Home - heliflight3d/heliflight GitHub Wiki

Welcome to the Heliflight 3D Wiki!

Please see the sidebar on the right for detailed HeliFlight setup documentation.

Heliflight has a Discord server. You can find it here: https://discord.gg/3Ys2Z6W

BETA TESTING (WARNING)

Heliflight 3D should be considered BETA software. Maybe even ALPHA software! Things are iterating quickly and often break from one commit to the next. That is simply the nature of the rapid development and testing process it is in the middle of now. If you cannot afford the money, repair time, or mental anguish involved with a software bug crashing the heli you are considering installing it on, then please just don't do it. Right now Heliflight is a playground for people looking to build their own high-performance helicopter flight controller from the ground up. One day it might grow up into a user-friendly combination of hardware and software, but today is not that day!

Introduction

Heliflight 3D is software that is open source and is available free of charge without warranty to all users.

Heliflight is a Betaflight fork started by @James-T1, with heavy contributions from @pmattila, and contributions from many others. It was created to provide an open flybarless controller platform for single-rotor collective pitch 3D helicopters.

Wiki Tips:

  • Searching the Wiki-
    Type in URL bar of the Web Browser:
    "site:github.com/Heliflight3D/HeliFlight/wiki PT1" (wiki search for term 'PT1')
    or
    "site:github.com/Heliflight3D/HeliFlight/ PT1" (broader search for term 'PT1')

  • Note that Default settings as well as CLI commands may change from one build to the next. Sometimes notes about this get listed in the commit history, but often not. A method to use to keep track of changes and to check these yourself is:
    After Flashing but before configuring, go into the CLI and "Dump" the settings. Copy/paste this into a Text file named with the date and a description. Then on next build do this again and save to a new text file. This allows you to check for differences by by using an Difference/Compare option in a text editor. NotePad++ is one such editor with a good Compare feature (see the Notepad++ plug-ins).

  • If you can't find something in this Wiki then please try the Betaflight wiki or the docs directory as another source for information. Note: includes some documentation from Cleanflight (and lots from Betaflight)

Tools

Currently Heliflight uses Betaflight Configurator version 10.6.0. Some things don't work (VTX tab), and other things are only accessible from the command line (CLI). Most of the helicopter-specific configuration is done in the CLI for now.

The download links for version 10.6.0 is at the bottom of this page: https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight-configurator/releases/tag/10.6.0

Firmware Releases

Firmware must be built by the user. Or if you have a standard flight controller board that supports a unified target like STM32F7X2, you might ask a developer nicely on Discord for a compiled version. But honestly, 10% the fun is saying you compiled it yourself straight from the source code.

See more here: https://github.com/Heliflight3D/HeliFlight/wiki/How-to-Build-Heliflight-3D

BlackBox Log Viewer

Heliflight uses a custom fork of the Betaflight Blackbox Log Viewer. The Readme file in that repo tells you how to get it running. Note that some "unnecessary" features like Video overlay and CSV log export won't work without other dependencies being installed, or a full Yarn build: https://github.com/James-T1/hf3d-blackbox-log-viewer

HeliFlight 3D Logos

Heliflight does not currently have a logo. If someone would like to make one (or a few to choose from!), they would definitely be considered for adoption!

Providing feedback and contributing to this project

Visit this RC Groups Forum to join the discussion: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?3535457-Introducing-the-Heliflight-3D-%28HF3D%29-open-source-Helicopter-flight-controller-%28FBL%29

Heliflight welcomes contributions from anyone. If you are a manufacturer and would like to add support for your hardware, please feel free to add the support in your own fork and submit a pull request! We are especially interested in support for ESC telemetry protocols. If you would prefer to provide a telemetry protocol spec and have us implement it, then please create an "Issue" in Github, contact us via Discord, or reach out on RCGroups.

Financial support to the Heliflight Team:

Heliflight is not requesting any financial support at this time. The work going into it is simply a labor of love for the hobby. If you are a manufacturer that would like to support the project, then please feel free to reach out to me via Private Message on RCGroups and myself or another developer will be happy to put your hardware to use as a beta testing platform for Heliflight development. (https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=87278)