so ive been building out a small course in my backyard for the past few weekends, got about 8 gates up using the standard PVC and rip stop nylon setup. the problem is my yard is only like 60x40 feet so im having to get creative with the layout. right now the tightest section has two gates about 12 feet apart and honestly at anything above 50% throttle it just feels impossible to thread both cleanly without dumping speed so hard you lose all your momentum going into the next turn.

im running a 5inch on a chameleon style frame, F7 stack, pretty snappy tune but not twitchy. was wondering if anyone who actually builds tracks has a feel for minimum gate spacing for a course thats still fun to fly but not just a parking lot slalom. also is there a reason most race organizers seem to go wider than you'd expect, like are the gates actually further apart than they look on the fpv feed

yeah the gates always look closer on the feed than they are in real life, depth perception through a single lens camera just does that. 12 feet is honestly workable on a 5inch if your tune is dialed, but it's going to heavily favor a more locked-in style rather than the big sweeping lines. the real issue with tiny courses isn't the gap width it's usually the approach angle ? if you can't set up a clean entry you end up braking and reaccelerating constantly which kills your laptimes and honestly just gets boring fast.

for a backyard track i'd try mixing it up, have one or two tight technical sections but then give yourself at least one section where you can actually open up a bit even if it's just a straight with a flag turn at the end. variety makes a short course way more replayable than just making everything equally tight.

not a track builder but ive flown a few multigp style courses and the thing that surprised me was how much the gate HEIGHT matters as much as the spacing. if your gates are too low you end up flying this weird flat trajectory the whole time which feels slow and unnatural. might be worth experimenting with that on your tighter sections, raise em up a bit so theres more of a 3d element to it even in a small space