Modern ESCs and quadcopter brushless motors will handle the inertia. It is necessary in the case of quadcopters that the motor reach the RPM requested by the control loop as quickly as possible. Dynamic braking is employed.
@saxton67 by open loop I mean just letting the ESC control the brushless motor, no feedback into your system to compare and correct.
This prompted the accuracy question. I think you can do maybe OK enough this way. I can see perhaps needed to put in a translation/correction/calibration curve or calculation.
+1. Sounds like fun.
quadcopter brushless motor
and
quadcopter ESC braking
For some inspiration. The little motors are amazing and come in a variety of sizes and RPM with respect to voltage. The ESCs can (still) be controlled by the old fashioned servo signals; in a higher performance version of this project you might switch to a 21st century control protocol.
Brushless motors will last a long time in this use scenario.
a7