do you have any favourite types of practicing you do for flying?

[mattvenn]

Hi everyone.

I have a mini2 that I really enjoy for photography and video. I also have a potensic a20 for practice and having fun indoors. I feel like mastering it has helped my confidence with the mini.

I see posts about flyways and ATTI mode, and I can totally see if you have no experience of flying without gps then you could easily have an accident. Keeping track of orientation is hard, especially when it's far away.

Anyway, I have found these to be quite fun and useful:

* fly around keeping back towards me
* hover in one point and slowly rotate the drone 360
* fly towards me (so right stick becomes 'reversed')
* fly banking loops and figure 8s

The thing I've just started is leading with the tail, so flying banking loops and round corners, but backwards. Then flipping between leading with front or tail.

Any thing you enjoy practicing?

 

[old man mavic]

@mattvenn ,doing figure of eights ,forwards and backwards ,and circles both inner and outer
help to keep the drones response with regards to what it is going to do ,when certain stick imputes are given, in your mind
its nice to do such manoeuvres now and then ,for that one moment when you need to avoid an imminent collision with an inanimate object with out having to give it a lot of thought ,i find that if i have not flown for a few weeks ,such as during the Covid lockdowns ,then refreshing the old muscle memory ,is a good thing to do

 

[Timbo141]

I keep it simple, I practice not flying into things.
I also practice not putting it in sport mode around the yard with trees... wish I did that earlier as sport mode cost me a care refresh episode the first weekend I had it.
I just HAD to try sport mode.
Obstacle avoidance is disabled during sport mode.
Practice sport mode in an open field.
In the crash I had, it is crazy how your field of depth/ orientation can be off at distance, which is how I crashed into the tree... or was it a moving tree? ( I was maybe only 100 feet away)
So be careful.
Example:
While flying left to right or right to left, fly up to an object like a tree looking at your aircraft, not the screen. Stop and hover a couple feet away, then look at the camera view from the aircraft.
I wish I learned this phenomenon or knew about it before my crash.
I hope this will help to not crash as I did.

 

[ICHOTT]

Yes, I always practice flying tail towards me, keeps left / right orientation easy.

Unless I use RTH I always land tail towards me.

Also - whilst not flying practice as such, it’s always good for confidence to occasionally test the drones ability to eg RTH if you lose signal- switch the controller off and see what happens.

 

[dart106]

Hi everyone.

I have a mini2 that I really enjoy for photography and video. I also have a potensic a20 for practice and having fun indoors. I feel like mastering it has helped my confidence with the mini.

I see posts about flyways and ATTI mode, and I can totally see if you have no experience of flying without gps then you could easily have an accident. Keeping track of orientation is hard, especially when it's far away.

Anyway, I have found these to be quite fun and useful:

* fly around keeping back towards me
* hover in one point and slowly rotate the drone 360
* fly towards me (so right stick becomes 'reversed')
* fly banking loops and figure 8s

The thing I've just started is leading with the tail, so flying banking loops and round corners, but backwards. Then flipping between leading with front or tail.

Any thing you enjoy practicing?

I’ll practice with the camera looking at me and maneuvering primarily left and right from the drone’s perspective to “be the drone” vs my view. This helps me reorient left and right from the drone view and warm up my brain pan and muscle memory. I’ll work forward and backward also as a secondary goal.

 

[Bill Dunnuck]

Practice flying forward then rotate drone while moving forward 180 degrees in the air and continue flying backwards. Make the turn very smooth so from the ground you can hardly tell it is now flying backwards. You can also practice this maneuver rotating 360 degrees in the air while continuing to fly forwards or backwards. It’s all in stick control and with practice you will get good at it. It’s fun to do

 

[SethB]

I think it’s great to practice manually flown orbits. The two-stick work can be challenging, and it also demands that control actions are based on the attitude of the drone.

 

[mattvenn]

like keeping the camera on some landmark and flying around it keeping the landmark in the centre?

 

[SethB]

like keeping the camera on some landmark and flying around it keeping the landmark in the centre?

Yes, exactly. Also, flying it around yourself and trying to do as well as the automation.

 

[Yaros]

I like to race it in FPV Gimbal Mode around in Sport mode, but high up over the trees, so I don't crash it.
I also fly in Normal mode with Sensors around trees.
I just wish that mavics had acro mode

 

[LenSavage]

I had not flown in weeks while DJI had my primary drone due to a failed mainboard. When I got it back, I went out to test & configure the new replacement. All sticks & thumbs - no automation. Just to regain/reinforce the basic manual flight and tracking skills:

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[dronerdave]

I've found there is a learning aspect to being able to feel what the attitude of the drone is while flying it visually. For instance developing a feel for how it responds going away from you as compared to coming at you. After a lot of stick time you will eventually become more accustom to the transition. This is especially true in flying the drones with less automated attitude control like many cheaper models or visually flying racing drones. I really like flying small cheap drones in combat with others and found that actually having to fly it without stability sharpens your skills. Not to say you have to do that or how relevant it is to stabilized flights. But it did help me, plus combat with cheap drones is a lot of fun.
Thumbs vs pinching controls might have an effect on some. Unfortunately I learned with thumbs flying fixed wing RC aircraft and would have a hard time converting. But I sure can see the advantage in pinching especially while shooting video and for newbies I'd suggest considering pinching just for the video control aspect...JMO. I often put my controller on a table and pinch to attempt to get smoother more uniform video shots.
As mentioned stick time and various practicing methods do help. Simulators help a bit but nothing can compared to just flying as much as possible. Just take it slow, have fun and work into getting used to drone flight.

 

[CaseyGuy]

I really like Pilot Institute's "Drone Maneuvers Mastery" course. It shows how to fly 50 maneuvers, starting with the most basic and graduating to using multiple controls. Cost is $39.

 

[BethanyFerrell]

I really like Pilot Institute's "Drone Maneuvers Mastery" course. It shows how to fly 50 maneuvers, starting with the most basic and graduating to using multiple controls. Cost is $39.

I was about to post this but you ninja'd me.

Love my dozen rainbow-hued plastic cones.

 

[Gagey52]

Most of my training is using the box and square pattern with banking.
Regards

 

[skycam509]

The practice that has served me best is learning to manually do what the POI and Spotlight modes do. I started by flying past something or myself while just keeping the subject in the center of the shot. Then, flying a radius around the subject while keeping the subject centered, or wherever in the frame looks best - it's not always the center. Next, try incorporating more motions like increasing altitude while flying your manual POI and keeping the subject in frame. At this point, you're using roll, yaw, throttle and gimbal controls all at the same time. Make sure you have plenty of open space around where you are flying. Things can go sideways (no pun intended) in a hurry if you lose track of which thumb/finger is doing what!

The POI and Spotlight modes do a great job, but I like to be able to get these shots manually so I can adapt them on the fly (another unintended pun) and stop more quickly if things are getting sketchy. I haven't fully mastered all these moves, but it's great practice. I would suggest always recording while doing this so you can see what works and what doesn't.

 

[ThatBeardedDroneGuy]

I really like Pilot Institute's "Drone Maneuvers Mastery" course. It shows how to fly 50 maneuvers, starting with the most basic and graduating to using multiple controls. Cost is $39.

Another vote for this course. i'm working through the 2-star exercises now. Circles and figure-8s kick my butt. They take a light, feathery touch. A lot of it is less is more in my very limited experience. Reverse controls is a great method, also.

 

[Gacsaly]

I got a bunch of those little marker flags from H/W store.
I use these as camera targets for circles or bounds for figure-8s.
I set out several flags, and see how fast I can be hovering just above the next flag.
I also fly vertical figure-8s.
Fly squares in front of you, rotating 90 deg at each corner.
Fly squares from away to near, with rotations at corners.
If you hesitate, or mis-command, keep practicing.
Do full speed flyby, keeping camera on a subject.
Use camera to closely inspect the surface and screws on a sign.
I often keep the video running while practicing to see how I did.
Here is an odd one – I use the drone to blow a distant piece of trash to me so I can throw it away.
Fly around a football field as fast as possible keeping the boundary line centered in camera.
Fly to various distances & altitudes and learn how the AC appears.
Then vary the position, looking ONLY at the AC and see if you can put the AC at a certain distance & altitude.
Randomly spin the AC without looking at AC or control. Then looking ONLY at the AC control the AC using the AC lights to determine direction.

 

[guzewski]

Practice flying forward then rotate drone while moving forward 180 degrees in the air and continue flying backwards. Make the turn very smooth so from the ground you can hardly tell it is now flying backwards. You can also practice this maneuver rotating 360 degrees in the air while continuing to fly forwards or backwards. It’s all in stick control and with practice you will get good at it. It’s fun to do

I keep trying to master that move but currently the results are terrible. Hopefully I'll get it eventually with practice. I know the stick moves, it's just that I move one or both sticks too much or too little. This skill would be useful to do a manual fly-by with a POI along the way. Now try adding some gimbal to the move!

 

[retiredNH]

Where do you folks do these practice flights? I have a 2 acre yard with some open space which is unfortunately surrounded by 100 foot fir trees. Getting above those means I can't see what the drone is doing all that well. There aren't any open fields that are even remotely flat nearby either.

Can you do these exercises in an area the size of a tennis court?