So, you’ve never really flown a UAV before, except maybe you’re best friends who let you control it a bit in the air on a perfectly calm day. Now based on your in-depth experience, you’ve plunked down some serious coin for a new quad-copter, and you’re scared s***-less about crashing it. Does this sound like your situation (it was mine a couple years back, when quad-copters were REALLY expensive). Oh how I wish we had the amount of great information available now when I was starting out.
Bottom line: If you’ve purchased a small recreational drone, you’re going to want to make sure you can use and enjoy it. You’ll want to take the time to learn how to properly fly your new device. So while I’m not going to get into every little scenario you may run into, here’s a good summary of what you’ll need to consider when first learning to fly your precious drone.
Wind Conditions
High wind speeds can make it far more difficult to control a drone. If it is very windy, you’ll constantly be fighting against the elements. That’s why it’s a good idea to check out the wind speeds before you take your drone outdoors.
If wind speeds are over 10 MPH, you may run into problems. The best time to fly a small drone is when it isn’t particularly windy. If the weather forecast is predicting a lot of wind, you may want to hold off on using your new drone.
Don’t Go Straight To Manual Mode
A lot of drone users turn on manual mode as soon as they get their new device out of the box. Try to avoid making this mistake. Manual mode is specifically designed for expert users. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with drone usage before you switch over to manual mode.
You should try to get a lot of practice in before you turn manual mode on. When you are ready to give this mode a try, you should make sure you are in a safe location. If something goes wrong, you’ll want to make sure that your drone won’t be damaged.
Focus On The Basic Controls
Don’t start off by trying to learn anything complex. You need to get the basic controls down before you do anything else. Once you have mastered the up, down, left, and right controls, you can start to try other things.
Spend Time Practicing Hovering
If you’re practicing drone flying, you can’t just focus on moving your drone around. You should also work on hovering. Hovering is something that can really come in handy, especially if you’re interested in using your drone to capture video or take pictures.
If your hovering skills aren’t that great, you’re going to want to get some practice is. When you take your drone out, work to hover in the same position for as long as you can. Hovering will be hard for you at first, but eventually, you should be able to keep your drone hovering for quite a while.
Take Advantage Of Tutorials
If you’re struggling to grasp specific concepts, you may want to look for some useful tutorials. As I alluded to earlier, there’s so much available online that can dramatically help you improve your drone flying skills.
Sometimes, watching someone fly a drone can give you insight into what you’re doing wrong. Seek out tutorials so that you can learn how to pilot your drone. In time, you’ll learn how to fly your drone around with ease. The internet is full of useful tutorials on subjects like drone flying.
A lot of people get excited about advanced techniques. It can definitely be fun to do a barrel roll or a similar trick with a done, but you shouldn’t try anything like that until you’ve gotten used to controlling your drone. Make sure you’re completely familiar with controls before moving onto something else.
In Summary
Small recreational drones aren’t that difficult to fly. A lot of these drones are specifically designed for ease of use. With that stated, you should use these tips as you learn to control your drone. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of your new drone.