First flight critique

[SpinRush]

Had my first test practice flight today. I’d like to blog this while everything is fresh in my mind. I’d also like feedback. Did I do alright? What did I miss? What could I have done better?

Pre-Flight:
This whole week has been me getting information. I read information on websites like MILT ( Ministry of Land and Transportation ) and Seranova. I made phone calls. I found and registered my drone on DIPS.MILT.

I also downloaded what I thought were important apps ( Drone Maps ) and also all the DJI apps. I made sure to update my firmware.

Before my first flight ( today ) I charge all 3 batteries, controller, iPhone, and extra phone charger. Removed all stickers and of course was very careful with the gimbal protector. Bought a 64gb microSD card and got that squared away.

Scouting a location was very difficult but I found that was not in the red zone ( restricted area ). Went one day before to scout the location. Talked to a couple of locals if they had ever seen people flying drones in that area. It is quite popular. Negative point: Monday ~ Friday is best time. If you fly Saturday or Saturday you had better go before the baseball teams, soccer teams and cyclists come. The location was perfect, next to Arakawa river. It was very open, no tall trees, no buildings, no birds.

I woke up before life begins at the crack of dawn 5am. Set out and when I arrived there wasn’t a soul in sight. There was a light breeze and it was cold. I set everything up and started in “Beginner Mode”. Beginner Mode is awesome. I felt a lot more comfortable knowing there were restrictions and limitations protecting my drone from me.

I did not crash my drone today and it did not fly away.
< INSERT APPLAUSE HERE >

If you don’t mind reading a little bit more, I’d like to talk about the pros and cons I experienced. If you have suggestions, they are more than welcome.
Controller settings: I started in Controller mode 2. It was nice at first but I decided to change to custom putting elevation and lateral movement on the left stick and directional movement ( forward / back / right and left ) on the right stick. Mixed inputs seem a bit difficult. By that I mean, NE, NW, SE, SW don’t seem to mix well on the right stick alone.

Battery life was great. 3 batteries = 1 hour with short breaks ( 10 minutes ). I was outside for about 2 hours in all. I WANT MORE BATTERIES.

The controller never seem to lose power. That single charge the night before lasted for a long time.

iPhone 6S plus: MAJOR problem. The battery drains and fast. I knew that might happen so I brought a portable battery with me. Without that, I think after the 2nd flight I would have been done. The only other option would be to go back to the car and charge in the car. SOLUTIONS needed. Please chime in.

First flight: Focused on basic stick movement. It flies so well. It is so stable. One thing, I could not find was the compass calibration. After watching a few YouTube videos I thought that would be the first thing I would have to do but I never found it. I have 15 sats GPS. So I was always in GPS mode.

RTH is so cool. It’s a bit scary the first few times you see it. It went way up in the air then came down like an angel. I checked the precision landing box every time I took off the ground. Pretty wicked.

Range: Maybe because I was in Beginner mode the range was very limited. I got max range warnings within 50 meters of my position. I found myself walking a lot. I was always in VLOS. Battery warning was set at 30% all the time.

3rd Battery: I really wanted to try one of those intelligent modes. Right now I can’t manually fly so smoothly that I can keep something in frame. I had to get out of Beginner Mode. OMG, this thing is fast. I lost time trying to find how to get the Mavic Air to do one of those automatic flight modes. I tried the “Helix” mode. That was cool. I like the preview you can see just before you select the mode. Highlighted myself and then hit GO. THAT WAS AWESOME!

So what should I do now that I’m home???
Charge the controller again? CHECK
Charge all the batteries again? CHECK
How about the drone? Should I clean the props? Is there a special solution I should use to clean the device?

There is video on the device and SD card. I’m wondering if need to have a battery in the drone to access the data and transfer it to my computer.

It was a good morning. Nobody harassed me and I had life all to myself for a couple hours. Of course, with all my effort put into making sure that I was flying legally I was a bit worried that 10 police cars would show up in the middle of nowhere to find a drone. Do I even show up on anybody’s radar flying so low?

Sorry, I don’t have the video ready. After this blog, I will get to moving the pics and videos to share. It’s all raw video though. I saved these pics on my phone for now.

So what should I do about the IPhone battery issue? Should I use my iiPad PRO ( WiFi only ). It has a strong battery. Is there anything I can buy to hold the iPad in place so I can operate the controller naturally?

Thanks for reading. I didn’t crash and it didn’t fly away. Good start?

 

[PaulRC]

Very well done indeed! I wish more pilots would start out as you have done by a) doing all the research that they can before flying, b) making sure they are legal and c) starting with the basics of flight. I probably won't answer everything here, but there is a wealth of far more experienced pilots here that I'm sure will cover the rest.

When you're in beginner mode, the drone will restrict your flight to 50 meters, so that's all normal. When you take it off of beginner mode, you'll be able to fly farther distances.

There are several things that you can do to preserve battery on your iPhone. I have the CrystalSky for a monitor and I used an Android based phone before that, so I'll let those who have first hand knowledge speak to that.

Do inspect your drone before you fly to make sure the props don't have any nicks and that the battery is seated firmly. Every now and then, I wipe my drone down with just a damp cloth (not dripping wet!) and then dry it aftward. Check to make sure the camera lens and sensors are clean and use an appropriate cleaning solution and soft cloth (I use a Q-Tip) to clean them when necessary. If you take care of the drone, it'll last you for years.

As long as you make an effort not to annoy people and fly out in the country, I think you will find that nobody will bother you. People are curious and may even think that you're doing something you're not supposed to. But if you are legal and friendly, you'll usually turn them around. We're all ambassadors of the sport.

Good start? No. Great start!

 

[charliesRig]

Very good start. Well done
what are you Operating.? MP1 M2P Air
.
Good job on the RTH
if it is a Mavic Pro 1
Make sure you setting are " if lost control with remore" RTH set that then fly out 200 ft or farther
Turn off your remote control.
See if it does as it should very important.!
Some day you might just need that when you lose signal ( remote to Craft)
.
Never fly with less the %30 battery
....cR
.
sorry I'm feeling Cocky
................. I'm have a Good (mavic) day ...Because inpart this GUY \/ \/ \/ right here

 

[brett8883]

Had my first test practice flight today. I’d like to blog this while everything is fresh in my mind. I’d also like feedback. Did I do alright? What did I miss? What could I have done better?

Pre-Flight:
This whole week has been me getting information. I read information on websites like MILT ( Ministry of Land and Transportation ) and Seranova. I made phone calls. I found and registered my drone on DIPS.MILT.

I also downloaded what I thought were important apps ( Drone Maps ) and also all the DJI apps. I made sure to update my firmware.

Before my first flight ( today ) I charge all 3 batteries, controller, iPhone, and extra phone charger. Removed all stickers and of course was very careful with the gimbal protector. Bought a 64gb microSD card and got that squared away.

Scouting a location was very difficult but I found that was not in the red zone ( restricted area ). Went one day before to scout the location. Talked to a couple of locals if they had ever seen people flying drones in that area. It is quite popular. Negative point: Monday ~ Friday is best time. If you fly Saturday or Saturday you had better go before the baseball teams, soccer teams and cyclists come. The location was perfect, next to Arakawa river. It was very open, no tall trees, no buildings, no birds.

I woke up before life begins at the crack of dawn 5am. Set out and when I arrived there wasn’t a soul in sight. There was a light breeze and it was cold. I set everything up and started in “Beginner Mode”. Beginner Mode is awesome. I felt a lot more comfortable knowing there were restrictions and limitations protecting my drone from me.

I did not crash my drone today and it did not fly away.
< INSERT APPLAUSE HERE >

If you don’t mind reading a little bit more, I’d like to talk about the pros and cons I experienced. If you have suggestions, they are more than welcome.
Controller settings: I started in Controller mode 2. It was nice at first but I decided to change to custom putting elevation and lateral movement on the left stick and directional movement ( forward / back / right and left ) on the right stick. Mixed inputs seem a bit difficult. By that I mean, NE, NW, SE, SW don’t seem to mix well on the right stick alone.

Battery life was great. 3 batteries = 1 hour with short breaks ( 10 minutes ). I was outside for about 2 hours in all. I WANT MORE BATTERIES.

The controller never seem to lose power. That single charge the night before lasted for a long time.

iPhone 6S plus: MAJOR problem. The battery drains and fast. I knew that might happen so I brought a portable battery with me. Without that, I think after the 2nd flight I would have been done. The only other option would be to go back to the car and charge in the car. SOLUTIONS needed. Please chime in.

First flight: Focused on basic stick movement. It flies so well. It is so stable. One thing, I could not find was the compass calibration. After watching a few YouTube videos I thought that would be the first thing I would have to do but I never found it. I have 15 sats GPS. So I was always in GPS mode.

RTH is so cool. It’s a bit scary the first few times you see it. It went way up in the air then came down like an angel. I checked the precision landing box every time I took off the ground. Pretty wicked.

Range: Maybe because I was in Beginner mode the range was very limited. I got max range warnings within 50 meters of my position. I found myself walking a lot. I was always in VLOS. Battery warning was set at 30% all the time.

3rd Battery: I really wanted to try one of those intelligent modes. Right now I can’t manually fly so smoothly that I can keep something in frame. I had to get out of Beginner Mode. OMG, this thing is fast. I lost time trying to find how to get the Mavic Air to do one of those automatic flight modes. I tried the “Helix” mode. That was cool. I like the preview you can see just before you select the mode. Highlighted myself and then hit GO. THAT WAS AWESOME!

So what should I do now that I’m home???
Charge the controller again? CHECK
Charge all the batteries again? CHECK
How about the drone? Should I clean the props? Is there a special solution I should use to clean the device?

There is video on the device and SD card. I’m wondering if need to have a battery in the drone to access the data and transfer it to my computer.

It was a good morning. Nobody harassed me and I had life all to myself for a couple hours. Of course, with all my effort put into making sure that I was flying legally I was a bit worried that 10 police cars would show up in the middle of nowhere to find a drone. Do I even show up on anybody’s radar flying so low?

Sorry, I don’t have the video ready. After this blog, I will get to moving the pics and videos to share. It’s all raw video though. I saved these pics on my phone for now.

So what should I do about the IPhone battery issue? Should I use my iiPad PRO ( WiFi only ). It has a strong battery. Is there anything I can buy to hold the iPad in place so I can operate the controller naturally?

Thanks for reading. I didn’t crash and it didn’t fly away. Good start?View attachment 70008View attachment 70009

Very nice! Yea sounds like it was a very good first flight! (I crashed on my first flight because I couldn’t wait and decided to fly at night for my first, not a good idea).

Yes you were range limited by being in beginner mode. That’s a designed function limiting the drone to 50 meters from the home point. Turning off beginner mode will allow you go in excess of 5000 meters assuming there’s not obstacles between you and the drone. You can programmatically set a max distance if you like however in the main controller settings of the app once you are out of beginner mode.

As for the iPhones battery I think it’s an issue most people have to deal with. There are holders for a larger iPad yes it does make the iPad a bit unwieldily however. There are pros and cons to each. There is a setting though you can change to reduce the power consumption on the app. It’s in the main settings of the app called “cache videos while recording.” This is what makes the videos save to your phone without having to download them to your phone. Turning this setting off will greatly improve battery life but you will have to download the videos to a computer after the flight. The videos it automatically downloads to your phone are low quality so downloading them after the flight at home gets you the best quality videos anyway. I understand while it’s so new it’s nice having them right away.

To download the videos that are on the internal SD card it will need to be turned on. For those on the SD card that’s removable you can remove the card and insert into a card reader.

 

[SpinRush]

Let's see what it recorded. It was really fun and I enjoyed being outside again. This is definitely going to change where I go and what I do with my free time.

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[WAXMAN]

Let's see what it recorded. It was really fun and I enjoyed being outside again. This is definitely going to change where I go and what I do with my free time.

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Nice Job SpinRush! Thanks for sharing.