scared
- Thread starter Pat C
- Start date
For the last couple of years, I've read that the drone industry sells about 1 million units at retail each year. Dji owns the largest market share in this industry and I have to believe that at a minimum, there are hundreds of thousands of these things in people's hands by now. With that in mind, are the dozens of fly away reports in forums really cause for alarm? The vast majority of these are operator error and within your control. Educate yourself as much as you can and practice in conservative environments until you feel comfortable enough to expand your flights. Having inexpensive replacement insurance will also relieve much of the stress. I've been flying for over a year now and have had altercations with trees twice ... both completely my fault. They were expensive lessons but things I doubt I'll repeat. Each time I fly and land safely, I breathe a sigh of relief but having flown many dozens of times with no issues, it continues to become more fun than stressful 
My best advice would simply be ... stay away from trees if possible and give yourself more clearance space than you think you'll need !
My best advice would simply be ... stay away from trees if possible and give yourself more clearance space than you think you'll need !I fly my P4 every morning and I'm absolutely having a ball just start out slow and you'l be fine.
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I just ordered a nano drone to practice indoors should be in next week
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It is like working in retail. Hundreds of satisfied customers never take the time to write how satisfied they are, but folks will go out of their way to air their complaints on service and products.
If you take the time and read what one should do and inspect before flying, including weather and wind speed, the controller and so forth, you will be fine. You're missing out on the fun leaving it sitting on the shelf.
What is the highest object between you and drone? Fly up to the objects height, read the altitude on app. then adjust height to clear it.
I've flown RC airplanes and helicopters for the better part of the last 30 years. Sometimes mechanical failures happen and while you still have some control of the aircraft the mechanical failure is going to make you crash. I've had it happen before so you can do a "controlled crash" (and if you don't believe this is true you haven't flown RC very long). If you have no other choice but crash it's always better to lessen the possible damage to person or property. Say you loose a prop for some reason or a motor locks up on you phantom and now it's an unguided missile (or rock) hurling it's self towards a group of people. Sure your gonna hit them but it would be nice to turn off the props so it doesn't act like a food processor when it hits someone. Granted the situation to use a CSC to kill the motors will probably never come up but ya never know if you'll need it. Just my 2 cents.
Only reason I can come up with is you can't wait the 3 seconds for shutdown becasue the feds cars are flying towards you with yaggi antennas pointing your way.
Hardest thing to unlearn with helicopters is NOT to throttle back when in trouble. negative pitch on blades makes trouble worse.
I too have just started with my new P3S. I was really white knuckled the first couple of flights and that was in beginner mode. Can't emphasis enough what others say about RTFM. Read The Truck in Manual. It is your friend. Try to go slow and easy don't get cocky like I did. Took my drone out to my max setting 2000 feet and decided to invoke a RTH. Hit the wrong button and started a land here. Sun was washing my screen and I didn't realize what happened till at 64 feet high. Lucky I was over an open field. 50 to 75 feet further and I would have been over 80+ feet tall for trees on the decent.
Someone may have already said this, but one of the first things you want to do is an IMU calibration. No one told me this and I was somewhat lazy in the reading. But, the inspirations on how to are there and this well save you from having many issues.
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I have had some tense moments flying way up into canyons etc. and losing signal. I make sure my rth altitude is plenty higher than the terrain and leave the rest to my drone. I have come to trust it and get way out there, well beyond sight and sound. It has always come back.
If it is working, leave it alone. Just select camera to bypass the upgrade message. Another reason I like not having iphone activated, no service for it to do it on it's own, or with help from fat fingers.
and the girls will call you stumpy, loose drone, loose girl parts, that is a tuff one......
Put hotdog in a blender to see what happens when string drags it back to you mad.
I've had mine about a month and have flown it about 30 times. But it wasn't until the last flight I had the nerve to take it up to 300 feet and out to 1000 feet ( where it gets too small to see). Like everyone says, keep it close at first, learn how it behaves, and know how to bring it home. The best thing about a Phantom is that if you do nothing it will hover in place while you figure out what to do next, so don't panic!
N017RW
Premium Pilot
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