Skywalker vs. Stormtrooper: Endor Speeder Bike Quadcopter Battle

First off, I have to express how grateful I am for all of you who have reached out, commented, and/or shared my previous post (“FPV Star Wars Speeder Bike Quadcopter Puts You in the Driver’s Seat”). The response, and the almost relentless positivity, has been overwhelming. I’m so glad that I got to share this build will all of you, and I’m looking forward to coming up with new and interesting flying things.

As soon as I got the Scout Trooper bike finished, it was obvious that I needed to give him an adversary to chase through the trees.

I managed to find the Luke version of the bike before the eBay prices started to skyrocket (sorry guys) and set out converting it as before. Given the experience with the first bike, I decided to slightly lengthen the motor arms to be able to run full 8″ props, and I switched to a slightly higher KV motor. It really made a huge improvement. The first bike was admittedly a bit marginal on performance, but this one flies like a regular quad, and I’m getting almost 5 minute flight times. The changes made such a big impact, I think I’m going to go back and retrofit the Scout Trooper bike.

Compared to the Scout Trooper, the Luke figure was a much bigger pain to lighten. Since he’s got several bits of exposed skin on his neck and arms (instead of the Scout Troopers black jumpsuit) I had to hollow out parts of the stock doll.

The helmet was also massively heavy, and required a bunch of time with the roto-tool to thin out the inside. I also had to pin the poncho down in several places to keep it from getting sucked into the rotors.

Some friends and I took the two bikes up to a park in Woodside, and spent several hours shooting a ton of footage. Here’s a short video of things to come. I’m working on capturing some additional, faster footage to try and recreate the iconic Endor chase scene.

Many will be happy to hear that we stayed true to canon… there were a bunch of tree impacts… although both riders appear to remain in good health…