No Way to Treat a Wee Dronie

[FriscoFool]

I have found two issues flying my Mavic Mini in the Colorado mountains -- neither of which is the fault of the drone. First, it is that I have difficulty seeing it in the air. It is small and I am no longer exactly eagle-eyed. Second, I have the tendency to give the wrong control input. Hand -- eye coordination seems to be a problem. I mean to use the left stick and use the right one instead. Combine the two and you get a great big "OOPS" Here I wanted to do a reveal climbing out of a Blue River canyon to reveal the Gore Mountains in the background. Unfortunately, I hit the right stick instead of the left so instead of climbing, we charged straight ahead into a tree on the canyon side. Have to say the drone recovered on its own with no damage. Another lesson learned.
Drone Tree Hit

 

[Deleted member 103366]

You are not the only one, the 'wrong movement' I tend to make is close the throttle rather than pull the 'reverse lever', whoops moments to be sure.
Check your props with a magnifying glass in good light, no joke, I have had two with cracks that were impossible to see until the light caught them just right, I couldn't even feel them when the blades were 'gripped' between finger and thumb. The drone flew perfectly with those cracked blades and that's scary.

 

[Mavic Mac]

First - Welcome to the forums - a lot of good info here. Also, the search function (magnifying glass icon upper right) is a great way to find answers to many of the questions a "newbie" will have. We were all "newbies" at one point.

Secondly, glad the bird still can fly !

 

[old man mavic]

glad the MM lived to fly another day,i can sympathise with you regarding keeping a visual on the drone ,to that end i have a bright yellow skin on mine
as far as stick control is concerned it can take quite a while for it to become second nature and the only way to get that muscle memory is to fly set mannouvers close by until you get to the point where you can do it without thinking ,i know that it sounds boring, but it is worth the effort to improve your flying skills ,and it helps to make your drone last longer

 

[dino9832]

Glad your mini survived! You might want to get an inexpensive pocket drone to practice with.
They are hard to fly, but good practice!

 

[ff22]

Practice in less scenic areas - a big flat, boring open field! (g) My problem is when the drone is heading back to me and the left/right/forward/back is well backwards!!!!

 

[Capt KO]

Good save. If you start noticing more warnings, high winds or motor maxed, change props.

 

[Adventureposer]

Hi guy,

I am a 68 year old newbie with a new to me Mavic Pro. I live on the central Oregon coast where the scenery is breathtaking, but I'm doing most of my flying in a wide open school field until my flying reflexes are second nature. Good luck to you.