How many here dont know how to fly?

[G Saunders]

My experience is that sitting in a seat behind a windshield for 40 years probably made it harder for me to control a drone in sight, especially when it was heading toward me. I had to repeat simple, precise patterns like fly out and back in crosswinds, fly circles around a post in the breeze, and trace lines on a soccer field to get the 'haptic memory', aka eye/hand coordination to always push the stick the correct way. Flying FPV out of the box is easy and does nothing to develop skills needed to fly in tight places with the drone in sight, where it will be when I get it into trouble...

 

[Droning on and on...]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

looking over my old vids

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Droning on and on...]

I'm trying to determine the purpose of this OP.

I speak English as a first language and can't decipher this thing.

Its about being superior to other people, and talking down to them.

We get a thread like this every 6 months or so... have some fun with it

 

[Droning on and on...]

The thing that took me the longest to adjust to when flying a stabilized camera drone is that when you push the stick forward, the drone doesn't go into a dive. It just slides forward at the same altitude. Same with pulling the stick back, it doesn't pull it out of a dive, it just slides straight backward.

It can move forward/back and side-to-side in any direction, all while holding the same height. If you want to up or down, that's all controlled by the throttle stick. It takes a while to figure out how to smoothly combine those.

And then there's rudder (yaw)...

I'm old school, and have been coordinating turns with roll+yaw since I started flying drones over a decade ago, left over from flying RC helis (and 152s as well, I suppose ).

It really irritated me back when the Air 2 came out and DJI added auto-coordination when turning just with yaw. Effed-up all my muscle memory.

They seem to have dropped it somewhere between the A2 and the release of the A3, cause it feels "right" again with that drone.

Its not a "bad" feature... just something that should be selectable, for those of us that would rather manage that ourselves.

 

[Zbip57]

I'm old school, and have been coordinating turns with roll+yaw since I started flying drones over a decade ago, left over from flying RC helis (and 152s as well, I suppose ).

Pushing forward to dive, or pulling back to climb, that doesn't work at all. But it's trying to coordinate turns that took me the longest to adjust too. It's just so completely different than flying fixed wing.

Ken Heron has lots of videos on, "I fought the yaw, but the yaw won..."

 

[finity]

Pushing forward to dive, or pulling back to climb, that doesn't work at all.

Unless of course you're running an Avata 2 with the Motion Controller.

It's not "real" FPV but I like it. It's what I can imagine an airplane control stick acts like.

 

[hank970]

Maybe more like helicopter controls than fixed wing, the right stick behaving like a cyclic and the left like a compound (only backwards) combined with rudder pedals? When I first started flying, not too many months ago, the action of the left stick seemed counterintuitive to me, pushing forward to climb and pulling back to descend. Quite the opposite to the stick or yoke in any fixed wing craft or simulator.

 

[Zarro]

Many on this forum are simply photographers and will Never take the Drone off of a "mode", So they will never really learn to fly a Drone. In a mode you are simply directing the Drone where to fly with the remote you are not really flying it.
EDIT: I would say to these members that taking the time to learn and experiment with RATES will boost your flying abilities to new levels! a majority of people skip this part and its really the most important for anyone who flys RC.

Too much truth there.
If you want to get a feel for flying, find a used quad-copter RC model (not a drone). The first thing you note on your first takeoff is that it will immediately start running with whatever wind or breeze is present. Holding it in one place is work and requires constant corrections. The hover-in-place technology in the drones amazed me the first time I saw one instantly adjust for the wind. I still am impressed on breezy days, when I can hear the Mavic Air 2 making continuous, quick adjustments to stay where I parked it.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Maybe more like helicopter controls than fixed wing, the right stick behaving like a cyclic and the left like a compound (only backwards) combined with rudder pedals? When I first started flying, not too many months ago, the action of the left stick seemed counterintuitive to me, pushing forward to climb and pulling back to descend. Quite the opposite to the stick or yoke in any fixed wing craft or simulator.

The reason for this is obscure to most DJI pilots who've never flown manual.

In FPV drones in "manual" mode, the left stick up/down is a true throttle, where position maps to rpm. This is why for manual mode the left stick vertical movement is modified to be unsprung so it stays where you put it and doesn't recenter.

As drones evolved, more and more tech was added to make flying easier, and "angle mode" was invented as a new way to command the drone. This has come so far now that the Flight Controller in the drone does all the hard work, while the sticks have become very indirect control, rather specifying a proportional percentage of max speed over the ground, and whether to ascend or descend, rather than controlling the attitude of the aircraft.

The FC controls pitch and roll angles, and throttle, to achieve the speed over the ground you are commanding with stick position, and holding altitude or ascending/descending based on stick input.

Only yaw works the way it always has from the very beginning of RC quads.

To learn the fullest, most "native" flight experience, you must fly in "rate mode" (Manual on DJI drones).

The good news is you don't have to drop some bank on an Avata 2 + FPV RC2... just download the DJI simulator (free), select the Avata 2, put it in Manual, and start crashing!

 

[Evan03]

I definitely dont think im better than amyone else. Yes i can fly but that doesnt make me better.
This was merely and observation and was curious how many other's have exsperince flying things that dont fly themselves.

Im actually worried if the fly itself part. Figure ill get programming wrong ir do something to cause it to crash cause the sticks quit work cause i messed up some flight mode thing.

This topic seems pretty popular and interesting to bd coming up every siz months. Seems it would get old replying to it.

Yes English is the hardest language.

 

[moldorf]

Its about being superior to other people, and talking down to them.

We get a thread like this every 6 months or so... have some fun with it

well, I guess if you can actually fly you could talk down to people all the time!

 

[Zbip57]

I'm actually worried of the fly itself part.

When it's time for your first flight, find a wide open field with plenty of space. Use slow small stick inputs until you're familiar with how it works. Experiment with the various modes in a safe environment where you have time to react to anything unexpected.

Do NOT try to fly it for the first time inside your living room! Things can go wrong very quickly if you don't have enough time to think. There are plenty of Youtube examples of that happening.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I definitely dont think im better than amyone else. Yes i can fly but that doesnt make me better.

What elicited my attitude in this thread is the basic question, "what does it mean to 'know how to fly'?"...

Like you, I'm a long ago electric RC helicopter pilot, including 3D (which compared to the skilled dudes, I was a piker ). I've been flying quads for over a decade. FPV "manual" about 4 years. I do acro. Was cliff-soaring a Gentle Lady in Half Moon Bay 40 years ago. Heck, I guess I've been flying 55 years going back to that fly-by-wire gas engine U-control... round and round and round!

I list all this not to boast, but to give credence to the idea that maybe I "can fly".

Yet the pilot on their 3rd flight trying to orient the drone while flying towards themselves, making mistakes, yawing left when the should right because it's "backwards" is flying too. Just not as well, or as smoothly as I do. They'll get there.

Coming out of the gate saying some people less skilled than you "can't fly", or "aren't pilots" (we've seen that one too) are insulting the new folk among us. We should be welcoming, encouraging, and happy to have a new member of the community.

No skill test required around here to be able to fly, or be a pilot. We're all members of the club, some of us just more skilled.

 

[Max Headroom]

Coming out of the gate saying some people less skilled than you "can't fly", or "aren't pilots" (we've seen that one too) are insulting the new folk among us. We should be welcoming, encouraging, and happy to have a new member of the community.

No skill test required around here to be able to fly, or be a pilot. We're all members of the club, some of us just more skilled.

Well said.

I didn't buy my drone with the intention of one day dragging on a forum that i was one of the best pilots around as that would make me an egotistical ***** i bought it because i had seem many videos on YouTube and wanted to try making them myself and i am glad i did.

 

[Torque]

LOL, I remember back in the Phantom 1 days when this forum was brand new, I suggested pilots learn to fly patterns like circles, squares, ovals, etc. and I was met with a lot of arguments from forum members who claimed the Phantom was "an out and back unit" and claimed there was no need to learn to "do fancy moves like circles."
Coming from an RC background I couldn't fathom that attitude. I continued to hone my flying skills as I realized there were 2 types of pilots: Those who fly to fly and photographers who fly to capture images. I'm still a pilot who flies to fly while having a bird's eye view. I'm probably a better pilot than many here, but when it comes to photography, I suck. Auto settings all the way! Once in a while simply by chance I capture a cool shot or nice video and save them, but I'm just here to fly! I don't consider myself to be better because I think I fly better, the fact that I have this technology to take some great images and don't bother to develop that skill just makes me another buffoon with a drone.

If you want to learn to fly - get an Avata!