Walkera Runner 250 Advance Review

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The Walkera Runner 250 is already an extremely popular drone among racing enthusiasts because it has a modular design. This means that you don’t need any drone building skills, which allows the drone to create a market of its own.

Walkera now offers a new version/revision model, the Runner 250 Advance, just 3 months after the release of their first popular 250mm RTF racer.

Adding GPS system to a racing drone was an interesting movement from the manufacturer, because losing your 250 Advance quadcopter is a breeze when you’re all pumped up and racing with your friends! Walkera will strengthen their position in this market segment through the GPS upgrade.

 

Specifications

  • Dimensions: 236 x 205 x 102 mm (9.3 x 8.1 x 4.0 inches)
  • Wingspan: 312 mm (12.3 inches)
  • Weight: 446 grams (1.0 pounds)
  • Battery: 11.1V 2200mAh Li-Po 3S
  • Flight Time: 12 minutes
  • Camera: 12MP 1080p camera
  • Maximum Speed: 40 km/h (25 mph)
  • Operating Range: 1000 meters (3281 feet)
  • Controller Frequency: 2.4GHz

 

Flight Features

  • RTF Drone
  • GPS Compatible
  • Altitude Hold
  • Position Hold
  • Flight Planning
  • Return To Home

 

In The Box

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance is really easy to carry with you everywhere with only 2 kg total weight (including the backpack). This is a huge advantage especially if the flight zone is kilometres away from the place you parked your car. It also makes much more easier to organize some cool races near isolated forests. Box content:

  • Walkera Runner 250 Advance Quadcopter
  • DEVO7 transmitter
  • 2 pieces of CW and 2 pieces of CCW propellers
  • Transportation bag
  • Anti-sliding rubber band
  • Li-Po battery
  • Battery charger + power unit
  • Trainer port cable
  • A small bag with installation tools
  • Allen keys
  • User manual
  • Devention user manuals (on DVD)

There are few package combinations of the Walkera Runner 250 Advance currently available on the market. You can pick up one of these according to your budget and needs:

  • BNF package without remote controller
  • Basic package with DEVO7 remote controller and 800TVL camera
  • Aerial package with DEVO7 remote controller and HD camera
  • Full First Person View (FPV) package with DEVOF12E remote controller and 800TVL or HD camera
  • Walkera Runner 250(C) Advance with CC3D transmitter
  • Walkera Runner 250 Advance deluxe pack with DEVOF12E transmitter, HD camera, and First Person View (FPV) goggles

All these packages can be bought in two different variants depending on the First Person View (FPV) 5.8GHz TX module:

  • TX5817 (CE) with 25mW power and about 150 meter transmission range
  • TX5816 (FCC) with 200mW power and about 300 meter range

Design and Quality of Build

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance comes with a foam fitted backpack. This backpack allows you to transport the drone and the remote controller. The frame feels very strong for its relatively light weight and it is made of carbon fiber. The components are all very well placed and connected to the frame for aerodynamics. They can also be repaired easily.

This drone has some cool design ideas including a frame that protects the main components from crashed. It is also equipped with bright LED “head lights”, blinking LED lights which indicate which direction you are turning. The integrated LEDs are one of the coolest features of this drone.

The drone looks like a machine from the “Transformers” movie on a first look. The Runner 250 Advance can also be confused with a bloody alien species due to the radio antennas that look almost like two tentacles.

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance main parts:

  • Frame
  • Direction LED lights
  • Red rear status LED lights
  • Front white LED lights
  • 15A brushless ESC (2-CW and 2-CCW)
  • Power board
  • 8bit flight controller
  • OSD (R) telemetry module
  • TX5816 or TX58417 5.8GHz real time image transmitter
  • Devo-RX710(R) transmitter

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance is a “250 racing drone”. This means that it is 250 millimetres diagonally from motor to motor and this class of quadcopters is typically called “250 Racers”.

This class of quadcopters are bare-bones with only the essential components and that is the biggest differentiators between this class of drone and others that you find on the market.

Walkera had problems of the destroyed front lights during crash lands of the previous model and they have solved that problem with the improved design of this “Advance” model.

The GPS antenna comes in a small carton box and its installation is very simple and takes about 5 minutes. The antenna must be mounted and secured with 3 screws on the rear part of the drone, just be careful with the right orientation of the GPS plug when you are inserting it in the flight controller.

There are two status LED lights in the rear of the drone. They are not synchronized and show different things. The flight direction changes are signalled by some orange LED bars. They are located on the side of each arm.

There is a camera mount with anti-vibration dumpers on the top of the airframe. It allows you to install small cameras, which is pretty cool if you want to capture your race.

Assembly and Tuning

The drone itself is fully assembled. The only thing that has to be added is the GPS module, which requires running some wires through the frame and snapping the GPS antenna into place. Don’t worry, this is pretty simple and easy to do.

The propellers are self threading and easy to put on the drone, once you figure out the order they go on.

You also have to do a fairly extensive compass and GPS calibration. This is probably the biggest difference in preparing this quadcopter to fly versus other 250 racers.

You have to put the drone into GPS calibration mode and then rotate it on its access both front-to-back and right-to-left, which allows the compass to set and help the GPS hold the drone steady when you are ready to fly.

 

Transmitter

The DEVO7 transmitter represents the standard entry model from Walkera. This is a nice entry level

transmitter from Walkera and it feels good in hand. However, it is a bit heavier than you would expect, especially after you load 8 pieces of AA Ni-Cd batteries. Some users recommend feed the transmitter with a single Li-Po battery and for this purpose you can order an 11.1V 2200mAh 15C battery.

The DEVO7 is a “universal” transmitter suitable for all kind of aircrafts. This means that some settings have to be done before binding it with the drone. There are exactly described all the configuration steps for the Devo 7, F7 and F12E transmitters in the Walkera Runner 250 Advance’s instruction manual.

The Devo 7 transmitter has 5 switches and 1 rotary potentiometer besides the usual control buttons and sticks:

  • “Gear”. This switch allows you to stop/start recording with the camera
  • “FMOD/FMD”. This switch allows you to switch between “Normal “, “Intermediate” and “Roll/Aerobatic” flight modes
  • “Mix”. This switch allows you to switch between “Manual” , “GPS” and “Return to home” modes
  • “Hold turn” not set with the Runner 250 Advance (R)
  • „Aux2“. This can be used to control the angle of a gimbal
  • “D/R” Ellev/Aile/Rudd

The transmitter has a LCD display of 3.5” and works on 5.8 GHz real time image transmission frequency. The LCD displays drone’s menu as well as FPV flight image.

Camera

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance is equipped with 12MP camera, which is able to capture very high quality images. The camera is also capable of shooting in 1080p. This allows the Runner 250 Advance to provide high-level video for many purposes.

You won’t have the usual lag in the video with this camera and together with the image transmission module it’s ready for FPV with no delay in transmission.

The camera is easily adjustable and you will be able to get it to a spot where it would give you a nice field of view for flying.

This camera fits the overall price of the quadcopter, and it may fit the needs of the pilot in the first races. However, this drone is able to carry any GoPro or Mobius camera so you may want to upgrade to a GoPro camera.

Battery

The Runner 250 Advance falls a bit short of the mark when it comes to the battery life and flight time. This is especially true when compared to other drones and the standard batteries that they come with.

The drone is equipped with an 11.1V 2200mAh Li-Po 3S and has a flight time of about 12 minutes. This battery carries the standard charge as the vast majority of drone batteries out there on the market.

However, the flight time is significantly reduced due to the weight of the drone itself, especially the frame.

It is important to note that the standard battery provided by the manufacturer has a rather short and comfortable recharge time. Still, to make sure that you are able to fly for more than the 12 minute average flight time it is recommended to order spare batteries when buying the drone.

 

Flight Performance

Generally, FPV racers are not for newbies. The Runner 250 Advance is not easy to fly and it takes some finesse to get it into the air. It takes quite a bit of throttle to get it into the air because the engines are a bit sluggish compared to other racers. Once airborne, the drone is pretty stable and will hold in place.

The Runner 250 Advance also features a GPS module. This is very unusual for a racing drone. The GPS allows pilots the ease of the critical Return To Home function. This means that pilots don’t need not worry if they lose orientation of the drone or lose it in the wild because this function always bring the drone back to its launch location.

GPS also brings Altitude Hold to the Runner 250 Advance. This means that aerial filming enthusiasts can make much better videos from this drone.

There are many useful flight information displayed on the FPV monitor thanks to the OSD module, such as battery status, altitude, heading, angle, and much more.

The drone is equipped with WK-WS-28-014(CW/CCW) brushless motors and has a maximum speed of 40 km/h.

Walkera Runner 250 Advance Pros and Cons

Pros

  • 2500Kv brushless motors
  • Useful transportation bag
  • Great camera
  • It turns light
  • It is very suitable cruiser drone
  • Powerful 5.8G VTX
  • Nice radio range
  • Onboard sound buzzer (but not extremely loud)
  • GPS return to home
  • Modular design
  • Innovative direction lights

Cons

  • It has thin and fragile battery plate
  • 8G CL antenna is too short
  • Front bumper is blocking part of the visual scene
  • Throttle Failsafe
  • It doesn’t have good vertical acceleration
  • It is not the fastest racing drone with the top speed of 40 km/h

 

Summary

The Walkera Runner 250 Advance looks awesome in daylight as well as in dark. There are many other cheaper or even faster racing drones on the market. However, no other drone offers so many amazing features like this Walkera model.

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