Betaflight yaw tuning: crisp rotations without bounce-back
Yaw was long the weak axis — since Betaflight 3.5+ it can be as precise as pitch and roll. The trick is a different PID balance than roll/pitch.
Why yaw is different
Yaw has far more rotational inertia than roll and pitch and isn't braked by the props, only steered by their torque. That's why yaw needs little to no D.
Starting values
A proven starting point is yaw P around 40–60, I around 45, D 0 and FF around 100. Lower P actually reduces yaw noise and bounce-back rather than hurting — P rarely needs to be higher for crisp rotations.
Feedforward on yaw
At least around 50 FF on yaw (default around 60) makes fast rotations direct without pushing P up. Too much yaw P shows up as dragging or bounce-back at the end of a rotation.
Verify in the log
Yaw problems like bounce-back are visible in the yaw-axis step response. PIDoctor scores yaw separately from roll/pitch and flags when P is too high or FF too low for clean rotations.