Don’t be fooled by the size of the Falcon 120, it will easily scare onlookers as you screech past them! The new Falcon 120 is a dangerous combination of new technology that might blow you away if you are new to this field! The Falcon 120 is the most compact quad I have seen in a while with a smart design using a 4-in-1 20A Cicada ESC, SP F3 flight controller and PDB is one tower stack. The stack is sat right in the middle of the frame which offers you great stability while performing those trick and flips!
As I’m sure you know, Eachine are famous for colour coding their RTF drones and the Falcon 120 is no exception. With its red and black theme, sporting red motors on a carbon foam supported frame with shiny red standoffs, you won’t need to modify the look of your quad! There is one thing you have to look out for when buying this quad…make sure that you stock up on red and black props!
Where to Buy
So, what do you get?
Th Falcon 120 is packed with top quality equipment, including…
- SeriouslyPro F3 Flight Controller
- Racerstar – 1306, 3500KV motors (only one set of coloured prop nuts)
- 20A 2-4s 4in1 BLheli ESC
- 2 pairs of red and black Racekraft-style 4 blade 3030 propellers
- CMOS 700TVL PAL/NTSC adjustable camera
- A 200mW 40ch 5.8ghz VTX
RTF kit extras:
- FlySky FS-i6 2.4Ghz 6ch transmitter
- FS-A8S 8CH PPM and 18CH i-BUS Receiver
- 3s 850 mAh battery
- B3 charger
So good quality, solid equipment (except for the b3 charger). No complaints thus far!
Initial thoughts
Out of the box the Falcon comes pre-programmed with all the essential settings, PIDs, flight-modes and safety features. This is great as the quad genuinely does seem to be Ready-To-Fly (to some degree) straight out of the box. There were a couple of things that I did tweak however. The version of BetaFlight installed on the board was version 3.0.1 and so pretty ancient in firmware world. This will need to be updated and you can see how to do this on the Wizard X220 setup guide. I also noticed that ‘Active Braking’ wasn’t enabled by default. This is where the motors will immediately stop spinning when the throttle is cut instead of spinning slowly to a stop. I always like to fly with this (personal preference) and so I enabled this on the BLHeli Configurator as seen below.
A beast on both 4s batteries and the stock 3s battery, the Falcon 120 can be easily compared to 250-series quads in both speed and agility. You can perform flips and other tricks on stock settings and although it may appear heavy at first, this little quad is one of the most agile RTF drones I’ve been lucky enough to fly. With a 4s battery the Falcon comes alive – there is so much power to offer and you may find yourself wanting to slow down to catch your breath!
Beginners should definitely try this quad on the 3s battery to start with – you don’t want to run before you can walk. In my humble opinion, I would also adjust the rate of yaw as this quad is intended for freestyle flight modes that many new to the hobby might find hard to fly with.
Indoors, the Falcon 120 is scarily good but I would advise beginners to start outside on a clear day as you’ll need to get used to the punch this quad has to offer. You can certainly zip around a field at a decent rate! If you’re looking for a pocket-sized quad both that’s crazy outdoors and indoors, the Falcon 120 is perfect.
Whats Good
- The compact size makes the quad easy to travel with. I had a cheeky little fly whilst on a break at work!
- Robust and tough little quad. I was unlucky enough to lose signal at approximately 50 meters high and the fall only caused minor prop damage.
- Decent flight time to performance ratio.
- Comes pre-assembled and tuned with a F3 seriouslyPro flight controller on 4k Gyro.
- 4s compatibility makes this quad grow on you even more – the extra power is too much fun.
- Almost all goggles are compatible with the included 40 channel VTX.
Whats Bad
- VTX signal from the stock antenna is poor and causes a lot of issues when flying in nosier locations. I would suggest upgrading the antenna to one such as the Pagoda antenna pair.
- Camera has no form of protection in a crash, it’s quite likely to get damaged in head-on collisions! I would recommend getting the 3D Printed Camera Canopy to counter this.
- The camera is half decent when it works but certainly not the best. I was getting a lot of issues with the quality with it occasionally reddening etc.
- The camera lens, buzzer and LED panel came loose whilst using a 4s battery. I can only assume it was due to the vibrations.
- Beginners will need to adjust settings before getting to grips with this quad. Start off with 3s battery.
- VTX channel switch is quite hard to access.
Interesting features
Safety
The Falcon 120 includes several safety features that makes losing the quad that much harder (and preventing injury a little easier). With auto-protection features pre-installed (the FailSafe procedure), the risk of cutting off a finger is greatly decreased. Along with its automatic protection features, the Falcon 120 has an in-built warning system that activates on loss of range with the RX, and low battery. This means you’re able to fly safe in the knowledge that you will be warned well in advance should you lose signal, or your battery run out. All this without the use of OSD.
Pre-programming
The Falcon 120 is pre-flashed and ready to use with Betaflight for ease of use. It is therefore unnecessary for the quad to be connected to the computer before flying. However, as mentioned above, the version that is installed is pretty old – you should update this. If you do want to inspect the pre-installed setup, it comes with:
- Two installed flight modes (ACRO/AIR)
- Oneshot
- Tuned PIDs
- Preset configuration and failsafe to land
- LED setup in colour mode, ready to be changed for custom use, (battery, mode, etc.)
- Preset 2Khz Gyro and 1kHz PID loops.
Flight review
Initially, I was skeptical of what type of performance a quadcopter of this size would produce but I was blown away by the sheer power the Falcon 120 was able to muster. Even when using a 2s battery, I was able to get the quad to do a few flips and tricks. As I changed over to a 4s battery, the punch-out this quad produced was amazing!
I first tested the Falcon in LOS but this quickly became not enough and I had to quickly get my goggles! Once fully equipped for FPV flying, I had a great time whipping around both my local fields and car parks. Because of its size, it’s also an ideal quad to fly freestyle indoors. It’s so nimble and quick that I highly recommend that you try and find a good location to try this with but make sure to equip a better antenna before flying behind walls!
Overall, I would recommend this quad to both beginners and experts alike. As mentioned before, beginners should practice with a 2/3s battery and follow the recommendations about lowering yaw rates and other PIDS before unleashing it with a 4s. I feel this quad really grows on you and has great potential after being fine tuned.
The Falcon is good value for money, it’s compact and easy to carry and very well-built. I will be flying this quad whenever I get the chance!
Where to Buy
Detailed Specifications:
Motors
- Current: 7A
- Thrust: 190g
- Weight: 11.5g
- Power: 98W
- Voltage: 14.8V
- 4MM prop shaft
- LiPo: 2-4S
ESC
- Continuous current: 20A
- Max. Current: 25A
- Weight: 19g
- BEC: 5v 1.5A LBEC
- Size: 36 x 36mm
- Supports DShot
- LiPo: 2-4S
Camera
- Imager: 1/3″ CMOS, more than 700TVL
- FOV: 127° diagonal, 110° horizontal
- NTSC/PAL – adjustable
- Lens: 2.6mm IR coated
- Size: 32 x 32 x 23.5mm
- Weight: 12g
Video Transmitter
- Transmitting Distance: around 300m
- Channels: 40CH
- Operating Voltage: 7-24V
- Connector: RP-SMA female
- Weight: 6g without antenna, 12g with stock antenna
Frame
- Includes foam cutout for crash resistance
- 7 colour LED light panel and buzzer
- Weight: 130g without battery
- Can be used with up to 3 inch props
- Made from carbon fibre for increased robustness
