so ive been building out a small track in my backyard, nothing fancy, just some PVC gates and a couple pool noodle wraps for the tighter sections. been flying it for a few weeks now and something just feels wrong about the flow. like i'll come out of the left hand sweeper and the next gate is either way too close or the angle is just punishing every single time, i cant tell if its a spacing issue or if the gate itself is at a bad angle relative to the entry.

running a 5 inch on a 30x30 frame, freestyle tune mostly but i tightened rates a bit for the racing stuff. the straight before that section is maybe 15 meters? and then it just dumps into this 90 degree left and the gate is sitting maybe 4-5 meters off the exit. feels rushed every time. my buddy says just move the gate but i feel like theres something more to it than that.

anyone dealt with this kind of thing when laying out a course? do you typically walk the track first, fly it on a sim, what?

yeah that sounds like an entry angle problem more than spacing. 4-5 meters off a 90 is actually pretty normal for a backyard setup, the issue is probably that your gate face isnt pointing back toward where you're coming from. like if you're swinging wide on the exit and the gate is set for a tight exit line, every approach is gonna feel wrong. try rotating the gate maybe 15-20 degrees toward the outside of the turn and see if that fixes the flow. also worth noting that 15m straight into a 90 on a 5inch is gonna be fast, you might just be carrying too much speed and not pitching back early enough, which makes the gate feel closer than it is.

i had this exact same problem when i set up my first backyard course lol. ended up just flying it on velocidrone first with rough measurements i paced out and i could actually see where i was losing time and where the flow broke down. way easier to iterate in sim than keep moving PVC around in the heat. not a perfect science but it got me close enough that real world adjustments were minor after that.