Leanring to fly a Phantom with only the gyros

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So I'm trying to sharpen my piloting skills.

I can fly pretty good nose out. I can control it.
I can control it nose in fairly well because I just move the joystick in the direction the drone is moving to negate that movement. I wonder if this is training bad habits to see it this way?

I am beginning to get a feel for turning the drone 180 or 360 while in flight.

What I find REALLY difficult is flying at 90 degree angles.

What's the trick for flying at 90 degrees? Do I just turn the controller to orient with the drone?

Or is that one of those things you just have to practice until the mental light bulb comes on and the neural connections are made to make it instinctive? lol
 
Depends upon which direction you want the camera pointed. Either slide left or right with the right stick to keep camera facing the original direction, or rotate 90° in place in the new direction and then move forward, to get the new view from your 90° turn.
 
Well, not really concerned with the video on this thread. This is just about controlling the Phantom without GPS, autopilot, position hold or any of that. JUST the gyros.
 
So I'm trying to sharpen my piloting skills.

I can fly pretty good nose out. I can control it.
I can control it nose in fairly well because I just move the joystick in the direction the drone is moving to negate that movement. I wonder if this is training bad habits to see it this way?

I am beginning to get a feel for turning the drone 180 or 360 while in flight.

What I find REALLY difficult is flying at 90 degree angles.

What's the trick for flying at 90 degrees? Do I just turn the controller to orient with the drone?

Or is that one of those things you just have to practice until the mental light bulb comes on and the neural connections are made to make it instinctive? lol
I flew my "beater" quad copters for a couple of months before getting the P3A. They were much harder to fly than the P3A, but I learned the skills necessary if the GPS and/or the VPS isn't working. The beater drones are cheap ($38 and $55 from Amazon) and it's pretty difficult to break them. I'd recommend this approach.

To answer your question I imagine myself being on the quad copter (no FPV) rather than thinking about what it looks like from where I am and then how to translate the orientation. Once you've got this mastered it'll work for any orientation. It took me a while to get it (I'm 66 and my thumbs aren't as young as they used to be). I think your trick for 180 degrees is probably not a good idea.
 
With the copter hovering in place, if you aren't sure about the orientation, just give a quick left or right movement of the right stick to see if left and right are normal or reversed. Then, you will know if forward and backwards are normal or reversed, which is harder to see from a distance. Since you aren't concerned about the video, trial and error won't matter, as long as you are either high enough that you can't run into anything, or are in a wide open field with nothing around you. Also, avoid windy conditions where everything responds a little differently! Practice safe hand-catching, too. It will eliminate tip overs on unlevel surfaces, and protect your $600 camera from dust, dirt, and debris kicked up during landing!
 

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