Hi Crispy, my learning curve was long and drawn out, mainly because when I started, flight control boards made flying basically like trying to balance an egg on the end of a broom stick!!!
The coming of age for me was the KK2 board and then the Naze 32. The KK was a great step up, allowing good control, but still a bit touchy, but I got some hours up and started to really enjoy flying, then along came the Naze and now flying is a snap (compared to the past units) and now I go through all my battery's in a session (sometimes
). The basic Naze is around $37 and the top end unit which offers many features of the expensive babys is around $90. These include return to launch GPS etc.
As far as the chassis goes, vibration minimisation is important but less so with the Naze than others. I bolt my board down but other people mount it on the isolation damper double sided foam without bolts/screws. A bad frame will need the foam, a good frame wont...
Some people like to angle the motors in a fraction towards the center and others like to have them tilted a fraction to counter the torque, all mine are set up square, no tilting in any direction and they fly fine that way.
My chassis sizes are a small 250 for play and then all the rest are 450 carbon boom units.
Landing gear is a problem, and Ive been through a few styles. Sadly, not every landing is the best and cheap skids from a 700 sized heli seem to work best, soft enough to be compliant but still tough enough to take the abuse. Im not sure they would give you clearance for a gimbal though, I use a fixed rubber isolation mount for my cams. Im fiddling with a few rubbers sizes now to get rid of the jello.
These days I spend more time flying than I do repairing and its taken a long time to get to that point .... ya just gotta hang in there....
