Flying tips and advice......share what you've learnt.

[Doono]

Flying over water, flying near trees, how to pull up quickly, how to land fast, how to catch, how to circle a subject, when to fly back to base, and anything else that comes to mind. Here is the place to share your experience or ask questions on "how to?"

 

[GB Phantom]

Flying over water, flying near trees, how to pull up quickly, how to land fast, how to circle a subject, when to fly back to base, and anything else that comes to mind. Here is the place to share your experience or ask questions on "how to?"

This kind of post would be a great sticky for everyone but it will be lost in an instant because no moderator. We need to GTFO of here and someone needs to start a new phantom forum.

 

[rilot]

My advice after several hundred flights:

Fly within your limits. If you don't feel confident to do something, don't do it.
Test the return to home feature in a controlled way. Find a big field, fly your Phantom away and then turn off your tx. It' will give you confidence in the system.
Enable IOC as it can save you in a panic. If you lose sight of your craft or its orientation, just flick Home Lock on and pull back on the right stick. Your craft will fly back to you.
Bring a friend when you first start flying. It helps with confidence and an extra pair of eyes is always helpful. Also useful to have someone be your voice when inevitably someone walks up to ask questions
Memorise the led light sequences
Never fly without a full sat lock and a home point registered
Be gentle with the controls
Once you have some confidence, learn to fly in ATTI mode. It will make you a better pilot and will teach you the skills you need to recover if you lose sat lock. It also makes for smoother video.
If you have more than one battery, get some stickers with numbers on them. It will help you remember which ones are depleted.
To take off, pin the throttle to the stop, then release. A fast takeoff has less scope for a tip over
Check your props for tightness every time you fly, even if you've just landed to change batteries
Every 10 or so flights, check all the screws for tightness. Things do vibrate loose over time
Store batteries in a fire-safe tin. An ammo canister is good for this and can be bought cheaply from eBay. I use a .50 canister and can fit lots of batteries inside
Take spare props with you to the field before you fly. It's annoying to have to go home just because you had a tip-over on launch and damaged a prop
Don't launch from anything metal such as a car roof. It will mess with the compass
Try not to do everything at once. It's tempting to immediately start adding tons of stuff to your Phantom as soon as you've bought it. Dont. Fly it stock for a bit and you will soon learn what things you want to change
Wear sunscreen on your face. Looking up at your craft on a sunny day will wreck your skin

 

[Doono]

Great advice, never thought about numbering the batteries (or the sunscreen ).

 

[steveeds]

I'm good at this as this flying is all new to me. I've done most of the below

1. Don't let your friend have a go, he may be better but didn't pay for it
2. Don't put in the USB before turning on the controller
3. Hovering over the neighbours place while you get the IPhone sorted leads to problems you don't need
4. Going over the ocean may give a great video but salt water hurts
5. Steel poles hurt as well
6. Read the manual, guys see this as a weakness, I was strong, I was wrong

 

[QYV]

This kind of post would be a great sticky for everyone but it will be lost in an instant because no moderator. We need to GTFO of here and someone needs to start a new phantom forum.

Hopefully you're not completely lost because I've seen you add a lot of value around other threads... Adam actually responded in another thread a day or 2 ago, explained how he barely had free time to admin here and would add more moderators by this weekend... so hopefully we're on the verge of some positive change and more growth around here!

 

[molsal]

Hi Rilot, great post. I'm an experienced fc plane flyer but the Phantom 2 vision is my first copter.I'm not familiar with abreviations.Could you explain in more detail how to set up what you describe in the following

"Enable IOC as it can save you in a panic. If you lose sight of your craft or its orientation, just flick Home Lock on and pull back on the right stick. Your craft will fly back to you"

Many thanks Molsal.

 

[SeaNile]

As a newbie I appreciate this thread as well. I'm not even sure of all the abbreviations either.

My P2 Vision arrives tonight!

 

[rilot]

Hi Rilot, great post. I'm an experienced fc plane flyer but the Phantom 2 vision is my first copter.I'm not familiar with abreviations.Could you explain in more detail how to set up what you describe in the following

"Enable IOC as it can save you in a panic. If you lose sight of your craft or its orientation, just flick Home Lock on and pull back on the right stick. Your craft will fly back to you"

Many thanks Molsal.

Intelligent Orientation Control. You need to be in Naza mode on your Vision to enable it.
Youtube search for "IOC Naza" and you'll see some demonstrations.

 

[Visioneer]

You might also peruse this thread ...

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8768

 

[IrishSights]

* when taking off go high enough immediately to clear surrounding objects. There is more forgiving space up there than down below.
*Avoid taking off or landing on sandy beaches. Gimbels especially don't like chewing sand.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 8

 

[genisis]

Very new to flying but vision is great machine, I never take off and fly away, I find that when I climb to a few feet and wait around 30 seconds to let systems settle and lock, I then fly away and enjoy no probs, solid video at 800ft but had to set resolution on minimum on setup to achieve using this setup also stopped video freezing all the time, this setup is preview only, camera still records top whack. my p2v performs teriffic every time, pinpoint accurate.calibrate your compass evey 2weeks do it in an area free from magnetics or metal
switch on phantom battery on the ground along with camera, do not lift while it is arming its home point ,swinging it around while it is arming will confuse avionics.
Once you have green flashing lock with 6 or more SATs up you go.
I occasionally perform hover tests, I hover at 5ft then push phantom up a little, it should com back down to 5ft, I then pull phantom about 10ft to one side and let go,it should go back to original position, but if you find this too dangerous don't do it.have fun with your p2v

 

[Doono]

You might also peruse this thread ...

http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8768

Bloody hell, great post. I hope you check in here now and then, we can all benefit from your experience.

 

[Pull_Up]

Some things some may or may not find useful:

Here's how (and why) I hand-catch / hand land the aircraft - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T21LrlYWH_o

IOC - difference between Course Lock and Home Lock in NAZA mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P6SSj0qTcM

There's a sticky on preventative maintenance that I started as well.

Always perform a test hover 10ft up and fairly close-in on your first flight. Do a quick check that all the controls behave as you'd expect then hold a hands-off hover for 30 seconds to a minute. Any unusual movement, particularly circling, shows that you might need to recalibrate your compass or IMU. Better to find that out 10ft up and bring it down to troubleshoot from there than 400ft up and 1000ft away.

In terms of improving flying technique the best thing I found was to move onto flying figure eight patterns and using yaw and bank control together to get co-ordinated turns. Then add some height changes while you're doing it, then try flying the same patterns but with the aircraft in different orientations. Try and practice as much as you can, too. It's not very exciting flying patterns, but rather like learning any hand-eye skill, regular practice is what will get the muscle memory locked in.

 

[Doono]

I've learnt while going forward, a quick flick of yaw and reversal of right stick has you going in the same direction but with the camera facing back the other way. Do it a few times, and it's quite amazing how nimble the Phantom can be.

 

[kitari]

I have a few tips I guess, first off, I've flown several cheaper rc helicopters for years but when I moved up to the phantom, the controls really threw me off for a while so be careful and try not to rush things no matter how good you think you are. Also, found out today that if you're using linux, you can download the naza m assistant software with wine no problem, however you still can't connect your phantom into the software and as far as I know there's no solution to this problem yet.

 

[WPSPETE]

Great thread guys. I am getting my p2 hopefully in a week. I've flown rc planes for years and I had one coaxial heli.

My newb question: my first flight should I fly no fpv, gimble and camera? Just to minimize confusion and to reduce crash damage if I have one?

 

[Doono]

Great thread guys. I am getting my p2 hopefully in a week. I've flown rc planes for years and I had one coaxial heli.

My newb question: my first flight should I fly no fpv, gimble and camera? Just to minimize confusion and to reduce crash damage if I have one?

If you can fly just the P2, that would be a great idea to get a feel of it. The Phantom itself is pretty robust, so damage would be minor if there were any mishaps.

 

[Pull_Up]

I've learnt while going forward, a quick flick of yaw and reversal of right stick has you going in the same direction but with the camera facing back the other way. Do it a few times, and it's quite amazing how nimble the Phantom can be.

Good skills! I just cheat and stick it onto course lock... The aircraft will keep heading in whatever direction you have it set whilst you pirouette it like a lunatic if you want...

 

[Doono]

I've learnt while going forward, a quick flick of yaw and reversal of right stick has you going in the same direction but with the camera facing back the other way. Do it a few times, and it's quite amazing how nimble the Phantom can be.

Good skills! I just cheat and stick it onto course lock... The aircraft will keep heading in whatever direction you have it set whilst you pirouette it like a lunatic if you want...

Ha! That is hilarious! Just tried that, I WAS spinning like a lunatic....