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Mini 2 Crash - New Pilot - Unsure of Cause

The three most important things to flying are altitude, altitude and altitude. Not many trees at 200 feet. If you find yourself into questionable flying is to STOP. Look at all of the readouts on your controller and the map at the bottom left (on mine) will show you what direction you are facing.
 
Forward/backward are still forward/backward which ever way the drone is facing unless something like course/home lock is enabled and I am not sure if the mini 2 has that function in the FLY App. I think I have seen it in Litchi but not in the Fly App.

Not so there @Yorkshire_Pud .... it depends on how the person is "interpreting" the drones orientation. If the drone is pointing at you and you have not yet obtained that "mystical" mindset where you're always thinking FROM the drone's perspective, forward and backward are indeed reversed just as much as left & right are.

I've trained many R/c pilots over the years and some "Get it" quicker than others and until you do, nose in flight can be very confusing.

Good luck @tekgirl02 and when you get it back practice in a wide open are that allows for mistakes and confusion. I've got some training exercises that will help build that into your muscle memory if you need any help.
 
The three most important things to flying are altitude, altitude and altitude. Not many trees at 200 feet. If you find yourself into questionable flying is to STOP. Look at all of the readouts on your controller and the map at the bottom left (on mine) will show you what direction you are facing.
Great advice! Looking at the map for directional point is something I didn't think of - thank you!
 
Not so there @Yorkshire_Pud .... it depends on how the person is "interpreting" the drones orientation. If the drone is pointing at you and you have not yet obtained that "mystical" mindset where you're always thinking FROM the drone's perspective, forward and backward are indeed reversed just as much as left & right are.

I've trained many R/c pilots over the years and some "Get it" quicker than others and until you do, nose in flight can be very confusing.

Good luck @tekgirl02 and when you get it back practice in a wide open are that allows for mistakes and confusion. I've got some training exercises that will help build that into your muscle memory if you need any help.
@BigAl0 A you are spot on - that was my issue! I would love some training exercises - anything that helps would be perfect. I think part of the issue may also be that I was hit by a car while walking a year ago and had a brain bleed, causing a TBI. I'm getting better, but still have lingering issues, so any help would be most welcome - thank you!
 
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Yes most likely...I was having trouble with that the entire time...
I had that same thought.

When I first started flying the Mini-2, I underestimated how vastly different "reverse flying" is, in terms of your natural eye-finger coordination. In "reverse flying", your strong natural inclination is to do the wrong thing. I had one crash (non-fatal to the drone), and a bunch of close calls that resulted from this early on.

It does get better. I still have to flip the mental switch when I'm flying in reverse mode, but once I've done that, it works.

I have three suggestions for skill development, all of which I employed for myself to good advantage:

1) Fly a lot. Then fly some more. Then...

2) Buy a Snaptain H823H micro drone to practice. They're cheap, 23 bucks on Amazon the last time I bought one as a gift a few weeks ago. You can practice reverse flying (and sideways flying, and...) indoors to build both your skill and confidence. The H823H is nearly indestructible and non-destructive. You can bang it into stuff indoors all day long, and you damage neither it nor what you bang it into. Besides, this would give you something to fly until your Mini gets back from the Drone Hospital... ;-)

3) Pilot Institute has a course on basic maneuvers. Take it! They also have a "Deep Dive" course for the Mini-2, which is free, and worth every minute of the time you spend watching it.

Hope this helps!

:cool:

MM
 
@BigAl0 A you are spot on - that was my issue! I would love some training exercises - anything that helps would be perfect. I think part of the issue may also be that I was hit by a car while walking a year ago and had a brain bleed, causing a TBI. I'm getting better, but still have lingering issues, so any help would be most welcome - thank you!

So sorry to hear about your accident but KUDOS to you for not letting that keep you down. Keep on working at it and getting better and feeling better day by day.

I'll send you a PM with some suggestions.

Allen
 
So sorry to hear about your accident but KUDOS to you for not letting that keep you down. Keep on working at it and getting better and feeling better day by day.

I'll send you a PM with some suggestions.

Allen
Thank you so much, Allen! Much appreciated 😍
 
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I had that same thought.

When I first started flying the Mini-2, I underestimated how vastly different "reverse flying" is, in terms of your natural eye-finger coordination. In "reverse flying", your strong natural inclination is to do the wrong thing. I had one crash (non-fatal to the drone), and a bunch of close calls that resulted from this early on.

It does get better. I still have to flip the mental switch when I'm flying in reverse mode, but once I've done that, it works.

I have three suggestions for skill development, all of which I employed for myself to good advantage:

1) Fly a lot. Then fly some more. Then...

2) Buy a Snaptain H823H micro drone to practice. They're cheap, 23 bucks on Amazon the last time I bought one as a gift a few weeks ago. You can practice reverse flying (and sideways flying, and...) indoors to build both your skill and confidence. The H823H is nearly indestructible and non-destructive. You can bang it into stuff indoors all day long, and you damage neither it nor what you bang it into. Besides, this would give you something to fly until your Mini gets back from the Drone Hospital... ;-)

3) Pilot Institute has a course on basic maneuvers. Take it! They also have a "Deep Dive" course for the Mini-2, which is free, and worth every minute of the time you spend watching it.

Hope this helps!

:cool:

MM
Thank you for the suggestions! I definitely need to fly more! I've watched those videos abd will watch them again...I'll take a look at that cheapie drone abd fly it inside - good idea!
 
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Lots of great input here that I won't repeat.

One thing I'll add is that VLOS doesn't mean you have to have your eyeballs on the drone the entire time you are flying. It is OK look at your display for the video display of where you are heading, for the telemetry to see how high you are, to see how much battery you have left, etc. Trying to see from the ground if you are high enough to get above trees is really hard, if not impossible, to judge. Your camera and altitude indicator on the display will give you a far more accurate idea.

For VLOS, you need to have the drone in range where it can be seen by the pilot in command with the unaided eye (no binoculars). If you look away (like at your display), that's OK as long as you can easily locate the drone VLOS again when you look up.

This took me a while to get used to because I was so used to strictly VLOS flying. I also had to develop trust in the drone and its capabilities.

A great thing about these DJI drones is that if you let go of the sticks, it will just hang out there. So if things seem to start going south, just let go of the sticks, take a deep breath, and assess the situation.

Happy flying!
 
Lots of great input here that I won't repeat.

One thing I'll add is that VLOS doesn't mean you have to have your eyeballs on the drone the entire time you are flying. It is OK look at your display for the video display of where you are heading, for the telemetry to see how high you are, to see how much battery you have left, etc. Trying to see from the ground if you are high enough to get above trees is really hard, if not impossible, to judge. Your camera and altitude indicator on the display will give you a far more accurate idea.

For VLOS, you need to have the drone in range where it can be seen by the pilot in command with the unaided eye (no binoculars). If you look away (like at your display), that's OK as long as you can easily locate the drone VLOS again when you look up.

This took me a while to get used to because I was so used to strictly VLOS flying. I also had to develop trust in the drone and its capabilities.

A great thing about these DJI drones is that if you let go of the sticks, it will just hang out there. So if things seem to start going south, just let go of the sticks, take a deep breath, and assess the situation.

Happy flying!
Thank you! I think I need to fly more and get used to looking at the drone and then at the screen. I do let it hover when I'm making changes to the camera or video settings, but sometimes I lose track of the drone and can't see it - that happened several times yesterday and the day before...
 
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Not so there @Yorkshire_Pud .... it depends on how the person is "interpreting" the drones orientation.

Interesting and given what you say, correct.
The odd thing is, when nose in, I have never mixed forwards/backwards up BUT I constantly mix up left/right up, even when I am thinking about it.
If I want a chance of getting it right I literally have to stop and say to myself "I want to go to the drone's left/right", even then a fair proportion of the time my fingers move the wrong way.
As a consequence I never land nose in, I always turn it and land nose pointing away.
 
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Interesting and given what you say, correct.
The odd thing is, when nose in, I have never mixed forwards/backwards up BUT I constantly mix up left/right up, even when I am thinking about it.
If I want a chance of getting it right I literally have to stop and say to myself "I want to go to the drone's left/right", even then a fair proportion of the time my fingers move the wrong way.
As a consequence I never land nose in, I always turn it and land nose pointing away.


One good "Training Tool" to help with Nose In flight is to partially turn your body "away " from the aircraft and look over your shoulder at the aircraft. This puts your body and the aircraft into the same position which helps with "Nose In" control confusion.

Most people will get an AH HA moment after several hours of flight and won't have to think about Nose In much more going forward.
 
One good "Training Tool" to help with Nose In flight is to partially turn your body "away " from the aircraft and look over your shoulder at the aircraft. This puts your body and the aircraft into the same position which helps with "Nose In" control confusion.

Most people will get an AH HA moment after several hours of flight and won't have to think about Nose In much more going forward.
And here I thought I was the only one having all these confusion issues 😉
 
And here I thought I was the only one having all these confusion issues 😉
No ma'am, you are not alone!

Sometimes still when I think I've 'got it', I find out I don't!

Happy flying, may you have blue skies and calm winds.
 
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A tip that I found helpful was to switch controller mode to something more familiar to me. It turns out that Mode 3 controls the aircraft almost identically to video games I played in my misspent youth. Switching to Mode 3 from Mode 2 made it easier for me to control the aircraft correctly in stressful situations.

YMMV, of course.
 
A tip that I found helpful was to switch controller mode to something more familiar to me. It turns out that Mode 3 controls the aircraft almost identically to video games I played in my misspent youth. Switching to Mode 3 from Mode 2 made it easier for me to control the aircraft correctly in stressful situations.

YMMV, of course.
Ah I never was any good at video games! I hope that's not an omen 😉
 
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Forward/backward are still forward/backward which ever way the drone is facing unless something like course/home lock is enabled and I am not sure if the mini 2 has that function in the FLY App. I think I have seen it in Litchi but not in the Fly App.
No, they're also "reversed" from the viewpoint of the operator.

If the drone is facing away from you and you press the right stick forward the drone moves away from you.

If the drone is facing toward you and you press the right stick forward the drone moves toward you.
 
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No, they're also "reversed" from the viewpoint of the operator.

If the drone is facing away from you and you press the right stick forward the drone moves away from you.

If the drone is facing toward you and you press the right stick forward the drone moves toward you.
As BigAl07 has already pointed out in post #22 and was acknowledged in post #32.
 
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