My First Drone

[Drone Zone]

Hi What is the best way to learn to fly. Beginners mode obviously, but what other settings should I adopt for safety sake. I do have a garden which 7 x 6 metres but confused whether I should try fly indoors first - just want to get used to controls and settings before going into wide open spaces. Eg can i connect smart phone purely as an visual aid for taking pictures and fly purely by the controller. Hoping for advice please.

 

[droneworx]

Honestly if I was brand brand new to drones, as in you've never touched a control stick on a drone, I might even take it down a notch from beginner mode to tripod mode for awhile till you at least got used to the controls. Tripod mode makes it ridiculously slow, and it gives you enough time to think if it's moving in a direction you don't like to correct. I've flown drones for years and own several others, and I still flew in tripod mode for a few days after I got my mavic just so I can make sure I'm good with the dynamics of the mavic compared to my p3 and yuneec. It's the only way I will let my 9 year old fly my mavic. Then if you want to take some extra caution get some prop guards.

 

[msinger]

Flying indoors is a really bad idea -- unless you're flying inside of a large warehouse/gymnasium. Stick to flying outside in a wide open area that is free of all obstacles. Once you master that location, you can move on to other locations like your 7 x 6 meter garden.

 

[AlwaysAWOL]

+1 on not flying indoors, too easy to crash while getting used to the controls. Also recommend a pre-flight checklist. Search the forum, should be a few posted; first flights are a little nerve racking and it's easy to forget gimbal clamps and to look up for wires and overhanging branches; it will save you! It's so easy to fly, but like driving a vehicle, things can go wrong quickly if you're not paying attention!

 

[BorisTheSpider]

Flying indoors is a terrible idea as others have said. I have flown other drones so I can fly in basic atti mode, plus I have prop guards if I wanted them, and I _still_ wouldn't fly indoors for fun/practise but only if I really wanted to get a shot inside a building. I have done that once, everything was fine, but it requires care and particularly requires RTH set to hover.

Your garden should be OK, but frankly if this is your first quadcopter I'd actually go to a much bigger space first, and fly initially in tripod mode as others suggested, because what you really want to do is build some muscle memory and reflexes in terms of what the sticks do, particularly when the drone is facing either towards you or sideways - it's easy to intuitively move the right stick correctly when the quad is facing "forwards" away from you, because left is left, forward is forward etc, but once those directions are no longer referenced to you but to the mavic, add a dose of panic and haste and you could make a wrong control input.

None of this is intended to overstate the difficulty - it's very easy to fly the mavic, and within a couple of hours you'll be much more comfortable, but for the very first couple of flights it would be the lowest stress situation and the most conducive to learning to be well away from obstacles in a large clear area where you can try it out without risk or worry.

Edit: another thing, based on something else another new drone user posted - don't be afraid to climb to a decent height either (wind permitting). It's safer to be up above obstacles - I know it probably _feels_ riskier, but that's not rational - if it crashes from 10ft or crashes from 100ft you'll probably break it in either case, but the main difference is that if there are any obstacles around you're much less likely to crash from 100' than 10'.

 

[Drone Zone]

Flying indoors is a terrible idea as others have said. I have flown other drones so I can fly in basic atti mode, plus I have prop guards if I wanted them, and I _still_ wouldn't fly indoors for fun/practise but only if I really wanted to get a shot inside a building. I have done that once, everything was fine, but it requires care and particularly requires RTH set to hover.

Your garden should be OK, but frankly if this is your first quadcopter I'd actually go to a much bigger space first, and fly initially in tripod mode as others suggested, because what you really want to do is build some muscle memory and reflexes in terms of what the sticks do, particularly when the drone is facing either towards you or sideways - it's easy to intuitively move the right stick correctly when the quad is facing "forwards" away from you, because left is left, forward is forward etc, but once those directions are no longer referenced to you but to the mavic, add a dose of panic and haste and you could make a wrong control input.

None of this is intended to overstate the difficulty - it's very easy to fly the mavic, and within a couple of hours you'll be much more comfortable, but for the very first couple of flights it would be the lowest stress situation and the most conducive to learning to be well away from obstacles in a large clear area where you can try it out without risk or worry.

Edit: another thing, based on something else another new drone user posted - don't be afraid to climb to a decent height either (wind permitting). It's safer to be up above obstacles - I know it probably _feels_ riskier, but that's not rational - if it crashes from 10ft or crashes from 100ft you'll probably break it in either case, but the main difference is that if there are any obstacles around you're much less likely to crash from 100' than 10'.

 

[Drone Zone]

Thank you all for the excellent advice, especially BorisTheSpider for your comprehensive suggestions - I do feel more confident in at least 'having a go' now. Prop guards are on order. And I will take the drone up onto the Southdowns (miles of open spaces) for my first flight.

 

[MavicCF]

Getting a nice cheap little drone to "fly on the side" can be a great way to get the controls down save your Mavic any grief. Plus you can fly inside during stormy weather.

 

[Mister Lee]

Skip the beginners mode and start in an open area.

 

[Wildhogget]

Just got my Mavic and have two option android or iPhone, the IPhone is a iPhone 6+ new with only 16gb. It will only be used for the Mavic, is 16gb enough?

 

[msinger]

16GB will be fine. I haven't come close to filling up the available memory on my 16GB Apple devices that are only used for flying.