The tutorial videos make it look so easy

[Bad Santa]

So I've been flying on my hour lunch break. It gives me just a half hour of drone time after getting fed and driving to and from the park.

Yesterday I just practiced some left/right, hi/low flying since I couldn't figure how to (and I can never remember the name) do quick shots. Helix, boomerang, whatever the others are called.
Last night I watch a tutorial. I got to the park and still couldn't figure out how to get to them. Luckily I also watched a tutorial on waypoints. I thought I had them figured out til I didn't.
I did do a decent set of waypoints but I lost direction with the drone and it flew off (flew away instead of toward).
I got it back to where I wanted to set the next waypoint but there was a problem with it since depth perception can be an issue.

Anyhow, I ran the mission and came to that spot where I set that one waypoint and it was over a tree so the mission canceled. I'm not mad about that.

So, after recovering that, I ended up visually losing it against the trees when I was threading a pair of them and had to call Lassie home.
Thank goodness for RTH.

I've also been practicing landing on target. After the RTH, once it was close enough I took over and landed it manually.

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

A simulator such as Real Flight 7.5 would be worthwhile buying used online because you can have hours of practice to hone your muscle memory, regardless of the direction your drone is flying. For about $75 you can get a used copy of Real Flight from eBay, complete with an RC controller for those vital practice sessions.

The best part of using a simulator is, of course, that you simply hit the reset button after each crash, until eventually you stop having crashes altogether.

 

[PINEBARON]

Back in the day, I'm talking about around 1975, when I first learnt to fly my 6' wingspan RC biplane, a Barnstormer with a measily Merco .61 glow engine, by simply following verbal commands, almost being screamed at me by an expert RC pilot standing beside me. I used to live in central London UK. and travelled three Saturdays in a row to South London to an RC club site, where someone was prepared to coach me, I remember the guy saying, 'I've never had anyone follow verbal commands so fast'. That's all it took for me to learn how to operate my then amazing 8 channel Futaba RC contoller and fly that plane. I never crashed that plane and gifted it to someone years later.

 

[AeroJ]

Nice to know the Mini had you covered in most of the ***-saving departments. Now if only they would let us have those helpful nav lights flashing while camera was recording we'd be able to see it against the treeline as well !