LRP Column - December 2016

Germany’s most popular Onroad racing series has reached Italy. The series has just started it’s inaugural winter season with two races of the LRP AE Challenge North already been run. The turnout was fantastic, with a total of more than 70 drivers in attendance; the events were completely booked out. For this winter season, a total of 16 races are scheduled in the three regions north, centre and south. The winter season will then conclude in an Italian finale in April, where drivers from all three regional series will fight for the Italian champions. After that, The LRP AE Challenge Italy spring and summer season will commence. A fourth regional series for Sicily is currently in planning and will also have its premiere shortly.

Four racing classes are being held at each of the events. These are Touring 13.5T, Touring 17.5T, Formula One and Cinquone 299. The funny thing about the Cinquone 299 racing class is that only touring cars with scale Cinquone 299 body shells are allowed to participate. For all who have never heard of Cinquone 299, these are essentially race style tuned versions of the famous Fiat 500 car with up to 248hp. So these small cars are basically rockets on wheels ;-) …there is even a real racing competition for these cars.

I am really looking forward to the challenge racing in Italy and am absolutely convinced that this will be a great success the way Umberto Pernice and his team managers Roberto De Luise (Manager Northern Italy), Mauro Fabiano & Fabrizio Di Michele (Managers Center Italy) and Salvatore Salpietro (Manager Southern Italy) are managing this series.

I have already talked about our Gravit Monster Vision FPV R&D project in April, but unfortunately sometimes things don’t go according to plan and delay the release date of a product that has been taken for granted. Exactly this happened to our latest Quadcopter.

But now we are finally ready to release the big brother of our top seller Gravit Vision FPV.  The Gravit Monster Vision FPV is big – really big and fast. You could say the Gravit Monster Vision FPV is the big, athletic brother of the FPV Vision.

The Gravit Monster Vision FPV is equipped with four high power motors for great acceleration and speed. Due to the speed, its 360° loopings are great fun to watch. When you turn on the switchable LED position lights it becomes an even more fascinating sight at sunset or night.

The included tiltable WiFi camera enables the pilot to transmit the picture/video in realtime and enables you to get into FPV flying. Of course, you also have the opportunity to save the files directly to your mobile device, which makes the accessibility a lot easier compared to saving files onto the camera.

The flying has become even easier and therefore more suitable for beginners with the great “altitude hold” function. If the throttle stick of transmitter is left in the “neutral/middle position”, the copter will remain at the same altitude. Sticks are only moved up and down to adjust the flying height.

Two new features also are of great assistance. When you push the “return button”, your Gravit Monster Vision will fly back in your direction. If you don’t want to perform the landing procedure yourself, you can use the “auto-land” function that lets the Gravit land automatically and even turn off the motors afterwards.

It is not only important to have a high-performing multicopter, the power source is as equally important to get the maximum out of your flying partner. Our product managers worked hard in closing that gap in our offering and are proud to introduce the LRP FPV Race Pack battery line.

These are high-voltage LiPo batteries with 4.35V per cell that are tailor made for FPV-race applications. The higher voltage significantly increases the power the batteries are able to supply. At the same time, we’ve worked hard to minimize the weight as of course with all things flying, every ounce counts.

The packs have an 8C charge current and a 90C peak rating that makes the packs extremely durable and offer great average voltage. The packs are available with 1000 or 1600mAh in the 3S configuration, but also in the 4S configuration for all of you who want to go really professional with their racers.