Review! - FrSky S6R 6CH Receiver (2024)

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TL;DR: The S6R is a normal receiver with stabilization and auto level built in; as well as, a few “trick” modes. It works just like the X6R with stabilization/auto level off, but it on adds great features for beginner/intermediate pilots and even advanced pilots who want an all in one solution with features that can be enabled/disabled with just a flick of a switch. Plus, the receiver can be fully programmed directly from the Taranis.

Backstory: After building and then flying a 250mm multirotor, with various Spektrum receiver and other new build issues. I met a fixed wing/drone fellow named Dean who was flying at a park near me. After flying at the park with him a few times he took off with his Apprentice S and yelled at me to come over. After another new pilot took a short turn, he hands the radio over to me, and I was hooked. After fighting my multirotor so much, I really enjoyed the easy and relaxing flight characteristics of the Apprentice. After doing some research and some generous persuasion from Dean, I had a BNF on the way. Seeing as I had just bought a Taranis, and I had previously had some issues with Spektrum stuff. I decided I didn’t want to use the SAFE receiver it came with and would opt for something like an X6R and something like guarding stabilization/auto-level. So after doing a fair amount of research,I discovered Frsky had just released a new receiver called the S6R similar to the SAFE receiver. It did, however, require an extra item called the STK to configure it; which wasn’t available yet. Get fpv did have a USB to smart port adapter by frsky but there was no indication that this would work and the representatives at getfpv hadn’t had a chance to try it either. I figured I’d at least try it so I ordered the S6R and the USB to smart port adapter.

I got my apprentice Wednesday and started assembling, what little assembly is necessary, on Thursday, while putting some finishing touches on the wing my package from getfpv arrived with the S6R. I grabbed, all my gear, my plane and headed over to Dean’s so we could brainstorm on what we could/couldn’t do with this receiver together. I pulled out the SAFE receiver sold it to Dean, and with a bit of extra foam below I mounted the S6R in its place. I bound it to my Taranis, set up all the channels/inputs with any issues and as a normal receiver it worked just fine like the normal X6R. As the small and somewhat verbose manual for the S6R instructs I put Ch9 on a dial and Channels 10 and 11 on 3-way switches will I put Channel 12 on a temporary switch. I couldn’t get the plane to react when I switched it to stabilize, auto level, or any other modes. So, I thought, maybe it’s not enabled by default so I hooked up my USB to smart port on my trusty laptop and tried to connect, no dice. The S6R requires the STK for configuration from a computer. So, I assumed at this point, I couldn’t do anything with the stabilization or auto level until I was able to get the STK. I did some thinking and was playing with my Taranis just going through some of the channel configs and I noticed that it was only sending channels 1-8. After moving it to 1-16 I was able to use the switches to change modes without an issue.

The Stuff you care about: With all features of the S6R now working, I looked online for any way to configure it or make adjustments. What I did find is that someone has been working on some Lua scripts for the Taranis but they only worked on firmware 2.2.x. So, not having a lot of models or anything too crazy saved on the Taranis I went ahead and grabbed openTX Companion, set it up to download nightly builds, and installed the latest build to the Taranis. Unfortunately, with this build, they adjusted all the files on the SD card. So, it broke(ish) all my sounds and pictures. I’ll be writing a short how-to on upgrading and fixing the files on the SD card but that will be separate from this. After getting the Taranis updated, and the new files on the SD card, the scripts worked without any additional setup.

Saturday, I went out to the flying field for the maiden of the Apprentice with the S6R. Dean wanted to see the .lua scripts in action so I queued these up, which reminded us both that we needed to make sure the stabilizer/auto level were correcting in the necessary directions. Which they weren’t, and after, reversing the Ailerons and Rudder I was ready to take off. With auto level and stabilization on, I throttled up and hit the air. As soon as I let my elevator hit center stick my plane dove toward the ground! I managed to correct, but in being nervous and this being my first take off it went straight up, then I let the stick go center again and it dove for the ground again! I corrected less erratically and made sure to keep it in the air climbing slowly. Then made ready to hand off, kicked off the auto-level/stabilization, and Dean brought it in. We figured out that we forgot to reverse the auto level for the elevator… which was totally our fault. Just make sure you check all the control services and it should work great.

I reversed that input as well and made ready to fly again. This time, I reached 3 mistakes high with no issues. As I was flying I noticed that the nose was down a bit and that the tail was extremely twitchy with no inputs. After flying a few circles I brought it down and landed without any big issues. I toned down all the auto-level and stabilization gains and the tail was far less twitchy on the next flight but the nose was still down a bit. I was able to trim it out but definitely need to look into calibrating or setting the offset so it sits nose high. The great thing is it can all be done from the radio!

After Thoughts: This solution is a great all in one package for stabilization, auto level, etc with configurations straight on the radio it keeps us from having to lug extra gear around. While flying we tried doing tricks through the auto level and we were able to do everything, unlike the safe receiver. In some cases, the auto level did fight us a bit but the plane was easily capable of pushing through it. Unfortunately, there isn't a beginner, intermediate, and expert mode like the Spektrum SAFE receiver has. However, that doesn’t mean frsky can’t add it later down the line since the S6R is flashable.

Pros:
+Plug and Play on all 4-6 channel aircraft.
+Modes are all selectable from the radio and pre-configured
+Modes can all be adjusted for offsets depending on how your plane flies
+All configurations can be done from the Taranis
+Built in voltage telemetry for the battery. (haven’t got this working yet)
+Smart port for other frsky telemetry modules
+Works on all types of planes, v-tail, delta wing, normal
+RX firmware is completely upgradeable with the STK

Cons:
-Requires an update to nightly builds on your Taranis to use the configuration scripts
-STK is not widely available yet
-No documentation on how to set up built in telemetry
-No modes like beginner, intermediate, expert like the SAFE receiver, YET!