iFlight Baby Nazgul Review
• Chris Landa
When I first saw the Baby Nazgul, I knew I had to try it. I am a big fan of the iFlight Alpha A65 and I have heard people raving so much about the 5” Nazgul, that the Baby Nazgul just has to be awesome - right,… right?
Let’s first address the elephant in the room - quite literally: This micro copter weighs in at 29.1g with CRSF receiver, if you add a 300mAh GNB battery the weight adds up to 37g. Without the CRSF receiver it weighs in at 26.9g - still 3.1g more than its whoop counter-part the iFlight Alpha A65 which weighs in at 23.8g without a battery.
The 65mm frame is made from carbon fiber, the bottom plate is 1.5mm thick and the top plate is 1mm thick. There is quite some flex to the frame, but due to its small size and “low” weight there is little risk of the frame breaking. I had some crashes on concrete and there are only some scratches.
Electronics
The Baby Nazgul is rocking the V2 of the iFlight SusseX F4 AIO. The main difference to V1 is, that this one comes with an on board FrSky compatible SPI receiver - unfortunately there is no ELRS option, at least not yet.
The ESCs are capable of pushing 5A continuously and 6A peak. The dead-time of 5 is super low.
Apart from that a VTX is included. Contrary to other 5 in 1 AIOs the VTX is on a separate PCB which helps a lot with video noise. The VTX can be switched between 25 and 50mW.
The V1 has been my go-to AIO for quite some time when it comes to whoops, definitely one of the most reliable ones out there.
Receiver Options
You can also get this tiny brushless micro with a Crossfire receiver. It will still come with the AIO that has the FrSky compatible SPI receiver on board but it will not be active. I decided to go with the Crossfire version for maximum range, this turned out to not be the best choice
The CRSF version is significantly more expensive - more of a premium mark-up that I am used to when it comes to bundled Crossfire receivers.
I do not think that it is worth getting the CRSF version for the following reasons:
- The video transmitter can only output 50mW - Crossfire is absolute overkill for the range that you will get with a 50mW VTX
- Weight: the Crossfire nano, with the antenna, antenna mount and wires weighs in at almost 3g
- Price: The quad comes in at around 180$ with Crossfire RX - in my opinion way too much for what you are getting
FPV Cam
The FPV cam is a Runcam Atom, it is super small and has 800TV lines and is relatively decent - at least for its size. The camera angle can not be adjusted, but is at a very decent angle - at least I don’t really feel the need to adjust it.
Motors and Props
The props and motors are the same that come with the Alpha A65: XING 0802, 22.000KV motors with a 1mm shaft. They are spinning 35mm Gemfan props. An extra set of props is included.
The motors are a bit on the heavy side compared to other motors of the same size, but they have been working very reliably for me and are also not too sensible to crashes.
Firmware
Per default Betaflight Version 4.2.8 is flashed and RPM filtering is enabled via BLHeli_M - which is quite a nice touch. The default filter tune and PID tune are actually pretty decent - it flew great out of the box.
The only thing I adjusted was de-cluttering the OSD, setting up the OSD elements to my liking and adjusting the Battery warning voltage. It was simply set too high and I would get warnings pretty much from the get go.
If you want to try my settings, you can download them here.
After my first flights I flashed Bluejay on to the ESCs, since I prefer Bluejay over the other ESC firmware options.
Battery options
The baby Nazgul comes with a mount that will fit 300mAh 1S, stick batteries like the GNB 300mAh or the newer GNB 380mAh 1S. Unfortunately you cannot run the 450mAh 1S batteries without modification, but you can remove the 3D printed battery mount and use a small velcro instead.
I would highly recommend to go with 1S batteries that come with an integrated plug, just to save a little bit more weight on the wire, and since the power lead otherwise is a bit too long and you might want to wrap it around the standoff in the back.
One of my pet peeves are rolled PH2.0 connectors. And sure enough, this one unfortunately also has them. Since I use the 1S batteries with a wire I decided to shorten the wire and run a solid pin PH2.0 connector, this allowed me to save another 0.5g.
Performance
This thing is pretty fun - for about a minute per battery. With the 300mAh batteries I can fly for about 1:30, not pushing super hard. And about a minute if I push it. If you enjoy cruising, you can get out about 3 minutes if you try hard and push your battery to the max.
This is also the reason why I recommend getting the version without dedicated receiver, you want as little weight as possible to increase the flight time.
After removing the Crossfire receiver and instead using the SPI receiver, shortening the power lead and using a solid pin PH2.0 connector I could increase flight time by about 40 seconds - might not sound much but it is almost 1/3 more flight-time.
I think this quad requires a very specific place to fly. Sure, it is small and you can fly it at home, but without hoops, you will crash instead of bounce from the walls, so for indoors the iFlight Alpha A65 is the better choice - basically the same hardware but quite a bit lighter and a plastic whoop frame.
If you want to fly it outside, you want as little wind as possible or you will not have a lot of fun. A great spot to fly are garages and bigger indoor spaces. Here is some sample footage of my go to garage.
Conclusion
I am having a hard time recommending this one. It is a lot of fun, if you have a lot of batteries and do not mind the really short flight times.
The price for the base version is $150. The Crossfire version clocks in at around $180. I think this is way overpriced - if this quad was less than $100 it would be a way easier sell in my opinion.
I am not entirely sure what the target audience is for this quad. I would rather recommend getting the Alpha A65 for flying indoors and something like the Tinyhawk 2 Freestyle for flying outdoors.
If you want a great 1S ripper, the EMAX Nanohawk X seems to be a way better choice than the Baby Nazgul
Chris is a Vienna based software developer. In his spare time he enjoys reviewing tech gear, ripping quads of all sizes and making stuff.
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