Newbie Crashes

I was thinking of getting a Hubsan X4. Do you think the X5C is better to learn on?

I'm sure the Hubsan is good for practice as well. I've not flown one. A quick look at Amazon and they don't appear to have prop guards. Might be a good idea to have them for your "crash test dummy" copter :)
 
The Phantom 3 is my first copter and I find it easy to fly, no crashes yet (knocks on wood).
ATTI mode is a lot more fun than P mode, still don't have the guts to use it as much as I want to though.
Still very cautious and skittish...
 
Last edited:
BEWARE! I don't think the Hobsan is effective practice for the P3P. Not for my crashes, and I'll come clean and forgo any pride.

The Hobsan is a REAL Quad, at least in some modes. The right stick is roll and pitch. The left stick is throttle and rudder. You pitch forward to go faster, you must increase throttle to hold altitude. Not enough throttle you'll crash. This is forgetting agility and the aerobatic modes.

IMHO what gets people in the P3 is how easy it APPEARS to be. The right stick is forward, and back in "pitch mode": it's not really pitch. The throttle is really "up and "down" -- it's not REALLY THE THROTTLE.

MY ACCIDENTS:
1) Minor tips overs using CSC VS RETARDING THE THROTTLE TO STOP THE PROPS. Mostly on the ground in wind, but I accomplished this indoors too. In the air, it's a BIZARRE set of control inputs but people have done it with SPECTACULAR RESULTS. Use the retarded throttle to stop the props upon landing.

I'VE EVEN SWITCHED OVER TO A "CATCH LANDING" EVEN IN PERFECT WEATHER. IT'S JUST TOO EASY. Get down to a chest level hover, grab the landing gear to the right of the battery. Make sure everything's stable, slide your fingers up carefully, near the center of mass, and shut down the engine. Gentlest landing you'll ever do. There really is no chance of prop contact, and you can't screw up the landing. BUT YOU SHOULD STILL PRACTICE REAL LANDINGS. Catching Landing are literally too easy. And AMAZINGLY not hazardous.

2) POTENTIALLY MAJOR DEALS -- FLYING OUT OF SIGHT USING FPV -- AND YES IT'S REALLY REALLY FUN, BUT RISKY. OH, THE LOWER THE RISKIER.

Tonight I flew down a road at about 20', made a beautiful coordinated right hand turn, then firewalled the throttle, doing about 35mph, 35' high, and hit one of the only power lines within miles. It was between two light poles across the street from each other. Thick ones. Great buzz flying down this road, (NO CARS IN SIGHT BTW) A glimpse of cable, black screen, a motor overspeed condition warning, AND IT CAME BACK! At a dead stop near the infamous cable. I climbed, the horizon was crooked, and I flew it home. I saw the black marks where the thick cables left deposits on the two leading edge of the gear legs. LORD KNOWS WHAT ATTITUDE IT SAW. I inspected for damage, reinitialized, no problem. Dec 24th, and surviving this? Miricle!! No doubt! LOL
I couldn't see the cable in the light I was in. FLY OUT OF VISUAL SIGHT, AND YOU ARE TAKING A RISK.

I flew a couple miles directly out over the pitch black stormy, windy, Ocean a couple of months ago. 10,000'. Windy, rough, pitch black. So dark I was using GPS and the Sattelite map overlay. At about 400', I turned around and the view of shore was a thrill. Coming in it was dark, I was playing with coordinated arc like turns, and I was flying GPS, Sattelite Map overlay while approaching my Condo. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SWITCH TO FPV. But I was to the Ocean side of a big condo beside my building. AND SUFFERED A HUGE STROKE LIKE BRAIN FART. I should have been at least 50' higher than I was. In aircraft, the FAA haS very formalized "Approach Plates" for letdown procedures. It puts you in a disciplined mindset. I was lackadaisical and clipped the top of this peaky roof (It was so windy I think I rode an updraft, else it would have been way worse.). The impact knocked my camera off, but I FLEW IT HOME AGAIN. IT WORKS FINE WITH A NEW CAMERA. A miracle, and not near Christmas! DON'T COUNT ON THEM!

"EXPLORING FPV OUT OF VISUAL SITE IS THRILLING". And risky. Make sure you're only putting your Drone at risk, and know that **** happens -- it's risky. My building collision SEEMS most risky but it was the most easily avoidable. The power line was not visible. So even the degree of risk can be hard to determine! ITS FUN! BUT RISKY!

3) Know the RTH, Failsafe Modes, Altitudes, and their implications like the back of your hand. I got a little disoriented with a low battery, and RTH saved my butt. I did quit out of it when I saw the bird and did an expedited hand catch JUST IN TIME. JUST. Left in RTH, I would have run out of juice. THAT MEANS KNOWING IT COLD.

4) If just flying, starting upwind, returning downwind gives more battery safety margin than you'd imagine. IT'S SO OBVIOUS TOO. :-( If the battery gets low take it REALLY SERIOUSLY QUICKLY. #3 above started out like this. I went 10,000', downwind. Very smart.

In summary P3 crashes don't happen because of the lack of skills you'd develop with a "real" not-so-assisted quad, it's just the opposite. The P3 appears so foolproof and easy there are some nasty traps. CSC will just nick props under the best of circumstances. Don't use it to kill the motors. MAKE TRIPLE SURE NOT TOO WHILE IT'S FLYING!!

LEARN FROM A DONKEY'S MISTAKES, WHO MIGHT BE A LITTLE OVER AGGRESSIVE THAN YOU FOR MY FPV DEBACLES. DON'T COUNT ON MIRICLES, EVEN NEAR CHRISTMAS.

SERIOUSLY, IF ONE OF MY PITIFUL TALES SAVED ONE PERSON'S QUAD, I'D FEEL SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT BEING SUCH AN IDIOT! I AM SO SO SERIOUS. ADMITTING THIS STUFF IS REALLY EMBARRASSING!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Reed L
I started with a cheap 50 buck helicopter from Wal-Mart then a mini infrared quad then syma then dji 1,2,3adv
 
Its not you. Very steep learning curve when you've never flown anything before spending $$$ on a phantom 3

Am new to this forum, and thank you all for the input, but have flown two early phantoms, two quads and present one is a DJI 550.

Would dearly like to buy a P3A but am rather surprised at how much more input is needed to safely fly them. It is the ability to control the camera, ie, on and off etc, that is the main draw. Are they really so likely to fail?
 
Welcome to the forum. They are the best choice on the market. They are easier to fly than the earlier Phantoms and much more refined. Remember that the forums give a skewed perspective of crashes and problems. There are thousands of Phantom pilots out there that have never had a problem and never posted on the forum.
Buy a P3A or P3P and enjoy.
 
Well I am brand new to this and I find the phantom very easy to fly. This is the only drone I have flown. I did just have a crash but it was during auto RTH totally not pilot error. I feel if operated within skill level the phantom should not crash
Seems biggest causes non pilot error are failure to monitor battery or beginning session with less than full charge
 
Thanks, mind made up, both comments make sense. Have spent a long, long time reading this forum and leant so much that I feel confident enough buy an advance straight away.
 
It's easy to fly. You can walk right into a P3 and learn.

I find it's is harder for me to forget my old reflexes and techniques from flying drones and copters. Especially the the pitch/throttle combinations or rudder/pitch turns don't work as well for me. But in time I'll learn.

The crashes mostly come down to how much risk you take. Stay safe and smart and you'll be fine.
 
It's easy to fly. You can walk right into a P3 and learn.

I find it's is harder for me to forget my old reflexes and techniques from flying drones and copters. Especially the the pitch/throttle combinations or rudder/pitch turns don't work as well for me. But in time I'll learn.

The crashes mostly come down to how much risk you take. Stay safe and smart and you'll be fine.
It's easy to fly. You can walk right into a P3 and learn.

I find it's is harder for me to forget my old reflexes and techniques from flying drones and copters. Especially the the pitch/throttle combinations or rudder/pitch turns don't work as well for me. But in time I'll learn.

The crashes mostly come down to how much risk you take. Stay safe and smart and you'll be fine.
Not a risk taker, so looking forward to end of this festive gathereing and playtime.
 
The P3 is SO easy to fly, that maneuvering the quad is so easy you have to find other ways to wreck. The flight controller has turned the "throttle" into an up/down control, and "pitch" into a move forward/backward control. Those simplifications make the P3 about as easy for a beginner to fly as you can get.

The person who crashed on the dirt road sounds like it might have been coming towards him, and had a orientation control directional mix up. I find flying purely by reference to the FPV eliminates a lot of those "orientation" difficulties. Of course if you don't practice a lot just by external view, those RC orientation skills won't grow.

Used as a fairly close range photography platform, I don't think anything could be made safer from mishaps.

But the incredible LightBridge HD video down link makes wanting to go off of FPV only excursions very tempting. I've been 2.3 miles out over the Ocean, perfect reception. And I started off with very little experience, and was a little naive about the risks I was taking. It sure is fun, and you can capture captivating video of a "journey". A 4 mile flights over a wide area, using FPV the whole way, IS dialing the risk up. And I can already predict what will cause the accident: 1) Bad pre-flight (Battery, props tight, etc.) 2) Running out of juice mid-flight. 3) Hitting something.

I have to post my powerline hit video because it's so shocking. Look for it on YouTube. It's running down this road so pretty, I climb a little for safety, and right when you'd least suspect it, all hell breaks loose. THE MOST SURPRISED I'VE EVER BEEN IN MY AVIATION CAREER! Happily it was in a little quad, and not something I was sitting in.

The quad hit it with its forward gear, did at least one forward flip, appears level a foot off the pavement with the camera pointed at the base of the right landing skid (Not within what I would think the gimbal would even allow without breaking), then it snaps up and is flying and level. It drunkenly gains altitude (My IPad had blanked out for a couple seconds), I find myself with control back, the horizon's tilted, but I gingerly flew it to me and it was level by then. I wiped the gunk from the lines off the front of the gear legs. Looked the thing over to death. No damage at all. It hits a powerline, does a flip, falls and misses hitting the street by a foot, recovers, comes home, and nothing damaged at all.

And I've put the majority of the time in this bird since then. The normal user, using it like you're really supposed to, couldn't pick a safer, more stable machine, with intuitive controls. The incredible long range HD FPV not used out to its full capability is icing on the cake. OH, AND THEY ARE STURDY, SHOULD SOMETHING HAPPEN. Limit your risks, have fun in a great machine.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,935
Latest member
Pauos31