I’ve seen many posts in the FPV help groups stating the following.

• Help! my drone just flips when I arm it and try to take off.

• Drone just spins when throttling up.

• Drone back flips when throttling up.

All of these are usally accompanied by a video showing the drone on the floor spinning, trying to do a small flip, or “freaking out”. The majortity of the time the sole issue is just having the props on the wrong direction or upsidedown.

What side is “up” on my prop?

Props have a curved outer side. This side should always point up (when looking down on the drone). On most props their will be some small lettering. This lettering is normally on the curved side. This is just another way to idntify what side is “up”.

Which way should my props spin?

Step one: identify the direction that your motors are spinning. In general a good way to do this is by looking at the configuration tab in betaflight. Their will be an image similar to this one.

The other way to tell what way your motors are spinning is by going into the motors tab in beta flight.

I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH REMOVE PROPS BEFORE DOING ANYTHING IN HERE

You will want to connect a lipo, click the toggle for understanding the dangers, and spin one motor up at a time (just a litte). As it spins up use a small piece of paper to determin what direction the motor is running. I like drawing a small picture with arrows for reference later.

After identifying motor direction, grab a prop. You will want the leading edge to be going the same direction as your motors. The leading edge will be the taller side and the tip will curve away.

Their are 2 types of props Clockwise and Counter-Clockwise. Props will sometimes have a R after the number on the prop to differentiate them.

Final checks

After putting on all your props you can have some assurance if you did it right by the following.

Your front pair of motors should have opposite props one (one CW and one CCW). Motors across, diagonally, from each other will have the same prop on.