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First Two Flights Are Done !!

Willllburrrr

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Aug 29, 2017
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It took a little while from day of arrival to the first flight, work gets in the way far too often but yesterday was the day . Did a bunch of reading and printing up the manuals and yesterday the maiden voyage was done. To say it was a lot of fun is an understatement along with being nervous but beginner mode makes a ton of difference starting out. Second flight was today and took a few pictures, now to figure out how to get them onto my PC. Tomorrow we venture out of beginner mode ?.
 
It took a little while from day of arrival to the first flight, work gets in the way far too often but yesterday was the day . Did a bunch of reading and printing up the manuals and yesterday the maiden voyage was done. To say it was a lot of fun is an understatement along with being nervous but beginner mode makes a ton of difference starting out. Second flight was today and took a few pictures, now to figure out how to get them onto my PC. Tomorrow we venture out of beginner mode [emoji16].

Great to see you’ve taken your first tentative steps but don’t quit Beginner mode to soon. Get plenty of practice with manoeuvring away and especially towards you. Practice manual landings and smooth flight movements.

Once you’re confident make sure you fully understand the RTH (Return To Home) function, this trips up a lot of people, even experienced ones, in a panic when something unexpected or unplanned happens. This should include making sure you have the RTH Height set appropriate to your surroundings - how high are surrounding trees that you need to clear. RTH can automatically be triggered with loss of signal for example so make sure you’re read up and understanding these circumstances.

Most importantly are preflight checks, which should include checking all propellers are in good condition and securely attached, battery has plenty of capacity, the surroundings are safe to fly in - clear of No Flight Zones etc.

Always, always check your compass heading on your controller matches the physical orientation of the aircraft. You will find people on the forum who didn’t check or unaware they should check that got into a whole lot of grief when their aircraft didn’t do what they were expecting. No need to be worried or nervous, just make sure to check before every flight and it will become routine.

I would strongly recommend a search in the forum for ‘pre-flight’ or ‘checklist’ for best practice.

Above all, relax, fly safe and enjoy!
 
Welcome to the hobby!

It took a little while from day of arrival to the first flight, work gets in the way far too often but yesterday was the day . Did a bunch of reading and printing up the manuals and yesterday the maiden voyage was done. To say it was a lot of fun is an understatement along with being nervous but beginner mode makes a ton of difference starting out. Second flight was today and took a few pictures, now to figure out how to get them onto my PC. Tomorrow we venture out of beginner mode ?.

You need either a card reader or and adapter if your PC has a standard SD port. The one that I have and recommend is this one:
Multi-type Card Reader
This one takes just about any card you have and can even transfer data between two different cards that are installed on the reader.

Beginner mode is great if you've never flown before. Once your hands are trained so that movements become more instinctual then remove the beginner mode. You can always use the tripod mode to keep things under control. Also, practice ( a lot) with the drone facing you. All the stick motions are backwards when it faces you. And something else you may want to consider is putting a light (perhaps a strobe or strobes) on the front of your drone so you know when it's facing you. I started with a cheap LED light on top facing forward and ultimately progressed to 3 strobes; one on the bottom and colored ones on the front arms. I find them extremely helpful.
 
Great to see you’ve taken your first tentative steps but don’t quit Beginner mode to soon. Get plenty of practice with manoeuvring away and especially towards you. Practice manual landings and smooth flight movements.

Once you’re confident make sure you fully understand the RTH (Return To Home) function, this trips up a lot of people, even experienced ones, in a panic when something unexpected or unplanned happens. This should include making sure you have the RTH Height set appropriate to your surroundings - how high are surrounding trees that you need to clear. RTH can automatically be triggered with loss of signal for example so make sure you’re read up and understanding these circumstances.

Most importantly are preflight checks, which should include checking all propellers are in good condition and securely attached, battery has plenty of capacity, the surroundings are safe to fly in - clear of No Flight Zones etc.

Always, always check your compass heading on your controller matches the physical orientation of the aircraft. You will find people on the forum who didn’t check or unaware they should check that got into a whole lot of grief when their aircraft didn’t do what they were expecting. No need to be worried or nervous, just make sure to check before every flight and it will become routine.

I would strongly recommend a search in the forum for ‘pre-flight’ or ‘checklist’ for best practice.

Above all, relax, fly safe and enjoy!


I haven't completely left Beginner mode yet, where I'm flying it's wide open space so I have plenty of room but beginner is where I'll stay for now but I would like to see how tripod works and start learning the different settings in the controller. I can see it will take awhile getting use to the controls and also finding the different settings in the smart controller. Thanks for the tips on RTH, preflight, and compass heading. I need to do more reading on the compass heading for sure.
 
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welcome aboard and congrats.....get a SD card it makes life ez. I use a small plastic spatula from a expoxy pack to press the card in and out


Got the SD card when I purchased the drone, found my pictures with my PC last night, was just a matter of finding where they were on the card. It is a pain in the *** inserting/removing that little thing.
 
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Welcome to the hobby!



You need either a card reader or and adapter if your PC has a standard SD port. The one that I have and recommend is this one:
Multi-type Card Reader
This one takes just about any card you have and can even transfer data between two different cards that are installed on the reader.

Beginner mode is great if you've never flown before. Once your hands are trained so that movements become more instinctual then remove the beginner mode. You can always use the tripod mode to keep things under control. Also, practice ( a lot) with the drone facing you. All the stick motions are backwards when it faces you. And something else you may want to consider is putting a light (perhaps a strobe or strobes) on the front of your drone so you know when it's facing you. I started with a cheap LED light on top facing forward and ultimately progressed to 3 strobes; one on the bottom and colored ones on the front arms. I find them extremely helpful.

That's a pretty nice card reader, I have one but it's not that nice. Practice..practice.. practice...that's what I'm all about. Got a ways to go before I'm comfortable for sure. I'm a bit confused as to why I should practice with the drone facing me as it seems to me like that would confuse the hell out of me with the controls reversed.
 
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I'm a bit confused as to why I should practice with the drone facing me as it seems to me like that would confuse the hell out of me with the controls reversed.
When your drone is returning towards you it should always have the camera facing in the same direction. As a result your flight controls for yaw (left and right) will be reversed. It is a necessary skill to master to remain in control at all times. It is confusing but it will get you out of a heap of trouble if you approach an object returning towards you and you move in the wrong direction. There’s also the lack of depth perception within the 3D space and objects can appear much sooner than you anticipate requiring fast actions to avoid a collision.

You won’t always be flying in wide open spaces.
 
It took a little while from day of arrival to the first flight, work gets in the way far too often but yesterday was the day . Did a bunch of reading and printing up the manuals and yesterday the maiden voyage was done. To say it was a lot of fun is an understatement along with being nervous but beginner mode makes a ton of difference starting out. Second flight was today and took a few pictures, now to figure out how to get them onto my PC. Tomorrow we venture out of beginner mode ?.

Congratulations on your purchase! Did you pick a M2Z as a first purchase into this hobby? Not that one couldn't learn on it, but If so I concur with others...stick in beginner mode for a bit and trust the post with learning to fly at all angles. You must develop the skill set and brain meld for manual flight, as said you could get into trouble pretty fast. Trust me with a bit of practice and more practice your hands will do what your eyes see automatically and adjust correctly..Best of luck to you...I got a great deal on a M2Z and SC, open box but new for $1500 so jumped on it. I have been flying R/C for over 30 years and Quads for over 4. The M2Z is my new baby and I love the darn thing...Happy Landings :) My first maiden after a few yard hops basically out of box no adjustments (Well RTH Height :)):

 
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Got the SD card when I purchased the drone, found my pictures with my PC last night, was just a matter of finding where they were on the card. It is a pain in the *** inserting/removing that little thing.

That's a pretty nice card reader, I have one but it's not that nice. Practice..practice.. practice...that's what I'm all about. Got a ways to go before I'm comfortable for sure. I'm a bit confused as to why I should practice with the drone facing me as it seems to me like that would confuse the hell out of me with the controls reversed.

Unlike an airplane which only moves (mostly) foward a drone is designed to fly forwards, backwards and sideways and variations in between. As @SkyeHigh said, the drone is going to be facing you if you are doing an auto RTH. And like he said, you won't always be flying in wide open spaces and in beginner mode. You're luckier than most beginners to have obstacle avoidance, but that just keeps you crashing into things (usually). Also, you'll find yourself flying sideways or maybe even "crabbing" (sort of flying back (or forward) and sideways at the same time. A good exercise is getting out into a large open field and practice flying "figure 8's". If you don't restrict yourself to just flying forward, with a little bit of practice the moves will become automatic, not unlike learning to play a musical instrument.
 
Hi Willllburrrr. I use a Samsung Note 9+ . I sync the gallery with the cache on the DJI GO 4 app which in turn is synced with all my other devices and the cloud, so there's no need to mess with the sd card.
 
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Hi Willllburrrr. I use a Samsung Note 9+ . I sync the gallery with the cache on the DJI GO 4 app which in turn is synced with all my other devices and the cloud, so there's no need to mess with the sd card.


Those would all be low definition though would they not? You still need the SDCard for the real footage/keepers? Not big on Sync world and cloud stuff though. I'm old fashion and pull SD and stick it in laptop much quicker that I have found.
 
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Probably not the top definition, but good enough for my needs. I mostly edit in the app then sync. Lazy but quick and easy, and as I say, it suits me as a total photography dumpling.
 
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It took a little while from day of arrival to the first flight, work gets in the way far too often but yesterday was the day . Did a bunch of reading and printing up the manuals and yesterday the maiden voyage was done. To say it was a lot of fun is an understatement along with being nervous but beginner mode makes a ton of difference starting out. Second flight was today and took a few pictures, now to figure out how to get them onto my PC. Tomorrow we venture out of beginner mode ?.
Slow and steady wins the race.
 
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Congratulations on your purchase! Did you pick a M2Z as a first purchase into this hobby? Not that one couldn't learn on it, but If so I concur with others...stick in beginner mode for a bit and trust the post with learning to fly at all angles. You must develop the skill set and brain meld for manual flight, as said you could get into trouble pretty fast. Trust me with a bit of practice and more practice your hands will do what your eyes see automatically and adjust correctly..Best of luck to you...I got a great deal on a M2Z and SC, open box but new for $1500 so jumped on it. I have been flying R/C for over 30 years and Quads for over 4. The M2Z is my new baby and I love the darn thing...Happy Landings :) My first maiden after a few yard hops basically out of box no adjustments (Well RTH Height :)):


Technically speaking ?my 1st drone was one of those mini drones made by Cheerson for $20... when I first joined the sight a few years ago someone on here said to start with one of those as the operation of the control sticks are very similar to the mavic. This will be a work in progress for me but I look at it long term as something to learn that will be a lot of fun. I'll stick to beginner mode for the most part for now and venture into tripod carefully. As someone new to this hobby I'm amazed at the capabilities of the M2Z and the amount of info a new guy like me needed to read. I'll get their, as I tell guys at my job...no hurry..no worry.
 
When your drone is returning towards you it should always have the camera facing in the same direction. As a result your flight controls for yaw (left and right) will be reversed. It is a necessary skill to master to remain in control at all times. It is confusing but it will get you out of a heap of trouble if you approach an object returning towards you and you move in the wrong direction. There’s also the lack of depth perception within the 3D space and objects can appear much sooner than you anticipate requiring fast actions to avoid a collision.

You won’t always be flying in wide open spaces.


OK...I get it, going to take some work learning that but I'll get it.
 
Willllburrrr I was a sixty odd old drone virgin when I bought my M2Z. Like all virgins go slow and easy - pick up the pace when you're comfortable with the feel. Seriously good bit of kit .
 
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