We all know that there are three flight modes in Betaflight, right?
Angle, Horizon, and Acro. What if I told you there's actually FIVE?!?That's right!
There's five and I'll briefly do a recap of a few of them, but today, just in time for the
Northern hemisphere's whoop season, I'm gonna introduce you to a new Betaflight Mode called
"Level Race Mode" which came out with the Betaflight 4.2 release earlier this year.I'll
explain what Betaflight Level Race Mode is, how to set it up in Betaflight in just 2 simple steps
and describe how it can be used not only for fast whoop flights, but quite possibly for cinematic
FPV flights too! Sound useful?Then make sure to hit that "thumbs up" button below and subscribe to
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Betaflight "Level Race Mode" is Betaflight's implementation of NotFastEnuf's Racemode,
also known as NFE Racemode in Silverware. I've got links to NotFastEnuf's Youtube channel in
the video description below along with his Github site. So, let's go to the Betaflight Modes Tab
to check it outLet's see, most folks are familiar with (or at least have heard of)
Angle Mode, Horizon Mode & Acro Mode (which is enabled by default when you don't have Angle or
Horizon mode set up on a switch and selected). A mode that's not as commonly known and one I
highly recommend using when first starting out is Acro trainer Mode, down here. But I don't see
Level Race Mode. That's okay, it's not here. I'll demonstrate in just a bit how to setup
Level Race Mode, it's really simple, but first let's do a quick recap of the Betaflight Modes
we DO see in this Modes Tab because a few of the things relating to them also apply to Level Race.
Both Angle & Horizon modes are what are known as self-leveling modes which use the accelerometer
on your flight controller to automatically level your quadcopter without any stick inputs.
The difference between these two modes is that in Angle Mode, the quadcopter is limited to a maximum
angle on both the pitch and roll axis which you can set to whatever value you'd like in the PID
Tuning Tab. Since it IS angle-limited, you're not able to do any flips or rolls. Whereas, in Horizon
Mode, although the quadcopter uses accelerometer assisted self-leveling, it is not angle limited
and you can actually do flips and rolls. There are a couple of settings you can change in these
self-leveling Betaflight Modes which I'll briefly explain because, as I mentioned, they also apply
to the Level Race Betaflight Mode which you'll see here shortly. In both Angle and Horizon Betaflight
Modes you can set the auto-leveling level strength here anywhere from 0 to 200 where the default is
50. This is how hard the self-leveling feels to you on your transmitter sticks. The higher the
number, the harder it will feel on your sticks. It's like stretching a spring or a rubber band.
The more you stretch it, the harder it resists. For our purpose, I'm gonna drop this number to 25
to make it weaker because I don't like the feeling of fighting the quad. For Horizon Mode, you also
have the ability to set a transition between self-leveling and acro behavior with a Horizon
Transition number anywhere from 0 to 200. This setting actually does 2 things. First, whatever
number you set this at is the angle at which your quad will go from self-leveling to acro (no more
self-leveling). So, for example, if you set this to 25 and roll your quad beyond 25 degrees it will
act as if it's in Acro Mode. Secondly, it also determines the sensitivity of the self-leveling
strength to your stick movements. That's a little bit more difficult to understand but let me try
to explain. Per the Betalfight github, if you set this Horizon transition to 100,
all (or 100%) of your self-leveling strength will be applied at center stick, ½ of your
self-leveling strength (or 50%) will be applied at half stick deflection and at full stick deflection
no self-leveling will be applied. If, on the other hand, you set this value to 50,
all (or 100%) of your self-leveling strength will be applied at center stick,
none will be applied (or you'll be in acro mode) from half stick deflection and beyond,
and in-between at ¼ stick deflection, from center stick,
you'll have half of your self-leveling strength applied. So, the higher the transition number,
the weaker the self-leveling will be near center stick. Let's go ahead and set this to 100.
With our Horizon Strength set to 25 and our Transition set to 100 we should
get just a little bit of an assist from our accelerometer self-leveling. Now, as I mentioned,
if you don't have Angle or Horizon Mode enabled, your default mode is Acro Mode
which is not a self-leveling Mode NOR is it angle limited. In this mode you have complete
control of the quadcopter and it will keep its last position based on your stick inputs.
Acro Trainer Mode which, once again, I highly recommend using when starting out, is exactly the
same as Acro Mode, however, it is angle-limited based on an angle you set in the PID Tuning Tab
over here. I do highly recommend using this mode when first starting out and,
as a matter-of-fact, for more on Acro Trainer Mode, check out this video on FPV Beginner Tips.
Alright, so what's Level Race Betaflight Mode? Well, it's basically a hybrid Betaflight mode
of either Angle or Horizon mode with Acro Mode, where your accelerometer is used for self-leveling
on the roll axis only. You're in full Acro Mode on the pitch axis and therefore your quad's going to
maintain its pitch position and speed based on your last stick input until that pitch position
is changed by a stick movement in the opposite direction. It can be used with either Angle Mode
(which will limit your roll angle-this would be the Angle/Acro hybrid) or in Horizon Mode (which
will not limit your Roll Angle so you can do rolls, and this would be the Horizon/Acro hybrid).
You must have either Angle or Horizon enabled to use the Level Race Betaflight Mode since it
is a self-leveling mode (as described by its name). So, as a recap, here's a chart
that describes all 5 of the Betaflight Modes we have available to us and whether or not they're
self-leveling and angle-limited. For this video, I'll complete our first step by setting up Horizon
Mode in Betafliught and my Modes on switch C in my transmitter's Mixer Page on channel 6
(which is Aux 2) as you see here.For our second step, we go to our CLI (which is nothing to be
afraid of), make sure to check out this video on Useful CLI Commands. In our CLI, we type in the
command set level_race_mode = ON, and press return on our keyboard then we type save,
Hit return on our keyboard
To check that our command saved correctly, we can go back into the CLI and type get level.
Hit return and here we see it DID save it correctly. That's it,
we've setup Level Race Betaflight Mode on our quad for whenever we're in Angle or Horizon
mode. I'll toggle ON Horizon mode which is my first switch position on my Modes Switch "C" where
I have Horizon mode, Acro Trainer Mode, and Acro Mode set up on the 3-position switch. Remember
our little accelerometer self-leveling assist we setup in Horizon Mode with our strength set
to 25 and our transition at 100? Now that's only going to occur on the roll axis! So,
we ought to be able to pitch forward as little or as much as possible while flying a whoop around
while maintaining control, but at the same time, if we use this for cinematic flights on any quad
(including a cinewhoop) our movements on the roll axis should be very smooth.
So, Level Race is another of the many Betaflight Modes you can use for fast whoop flights,
to learn FPV flight, and for cinematic FPV flights too.
You can set up Betalfight Level Race mode in just 2 steps and access it on a switch whenever
you want. Let me know in the comments below if you plan on using Betaflight Level Race mode
with your upcoming winter whoop flights or as an assist with your cinematic cinewhoop flights.
When you do try it out, let me know how it works for you. Looking forward to hearing from you
and 'till then, thanks for your time. I'll see you next video. Clear skies friend!