I flew my M2P for the first time yesterday. Because I live within 2 miles of a military air station, I can't do any practice flying at my home and have to search for an open area further away, the nearest being about 15-20 minute drive (backroads). Because it was the weekend, all local parks were packed and I didn't feel comfortable flying my very first drone ever around people. So I found a mostly empty middle school parking lot (I was surprised that there were several people just hanging out in their cars at the school on a Sunday, and others going into the school) and setup my base ops at the front of the school.
Spent about 20 minutes practicing take off, flying around the parking lot, then landing. Repeat and rinse.
My first impressions: It was a great learning experience punctuated with absolute terror of losing the aircraft. I tried keeping constant Visual Line-Of-Sight, but lost track of the drone for a few moments when I was concentrating on the screen and practicing tilting the camera up and down while having the aircraft fly forward; I nearly panicked until I visually located the aircraft.
With the panic attack averted, I tried practicing the RTH procedure but couldn't get it to work. I'd press the RTH button on the Smart Controller both briefly and held down for a moment but couldn't get the RTH function to initiate. It was a bright, sunny day so pulling up the manual on my iPhone was difficult to read, especially with far-sighted vision that even my generic reading glasses was hard to read the small iPhone screen.
So I gave up on the RTH for now and continued practicing my launching, circling the lot, then landing. The problem with the school parking lot was the numerous very tall light posts which limited the ability to conduct more aggressive maneuvers at a comfortable (for me) low height.
The bright sun also made it difficult to clearly see the terrain on the Smart Controller screen and I tried to bring up the Settings section to adjust brightness, but couldn't figure out how to get to the correct section; I had initially set the screen to adjust brightness automatically, but to me it just wasn't bright enough. Again, reading the manual in the bright day on my iPhone was too difficult so I continued ops as is. I definitely have to practice navigating to different sections of DJI Go 4.
Once the battery level dropped below 20%, I decided to call it a day even though I had two extra fully-charged batteries on-hand. Since I couldn't initiate the RTH on my own, I felt uneasy continuing flight ops with low battery power.
Getting home, I studied up on the RTH and it should be setup automatically when I launch and hover for a moment (which I always did yesterday). The manual is not so clear in the matter, but it seems I have to hold down the RTH until a message pops up to confirm the procedure, yes?
According to my flight logs, I hit a height of 293ft (AGL?) and 29 MPH during my session.
For my next session, I want to practice RTH procedures, taking videos and photos, and various Intelligent Flight Modes. I also want to bring a spotter to allow me to start concentrating on watching the screen; I presently don't feel comfortable enough losing sight of the drone.
Spent about 20 minutes practicing take off, flying around the parking lot, then landing. Repeat and rinse.
My first impressions: It was a great learning experience punctuated with absolute terror of losing the aircraft. I tried keeping constant Visual Line-Of-Sight, but lost track of the drone for a few moments when I was concentrating on the screen and practicing tilting the camera up and down while having the aircraft fly forward; I nearly panicked until I visually located the aircraft.
With the panic attack averted, I tried practicing the RTH procedure but couldn't get it to work. I'd press the RTH button on the Smart Controller both briefly and held down for a moment but couldn't get the RTH function to initiate. It was a bright, sunny day so pulling up the manual on my iPhone was difficult to read, especially with far-sighted vision that even my generic reading glasses was hard to read the small iPhone screen.
So I gave up on the RTH for now and continued practicing my launching, circling the lot, then landing. The problem with the school parking lot was the numerous very tall light posts which limited the ability to conduct more aggressive maneuvers at a comfortable (for me) low height.
The bright sun also made it difficult to clearly see the terrain on the Smart Controller screen and I tried to bring up the Settings section to adjust brightness, but couldn't figure out how to get to the correct section; I had initially set the screen to adjust brightness automatically, but to me it just wasn't bright enough. Again, reading the manual in the bright day on my iPhone was too difficult so I continued ops as is. I definitely have to practice navigating to different sections of DJI Go 4.
Once the battery level dropped below 20%, I decided to call it a day even though I had two extra fully-charged batteries on-hand. Since I couldn't initiate the RTH on my own, I felt uneasy continuing flight ops with low battery power.
Getting home, I studied up on the RTH and it should be setup automatically when I launch and hover for a moment (which I always did yesterday). The manual is not so clear in the matter, but it seems I have to hold down the RTH until a message pops up to confirm the procedure, yes?
According to my flight logs, I hit a height of 293ft (AGL?) and 29 MPH during my session.
For my next session, I want to practice RTH procedures, taking videos and photos, and various Intelligent Flight Modes. I also want to bring a spotter to allow me to start concentrating on watching the screen; I presently don't feel comfortable enough losing sight of the drone.
