The Air65 II is BetaFPV’s update to the Air65, which was already one of the lightest and best-flying analog whoops you could buy. It comes in three versions: Freestyle (25,000KV), Racing (30,000KV) and Champion (36,000KV, with a lighter frame and ball-bearing motors). All three weigh around 17 grams without a battery. That’s about as light as a 65mm whoop gets before you start giving up durability. All of them have a 400 mW vTX and on-board serial ELRS 2.4 GHz.

Which one? The Freestyle is the easiest to fly, and it’s the best choice for beginners and for flying around the house. The Racing version has more power for racing and flying outdoors. The Champion has even more power — possibly too much for some pilots in some tight environments. Its ball-bearing motors seem like an upgrade, but many pilots report the tiny bearings on this size motors actually wear out faster than bushings. Overall, we’d pass on the Champion unless you NEED the extra motor kv.

This is our first pick for a 65mm analog whoop.

The Tinyhawk Aero is Emax’s new high-performance 65mm whoop. It’s aimed at racing and fast indoor flying. It comes in three motor versions — 27,000KV, 30,000KV and 35,000KV — and each one is available with analog or HDZero video.

It’s light! About 16 grams without a battery, right in Air65 II territory. The canopy is molded into the top of the frame. The motors are soldered straight to the board. And the camera angle is adjustable. That’s all the good stuff.

I hate the battery plug. Emax invented their own EM2.0 connector and it won’t fit the bajillion BT2.0 packs you probably already own. Of course, Emax says just buy their EM2.0 batteries, but that’s dumb. You should swap the battery connector for a BT2.0 pigtail if you buy this. Emax will argue they did this because BetaFPV controls the BT2.0 connector. That’s true. But the GNB A30 connector would have been the superior, open alternative.

The analog vTX goes up to 400 mW, but some have reported this reduces flight time. The same is true for the HDZero vTX: in Emax’s own hover tests, the HDZero versions last about three minutes against about five for analog.

Our first pick for a light 65mm whoop is still the BetaFPV Air65 II. It’s proven, and it runs the batteries most whoop pilots already have. The Aero is light and powerful, and some would say it’s the better drone. If that’s you, get the 35,000 kv version and then use a throttle scale or motor output limit in Betaflight to bring the power down to something reasonable. You can always turn it up again later if you want to.

This is the Meteor75 Pro II with analog video. It’s the same frame and 1102 motors as the O4 version, with an analog camera and BetaFPV’s 12A Matrix 5-in-1 II board in place of the DJI air unit. That makes it a lot lighter — about 28 grams without a battery — and it has a LOT of power for a 1S whoop. That power has a cost. Hard punches pull the battery voltage way down, so you need good batteries.

If you fly analog and want a 75mm whoop with real punch for flying outdoors, this is a great choice. For flying indoors, a light 65mm like the Air65 II is the better pick. (Okay Infinity Loops … I see you.)

The Meteor75 Pro II is BetaFPV’s 75mm 1S whoop for DJI video, and it’s the first bind-n-fly whoop that comes with the new DJI O4 Wide. The Wide lens is the big deal here. The regular O4’s biggest weakness on small quads is its smaller field of view, and the Wide fixes that.

75mm is fine for the O4 Lite / Wide air unit. But 1S is asking a lot. The Meteor75 Pro is heavy for a 1S whoop — about 42 grams without a battery — but the 1102 motors have plenty of power. It flies more like a tiny freestyle slinger than a micro whoop, so it really shines outdoors.

The whole canopy is soft-mounted, and the footage is clean. But the canopy is held on by four rubber bobbins. It will pop off in a crash, and getting the grommets back in is fiddly. On drones this size, I ask myself … do I really need 100% jello-free footage? What’s my goal here? I might prefer a hard-mounted camera.

If you want DJI video in a whoop, this isn’t a terrible choice. Just be ready to reinstall those damn rubber bobbins. If you’d rather spend less, the Meteor75 Pro P1 gets you HD video for a lot less money, with lower image quality.

The Meteor65 Pro II is the smaller sibling of the Meteor75 Pro II, also with the DJI O4 Wide. It runs 35mm props, but BetaFPV stretched the frame to a 70mm wheelbase to make room for the air unit. It weighs about 36 grams without a battery. That’s about twice what the lightest 65mm whoops run, and you will feel it the whole time you’re flying. 36 grams is a lot for 0802 motors. The battery is going to sag when you push it, even with good quality square-cell packs. Expect around three and a half minutes on a 480 mAh pack.

I hate soft-mounting bobbins like this and the 75mm use. They’re effective at stopping vibration, but they always rip out in a crash, and putting them back in is fiddly. Especially on a 65mm drone where you’re probably not making a cinematic masterpiece, I’d rather have a hard-mounted camera for the durability.

Frankly, we’re just not fans of DJI on 65mm, even the O4 Lite / Wide air unit. And if you ARE going to do that, you need to work harder to cut weight. The vibration isolation and other “enhancements” aren’t worth it. We’re including it on the list because it’s not objectively bad and it will be right for some people. And if we didn’t include it, you’d wonder if it just got overlooked.

A 75mm BnF whoop with the Ascent Lite+ vTX and camera already installed. If you want to try Ascent without building anything, this is the easy way in. Don’t even take a second glance at the Protos drone that originally introduced the Ascent system. This one beats it in every spec.

It weighs 48 grams and runs on 1S with the A30 plug. It’s bind-and-fly with a built-in ExpressLRS receiver, and it comes with a 6-port charger and a case — but no batteries, so budget for those. Choose the Micro 16 if you want a simple 75mm whoop for indoor flying. If you also want to fly outside, look at the Curve Micro P18.

A smaller, lighter Ascent drone: 68mm and about 33 grams, with the Ascent Lite+ vTX installed. Its trick is that it converts between a ducted whoop and an open-prop toothpick, so your drone can get maximum acrobatic maneuverability outdoors, and protected props (and walls and furniture) indoors.

It’s bind-and-fly with ExpressLRS. The vTX is a separate board, so you can replace it on its own if … anything happens. It comes with a charger and a case, but no batteries. Choose the P18 if you want one drone for indoor and outdoor flying. But be aware that the P18 will be more powerful and harder to control in tight indoor environments. Choose the Micro 16 for a more “pure whoop” experience, especially if you intend to fly indoors.

BetaFPV’s Meteor75 Pro whoop with the P1 vTX installed. It’s a 75mm, 1S whoop at 37.5 grams, with a built-in ExpressLRS receiver and digital HD video. You can buy the whoop alone, or a ready-to-fly kit with the VR04 HD goggles, a LiteRadio 4 SE radio, and batteries. We’re NOT fans of the LiteRadio line, so we would steer you away from the kit, although we haven’t had our hands on the LiteRadio 4.

If you already own goggles with an HDMI input, buy the whoop alone plus the P1 HD vRX. If you’re starting from nothing and you’ve settled on P1, the kit is the simple way in. But if you’re choosing between this and the Caddx Curve Micro 16, we’d pick the Curve, because Ascent is the more mature system.

HD Zero has managed to make the impossible possible with a 6-gram camera and VTX combo which Happymodel have put into their Mobula 6 HDZero 1S. You will definitely notice the 4 grams of additional weight (this AIO is 2 grams lighter since it doesn’t have a VTX built-in) vs an analog whoop especially when flying indoors but being able to see where you’re going and 720p DVR sure do make this an intriguing BnF. A highly recommended upgrade here to handle that extra weight will be swapping over to the ex0802 25,000kv motors.

This is WeBleed’s entry in the “square-cell” category. Many square-cell batteries seem to come from the same factory, so they perform the same, and it’s mostly a matter of picking whose sticker you want on the outside. These perform as well or better than any other square-cell available. Available in 300 and 450 mAh.

The LAVA II is BetaFPV’s square-cell whoop battery. BetaFPV calls it Z-folding. It comes in five sizes, from 280 to 680 mAh, all with a BT2.0 plug. Per pack, it costs less than the WeBleedFPV at every size, and about half as much as the WeBleedFPV 450. It’s also the only BT2.0 pack here bigger than 450 mAh, for heavier 75mm whoops.

We’re not aware of any empirical testing to verify this, but some have reported that the Lava II batteries don’t perform as well as other, more expensive options. We still think they’re worth including here.

Get the 280 or 320 for 65mm whoops and the 480 or 580 for 75mm. The 680 is for the heaviest 75mm whoops. If you want the best performance, get the WeBleedFPV. If you want to save money, or you need a bigger pack, get these.

Tattu’s 300 mAh pack is a popular battery for 65mm whoops. It comes with either a BT2.0 or a PH2.0 plug. We’re listing it because people ask about it. But we don’t recommend it over the WeBleedFPV 300, for a couple of reasons.

First, the BT2.0 version is hard to find. At the time we write this, only the PH2.0 version is in stock. Don’t buy PH2.0 batteries.

Second, it costs more. Five Tattu packs cost about what six WeBleedFPV packs do.

Some have reported that it holds its voltage under load as well as the best whoop packs. So if you find the BT2.0 version in stock, or you already own a drawer full of them, it’s a fine battery. Otherwise, get the WeBleedFPV.

These are NewBeeDrone’s Nitro Nectar Gold packs, with NewBeeDrone’s own NX69 plug. They come in 300 and 550 mAh. We’re listing them because people ask about them. But we don’t recommend them because of their proprietary plug.

The plug, NX69, is NewBeeDrone’s own design. As far as we know, nobody else sells batteries with it. So every pack you buy for that whoop has to come from NewBeeDrone. And you’d need an NX69 plug on your drone as well. We don’t like being locked into one vendor like that.

Also, the gain is small. NewBeeDrone says NX69 delivers about 5% more peak current than BT2.0. To get it, you solder the NX69 pigtail from the box onto your whoop. NewBeeDrone also says the packs plug into PH2.0 whoops — but that defeats the whole purpose of the upgraded connector.

If we bought a drone with an NX69 connector, the first thing we’d do is solder on a BT2.0 plug and never look back.

This is a handy little charger if you’ve got batteries with BT2.0 connector. It doubles as a checker and a charger, and plugs into any USB-C cable for power. The main limitation is that it only charges up to 2 packs at a time. If you really love this charger and you’re using packs with PH2.0 connector, you could always buy some adapter cables. This charger only charges to 4.35v for HV packs. Almost all whoop packs are HV, but if you need standard lipo (4.20v) charging, this one’s not for you.

The ToolkitRC H1 Octa is an eight-channel charger for 1S whoop packs. That’s two more packs per cycle than the WhoopStor V3 — and each channel tops out at 2 amps instead of 1.3! That adds up to more packs charged faster.

Like the Whoopstor V3, the H1 Octa has storage mode, so your whoop packs don’t have to sit full between sessions. Power comes from USB-C PD or an XT60 (up to 28v), so a 6S flight pack can run it at the field.

Our first pick is still the Whoopstor, because it’s been around forever and has a solid reputation for reliability. But if you need to cycle packs particularly quickly; if you run larger 1S packs that benefit from the faster charge rate; or if you’re charging packs for more than one pilot at a time, the H1 Octa has solid advantages.

This charger charges up to four packs at once. Each bank of two ports can be separately set to HV or normal lipo charging, so you can mix cells if you need to. The charger will trickle charge cells that have been discharged too low, to bring them back to life. It’s powered from any 5v/2A USB source, via micro-USB plug. The charger has PH2.0 connectors, but can be used with BT2.0 batteries if you buy adapter cables.

WeBleedFPV’s 0702s come in four kVs: 26,500 (Bleeders), 28,500 (Gore), 32,500 (Screamers) and 40,000 (SKRRRT). They have plugs, so on most whoops they’re a drop-in swap. WeBleedFPV also uses a knurled shaft, to keep the bell from slipping.

I put the Screamers on my Mobula6 HDZero. It felt sharper and a lot less mushy. My lap times only dropped a little, but outdoors and in open spaces it was a huge difference. The cost was flight time. They crush the battery. I also had to turn the PIDs down and set a 75% throttle limit to tame them. I used the Gore on my P1 whoop build.

Chris Rosser bench-tested the Screamers and the SKRRRT. Both were more efficient than you’d expect for their kV. The SKRRRT came third in his weight-adjusted ranking. But he measured it at about 34,000 kV, well under its 40,000 label.

The SKRRRT draws so much current, WeBleedFPV asks you to let the whoop rest 10 minutes between packs to protect the ESC.

These are WeBleedFPV’s Screamers (32,500 kV) and SKRRRT (40,000 kV) with a 1.5mm shaft instead of 1mm. Get these only if your props are made for a 1.5mm shaft. That’s common on 75mm whoops.

Read the description of the 1mm version for how they fly.

Both are high-kV motors. If you want something tamer on a 1.5mm shaft, look at the WeBleedFPV 0802 1.5mm motors.

NewBeeDrone’s Hummingbird 0702 comes in one kV, 30,000, in two versions. The Standard has solder pads on the bottom and 25mm wires with a plug. It’s a drop-in replacement for the motors on the Hummingbird V4.

The RaceSpec skips the solder board, the silicone wires and the plug. The winding wire comes straight out of the motor, and you solder it right to the ESC. That gets it down to 1.29 grams! In Chris Rosser’s testing, it was the lightest motor he’d tested. It took first place in his weight-adjusted ranking.

The catch: the RaceSpec is fiddly. Each phase is two enamel wires, and mixing them up can burn out the motor. NewBeeDrone says it’s meant for its own Hummingbird RaceSpec whoop, only recommends it for experienced pilots, and doesn’t take returns on it.

NewBeeDrone uses smaller, JST 1.0mm plugs on their FC and motors. These motors won’t plug into the JST 1.25mm plugs on non-NBD FC. You’ll need to direct-solder.

BetaFPV’s 2026 0702 comes in three kVs: 25,000 (Freestyle), 30,000 (Racing) and 36,000 (Champion). These are the motors on BetaFPV’s Air65 II. BetaFPV says a thinner stator lamination makes them more efficient than its older 0702s. The Freestyle and Racing have brass bushings. The Champion has ball bearings. The plugs are JST1.25 — the size most whoop flight controllers use, but not NewBeeDrone’s.

Chris Rosser tested the previous version, the 30,000 kV motor from the Air65 Champion. It came second in his weight-adjusted ranking, and it was his best all-rounder. Nobody we know of has tested the 2026 version yet.

Which one? As with the Air65 II, we’d pass on the Champion unless you NEED the extra kV. Many pilots report that tiny ball bearings on motors this size wear out faster than bushings.

The Nightwing 0702 comes in three kVs: 25,500, 27,500 and 33,000. It was designed by the pilot Nightwing (Peter Rudman) for DamagD, and it’s made by VCI. It’s light — 1.38 grams with wires and a plug. The box includes 12 spare wires, and they solder to pads on the motor, so a torn wire is an easy fix. Frankly, we don’t know a lot about this motor, but the VCI pedigree combined with WeBleedFPV backing it, means you should at least know it exists!

The 0703 is a taller version of RCinPower’s 0702. It comes in 23,000 and 27,000 kV, sold one motor at a time.

It’s heavier, about 1.9 grams with wires. But in Chris Rosser’s testing, the 27,000 kV version made more thrust than any other motor he tested. The 0703s were also some of the quickest to spin up. They make sense for a heavier whoop (like one with a digital vTX) or for bigger props, like 40mm.

This is WeBleedFPV’s 0802 for props with a 1mm shaft. It comes in one kV: 21,500 (the Borgslayer). That’s a low kV for a whoop motor, and it pays off in efficiency. In Chris Rosser’s bench testing, the Borgslayer landed near the top of the chart. So think of it as a flight-time motor, not a race motor.

WeBleedFPV warns that it isn’t suitable for a frame flown tail-backwards.

These are WeBleedFPV’s 0802s for props with a 1.5mm shaft. They come in two kVs: 25,000 (Skyscrapers) and 32,500 (Treetoppers). Like WeBleedFPV’s other motors, they have plugs and a knurled shaft. Get these only if your props are made for a 1.5mm shaft. That’s common on 75mm whoops.

The 25,000 kV Skyscrapers are the tamer choice, for longer flights. The 32,500 kV Treetoppers are for racing. Nobody we know of has bench-tested either one yet.

If your props are 1mm, see the Borgslayer 0802.

NewBeeDrone’s Hummingbird 0802 comes in one kV, 25,000. It has a 1mm shaft. At the time we write this, it’s the least expensive set of four in this section. In Chris Rosser’s first round of testing, the NewBeeDrone 0802 at 25,000 kV made more thrust than almost anything that wasn’t an RCinPower. Who says higher kv = more power?!

For a 75mm whoop on 1mm props, it’s an inexpensive way to get more torque. If you care more about flight time, the WeBleedFPV Borgslayer is the efficient 0802.

NewBeeDrone uses smaller, JST 1.0mm plugs on their FC and motors. These motors won’t plug into the JST 1.25mm plugs on non-NBD FC. You’ll need to direct-solder.

The NBD gates are the smallest but come in a 5 pack which is a great value if you’re looking to build elements like tunnels which are always a crowd and pilot favorite. They’re also extremely lightweight which makes hanging/mounting them a breeze.

These weBLEEDfpv gates are by far the largest, highest quality, and are actually a cloth/mesh material which is extremely durable allowing them to be used with quads bigger than whoops like 3″ Tiny Trainers. The 4 different shapes that are included make it easy to name/identify each section of your race track.