WoW! I am loving my Phantom P3

[HueJorgan]

I got my P3 for Christmas like a few did on here, and I took it slow and steady learning how to operate and control the thing be tootling round the garden and field next to my house.

I did not stray far in distance or height, and I got to admit I was shaking with nerves on the first few flights. I did not fly in full throttle, and I was so gentle with the controls every time.

The weather has not been greet here in the UK, but the last few weeks its been getting brighter with a LOT less wind. hurrah more flights

The point is my confidence in the machine has grown immeasurably it is a very stable platform for sure, and I have been flying much further away than the end of the garden as well as exploring the speed and height (why does anyone need to go above 400ft its more than enough?)


I flew my 6 batteries twice yesterday over the whole day, and that is the MOST fun I have had with the Phantom since I got it, I'd like to think I am getting quite good and maneuvering the thing in the sky.

Spacial awareness and what orientation the thing is in the sky seems to be something I am OK at - lol

It has taken a while but I now look at the screen a LOT more than the P3 in the sky, I am no longer worried it has fallen out of the sky, I can see its still up on the screen.

I love this hobby!

 

[garykeithmead1]

A tip for oriention. Use the round radar.

 

[HueJorgan]

Good tip thanks

 

[alokbhargava]

The common mistake all newbies make is to fly at low heights near their home. Flying low is always risky though a beginner feels safe with it. Most of the accidents occur due to hitting a branch of a tree or a wall of a building.

Learning to orient your P3 gives you confidence. A good thing about P3 is that in case of feeling of getting lost, leave all the sticks, let it hover at a point. Think calmly and then initiate stick actions. If still not confident press RTH button, P3 will return home safely if the return height was set much above the obstructions and home point was set before flight started.

Another important task is to learn your sticks. Most important movements are of left stick. Practice to move it left and right.

 

[Traveler]

All prior post contain excellent advise and you would do well to absorb it all. That said, I would like to ad another piece to your self training. A good pilot needs to know how to fly without the use of GPS. Following many days of competent flying with GPS, I recommend you travel to an open field with no (NO) obstacles in site of your flight plan, wind less than 5mph, elevate to a safe altitude, then move the RC switch from P to A. This will disengage the GPS mode and the bird will be subject to drift. If you are doing this on a day with a mild breeze, the bird will travel with the wind, try to keep it in the same place. Don't panic, if you get it moving too fast in anyone direction, just let go of the sticks and immediately switch back to P mode and GPS will do its job again. Once you get this down you can start to add some of the same moves you had done under the control of GPS. You will find this invaluable if you should ever get in a situation where GPS drops out. Take it slow and again, practice this in a wide open area.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[HueJorgan]

oh yes I am being steady away, and when the weather does improve even more I will be practising without the GPS another bit of good advice.

I did think it would be nice to post something positive on the forum as all too often its 'bad news' or technical issues and problems, which is what we are here for I guess, but its easy to forget ALL those people having NO issues AND having loads of FUN!

I mean why would you come on here to say how great and tickety boo things were eh? I mean why would ya! we all like bad news

 

[AirSpace2016]

I learned to take it well above tree and building height. Switch into A mode and practice just holding it in one position. Then I started moving it to a different location and trying to hold it just over my starting position. As I became more cofident I started bringing down the height where it would hit a tree (still a wide field) keeping my finger near the P button should something fail. I have got to the stage I have brought it down from 100m and landed (not hand caught) in A mode in a local park (trees surrounding the field) in winds averaging 5-12mph. Not something I make a habit of but its good to know I've got the skills to do it.

The only thing I need to practice is how to avoid too much drift if I need to sort orientation out. I am OK going from 180 with some drift and can quickly correct the opposing controls but I am not so quick if it was at a 45 degree angle and not easily seeing the orientation to begin with. I know you can look at compass but I try to do it all from a vlos in the event I had to do it manually

 

[happydays]

I agree with looking at the screen. Once I know I'm above power lines, trees and buildings, I hardly ever look at the phantom any more; it's mostly all done by FPV. One exception is when racing towards an obstacle for a dramatic shot, i use a combination of FPV and LOS to make sure it doesn't go pear shaped.

There's an example here at about 20 secs in

 

[matti]

Great video with nice transitions, happydays!

But what is LOS??

(I now know that FPV = first-person perspective, CSC = Combination Stick Command, RC = Remote Controller ... IMHO there are too many acronyms in the messages... :-]

Do any of you have cheap drones (like Nano or Syma) for practicing??

 

[JKDSensei]

When I was a noobie I was told by some wise ***.....

LOS = Lost, OMG,...Seriously !?!

It actually means Line of Sight


I have a few cheap practice drones. Still wouldn't want to lose them tho.
Right now they're my primary go-to drones for unspecified reasons....but one example might be that I haven't registered. I'm finding a lot of people who haven't as I get about

 

[SimonH78]

Line-Of-Sight you need to keep a visual on the Phantom here in the UK - CAA Law! or 500m 1500feet max distance, at the range its hard to see visually it is just a tiny spec! - more than far enough.

 

[happydays]

Great video with nice transitions, happydays!

But what is LOS??

(I now know that FPV = first-person perspective, CSC = Combination Stick Command, RC = Remote Controller ... IMHO there are too many acronyms in the messages... :-]

Do any of you have cheap drones (like Nano or Syma) for practicing??

Line of sight.

 

[PrecisionAeroworks]

I agree with looking at the screen. Once I know I'm above power lines, trees and buildings, I hardly ever look at the phantom any more; it's mostly all done by FPV. One exception is when racing towards an obstacle for a dramatic shot, i use a combination of FPV and LOS to make sure it doesn't go pear shaped.

There's an example here at about 20 secs in

Great video.
So I watched it twice trying to find you, where were you positioned?
Good editing. (Bad form to see the operator in the edited video, IMO )

 

[matti]

Line of sight.

Did you use LOS in real-time or did you practice in advance and check how low you could go?

...just a few days ago I tried to check just how tall a neighborhood birch tree really is (Wikipedia claims that birch trees are max 30m although the national record is 37.8m. I have had Litchi at 30m but had panic-throttled-up twice there, so I took a closer look). At long-distance, the tree-top seemed to be well below the local ancient sea-floor horizon when I flew at 30m. But as I then flew over it (at ground-level I was a bit alarmed but thought it was just the perspective), there were some branches that might have taken the drone down.

 

[HueJorgan]

Hehe I'm the same drone operator should not be seen in the footage unless it is intended

 

[Flying pug]

Nice to see a someone else from Co Durham. Where in Durham do you fly?

 

[happydays]

Great video.
So I watched it twice trying to find you, where were you positioned?
Good editing. (Bad form to see the operator in the edited video, IMO )

Aha! I am positioned on the shore line. If you pause the clip at 15 seconds, I am in the spit of land 3/4 the way up on the left hand side. I have a green coat on, so I'm hard to spot. Needed it because as you can see by the strakes on the reservoir, it was very windy

I avoided the car park, because the last time I flew up there with a V+, the magnetic interference caused by a combination of the steel in the reinforced concrete and the magnetic makeup of the granite was so great that the V+ took off on its own and sped straight into the reservoir and is probably still in there...

 

[happydays]

Did you use LOS in real-time or did you practice in advance and check how low you could go?

...just a few days ago I tried to check just how tall a neighborhood birch tree really is (Wikipedia claims that birch trees are max 30m although the national record is 37.8m. I have had Litchi at 30m but had panic-throttled-up twice there, so I took a closer look). At long-distance, the tree-top seemed to be well below the local ancient sea-floor horizon when I flew at 30m. But as I then flew over it (at ground-level I was a bit alarmed but thought it was just the perspective), there were some branches that might have taken the drone down.

I was on the shoreline with a good alignment with the conning tower. I dropped the phantom down to what I judged was a height a few feet above the roof of the tower and gave it full beans while looking at FPV to keep the run in on the centre of the frame. As it approached the tower, I could see by glancing up every now and again that it was going to clear it easily. The video looks more dramatic than it actually was.

My experience with Litchi is good, but I had a few very near misses with trees while testing it out. I had to abort missions more than once - hard to judge the tree heights manually. Now I just dial in about 10m higher than I judge the trees to be and I am usually safe. No point in risking it - what would be the point?

 

[HueJorgan]

Nice to see a someone else from Co Durham. Where in Durham do you fly?

I am near the park head hotel on the way to Bish Vegas. so at the moment up on the hill! middlestone, westerton and down near the new theme park (Kynren) but that one will get restricted I would reckon soon

 

[rmfa]

The common mistake all newbies make is to fly at low heights near their home. Flying low is always risky though a beginner feels safe with it. Most of the accidents occur due to hitting a branch of a tree or a wall of a building.

Agreed. The best advise I could give anyone would be to go to 200ft or above. There really isn't much up there, it just seems scary. There also really isn't much difference in hitting the ground at 200ft vs 400ft if something did go wrong.