After the early death of my first quadcopter (small, cheap 300mm fibreglass frame), I decided to go for a more durable frame. I decided on the Talon V2 from Hobbyking.

It's fitted with the same Props/Motors/ESC's/APM from the original frame (8x4.5 props, 1380kV motors, 10A ESC's, APM 2.7.3), so I was worried it would be underpowered. In the end this was not a problem. The quadcopter is definitely not a "sporty" model, but it's got enough power for normal flying.

With a 3S 1380 mAh battery it weighs a bit over 800 grams and runs for about 6 to 8 minutes. The default APM parameters work very well for this setup. It is rock stable, even in light winds.

I accidentally bought the wrong sonar (the Maxbotix EZ4 rather than the EZ1), meaning the range and beamwidth were smaller than needed. By keeping the quadcopter's altitude to under 5m, the altitude hold mode still worked quite well though.

Next on the list is to investigate the optical flow sensor (currently sitting on my desk) and check out the performance improvements.