Tinyhawk Freestyle, I actually believe that this model is slightly faster with its lighter weight and higher KV motors. The hang time is about the same as the freestyle and the only drawback is the prop wash as the freestyle didn't have this problem. This is nothing out of the ordinary though, as it is a 2 inch model. If this is too much of an issue for you, it is likely that it can be tuned out, or if you really wanted to, you could swap it over to a Tinyhawk Freestyle frame with Emax Avan Rush 2.5 inch props. Flight times are still great with the II Race as I was getting over 6 minutes of cruising and with the more aggressive flights around 3.5 - 4 minutes.

Video Transmission System:

A major complaint on previous Tinyhawks was the all round lacking video

transmission system, which is a huge part of the flight experience. Emax have

addressed this, and upgraded the vtx to be capable of outputting 25-200mw and the camera used is the Runcam Nano 2. I am pleased with the video range and the quality from this camera.

Runcam Nano 2

The vtx should be able to cover the size of a small park easily on 200mw and the limiting range factor will probably be the receiver. The vtx comes locked to 25mw out of the box and if your country allows more than this you can unlock it by holding down the button on the vtx while plugging in the batteries. Mine hasn't failsafed yet, but I have been watching the rssi as with this model it can failsafe in the low 50s or high 40s. The camera quality is great for a micro sized fpv camera, and the only issue that I had with it was that there was a bit of distortion round the edges. I got used to it after a few flights, and it does provide a good field of view.

Pros:

-Good flight times

-Good performance

-Great vtx

-Durable

-Very fast

-Affordable

-Beginner friendly

-Parts easily available

-Extremely quiet

Cons:

-Frame is too small to fit 2.5 inch props

-Prop wash

-Receiver range is not great

Should you buy the Tinyhawk II Race or the freestyle??

                                                              VS

If you are in the market for a new toothpick style quad, I can easily recommend the Tinyhawk II Race. Yes, you can easily find faster, more powerful toothpicks, but the Tinyhawk II Race brings a brand new option to the table. Emax have combined all round great features into a fast, fun beginner friendly bind ‘n’ fly package. Whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been flying quads for years, the II Race has something for you. I 100% recommend this over the Tinyhawk Freestyle. It performs almost identically, has better vtx and it is just plain fun!