gunslinger said:Pretty much everything. The day of my near flyaway, I turned the TX and Extender on, turned the P2V on and took off. I just didn't know any better. I was confused because it wasn't flying as stable as it had the previous time I took it up. Then it got away from me and all hell broke loose.
Now... I inspect motors to make sure they still feel the same as usual when hand turned, pull on the motors to be sure the e ring hasn't come off the bottom shaft, inspect the props before they go on. I'll turn on the TX, turn on the Extender, turn on the P2V and watch the lights as well as the satellite count on the app. I look for the fast green flashes to be sure we've locked in a home point and I wait for the slow green flashes to be sure the satellite count is high enough for GPS flight. If the app shows eight satellites or over, we're good.
When all looks go, I turn the motors on, give it a few seconds and then floor the throttle to get the bird up to around ten feet. I then let it hover to check for flight stability. If that passes, I'll move it side to side, yaw it around in both directions, fly it forwards and back to check stick control... Just to be sure the sticks are doing what I expect them to do.
At that point, if all looks stable, all the lights are good and my satellite count isn't borderline, I'm fairly confident I'm good to go...
The first time I flew the P2V I was very lucky that everything was locked in, even though I didn't know what I was doing. I had no fear since I hadn't read much in the forums at that point. It was magical. I took it up to over 400 feet and roamed all over the golf course. I'd really like to have that innocence back... Now I'm hyper aware of all that can go wrong and I'm much more careful...
-slinger
I also do pretty much the same except before flying off, I test my home position with HL. As opposed to failsafe. I fly off 30' up and 60' out, switch to HL and see if it reels in as I expect. It always has, but I feel it is a good check anyways.
