Advise to a newbee drone pilot using the phantom 4

[Cliffhanger]

I have purchased but not yet received a Phantom 4 with one extra battery. Also purchased a Digiland 7 android tablet. I hope this tablet will work OK?

What are the most important steps I need to take? I have practically no experience with drones and I am not a computer geek. Photography is my profession and that is why I am buying a drone. Participating in a forum is also a new thing for me.

 

[laserdoc85]

film slow and take many shots. You will cut and clip in your video editing software. A clip that is 30 sec you may only like 5 seconds of it. Watch lots of you tube videos on the 4 from your first flight to the best settings

 

[Meta4]

What are the most important steps I need to take? I have practically no experience with drones and I am not a computer geek.

The most important advice for new pilots is:
The Phantom is much easier to fly than you imagine.
The trick is to not let this fool you into getting too adventurous too early.
Do your early flights in a large open area, well away from trees, buildings and obstacles.
Be afraid, very afraid of trees, buildings etc. They are involved in most incidents.
Read up on return to home procedures, practice using RTH and cancelling it so you understand how it works and how you can resume control in an RTH situation.

 

[Pharm]

Read the entire manual 3 times.

 

[QuadBart]

Read the manuals, ask questions as some of the manuals are confusing; Watch the DJI videos, practice with the Simulator and take your time...

 

[Sky Architect]

If you are planning on charging money for your services with the drone you will need a COA and a 333 exemption from the faa. National parks are a nono, don't fly over people, lookup state regulations as they may differ from FAA regs. REGISTER WITH THE FAA. Takes 5 minutes and costs 5 bucks for 3 years. Don't fly over cars or pets, respect privacy issues. Also watch videos regarding all the features and how to calibrate the gps, compass, imu, and vps and upgrade firmware before you fly. Upgrade firmware before calibration lol. There are many videos on YouTube for this so just stay within the laws and you'll be fine. Practice away from metal objects that may produce a magnetic field, bridges, buildings, etc... they will sometimes cause loss of communication and jam your drones signal causing a crash.

 

[KingDad1985]

Take your time, don't rush into anything. And use commonsense. Most importantly Have Fun!!!

 

[Steve Youles]

The most important advice for new pilots is:
The Phantom is much easier to fly than you imagine.
The trick is to not let this fool you into getting too adventurous too early.
Do your early flights in a large open area, well away from trees, buildings and obstacles.
Be afraid, very afraid of trees, buildings etc. They are involved in most incidents.
Read up on return to home procedures, practice using RTH and cancelling it so you understand how it works and how you can resume control in an RTH situation.

This is such good advice, absolutley spot on. as a newbie all I can do is 100% confirm this as sound advice. I practiced in a playing field and got a little over confident.. one wrong joystick manouver later when playing around with the orbit feature ... hit a tree (thought I was changing speed when I was really increasing radius. Luckily not a scratch ... BUT a VERY important lesson learned! The secret is simple.. know your drone controls and know every aspect of the various modes... practice practice and practice!

 

[Mike_in_Letcombe]

Read everything. Practice everything (slowly) in a wide open area. Do not think, just because you can now fly backwards and forwards, left and right, that you can go shooting off to film an epic flight over 1500 metres away from you on the first day! Nearly all (but not all) of the problems that people have is that they have done something daft, have not thought through their actions and have caused a problem that they hadn't prepared for. If flying anywhere near trees, try to find the tallest one and carefully fly about level, to see how high it is. Then set your RTH setting at 10 metres above that. But the most important thing to do is, as I said earlier, read everything. Twice.

 

[jwt873]

What I did when I first unpacked everything was to plug my tablet into the controller and then connect to the drone. But I didn't fly right away.

The drone stayed on the floor and I sat at my desk with the controller. I poked around until I had gone through every option possible on my tablet's screen. I had the user manual handy on my computer so I could refer to it when necessary to make sure I understood what every setting did. I used up almost half a battery doing this.

 

[CThruU]

What I did when I first unpacked everything was to plug my tablet into the controller and then connect to the drone. But I didn't fly right away.

The drone stayed on the floor and I sat at my desk with the controller. I poked around until I had gone through every option possible on my tablet's screen. I had the user manual handy on my computer so I could refer to it when necessary to make sure I understood what every setting did. I used up almost half a battery doing this.

Same here. Good advice throughout the thread. Remember that your visual judgment, particularly with depth of field, may not be reliable. It's hard to judge speed and distance from objects when the drone is several hundred feet or more from your spot. Don't fly sideways or backwards if you're relying on OA to keep you out of trouble.

But always remember to have fun.

 

[iglenn]

Don't pass the controller to your wife. I thought I was being nice until she flew it into the only tree in Dubai.!


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[Pharm]

...But the most important thing to do is, as I said earlier, read everything. Twice.

I disagree. Thrice.

 

[Mike_in_Letcombe]

Pharm: then you're an idiot. You will end up crashing - then come on here, moaning. Cliffhanger: work out (quickly) who's giving you good advice. I can't believe that people involved in this 'sport' would advise against sensible advice. Pharm is obviously someone who doesn't care about 'newbies'. Shameful.


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[Sky Architect]

He appears to be disagreeing with the amount of reading it. Not that you shouldn't read it.

Pharm: then you're an idiot. You will end up crashing - then come on here, moaning. Cliffhanger: work out (quickly) who's giving you good advice. I can't believe that people involved in this 'sport' would advise against sensible advice. Pharm is obviously someone who doesn't care about 'newbies'. Shameful.


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[The Brit]

I take mine off in a large open space , fly it about 100m away and hit the RTH and make sure it comes back at the wright hight ETC , I do this a couple of times just to get my confidence up .
Then when all is OK , I go up to about 150m and fly off , then I start to play with the Camara .

 

[Pharm]

Pharm: then you're an idiot. You will end up crashing - then come on here, moaning. Cliffhanger: work out (quickly) who's giving you good advice. I can't believe that people involved in this 'sport' would advise against sensible advice. Pharm is obviously someone who doesn't care about 'newbies'. Shameful.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

Haha. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that I was telling a newbie that he should read the manual three times instead of only twice (hence the word "thrice"). How did you miss that? Perhaps you didn't read my entire post? I was only disagreeing with you about reading it twice. I don't think twice is enough.

If you read my past posts you'll see that I'm one of those grouches who always mentions that the answer to a large percentage of questions asked needn't be asked in the first place if the poster simply reads the manual. As far as calling me an idiot, let me make something very clear to you. My wife has exclusive rights to that nickname for me and she exercises that right frequently. You'll have to use a different, derogatory term from now on.

 

[Pharm]

He appears to be disagreeing with the amount of reading it. Not that you shouldn't read it.

At least somebody understood what I meant!

 

[Sky Architect]

At least somebody understood what I meant!

Lol, I like the wife thing, mine is a major pain but I wouldn't have it any other way. I just happen to read and understand the entire post rather than the first two words. I hate seeing people bash on forums... it's a place for exchanging information. No such nonsense bashing someone your probably never going to meet anyways.

 

[Cliffhanger]

Wow, thanks to all of you for the advise. I received my Ph 4 two days ago. Downloaded Go Ap, did a compass calibration, armed motors, not flown yet.
The front two LEDs are red and I get a beeping noise. I guess this is correct?
One of the batteries I got was dead. I want to be sure everything is working before I start an Item Return to Amazon.