My 1st Flight - Lessons Learned

[Simsbury]

Purchased my Phantom 4 over the winter and last weekend I was finally able to take it out and get it in the air. The weekend was busy so I really just had enough time to fly it around for about 10 min which was fine because for my first flight I really just wanted to get it airborne, get a sense of the controls and bring it down safely. I've also had a paranoia about flying it over water so I broke that fear right away as well. Distance and height were not my goals - literally just a safe trip and return were all i wanted and I happy to say I accomplished all of those things!!

So what did I learn from my 1st flight? Well, I learned thats its not as hard to fly as I feared and once you're airborne its fairly intuitive to use. I also learned that the sticks are quite sensitive - my moves were too quick and that comes across in the video. Like many things in life, patience is key!

I will say that there were 2 minor issues - first when I started I made sure that the switch was in P mode but when i fired up the drone and DJI Go app, it said "Atti Mode". This also happened yesterday so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

The other issue (totally a brain fart by me) was that once I was ready to fly, I couldn't for the life of me remember how to arm the motors and get them spinning. Thank God for Google and cell phones - lol

I also tried my hand at putting the video on YouTube with music and titles, again this was my first time so its all a learning experience. This is the link

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When I got home, I found my iMac can't handle 4K so I ended up exporting the video to 1080 which still took forever to load onto YouTube. I also need to learn to edit videos - 9 min is too long but the next one will be better!

1st flight in the history books and looking forward to a summer of flying!!

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Purchased my Phantom 4 over the winter and last weekend I was finally able to take it out and get it in the air. The weekend was busy so I really just had enough time to fly it around for about 10 min which was fine because for my first flight I really just wanted to get it airborne, get a sense of the controls and bring it down safely. I've also had a paranoia about flying it over water so I broke that fear right away as well. Distance and height were not my goals - literally just a safe trip and return were all i wanted and I happy to say I accomplished all of those things!!

So what did I learn from my 1st flight? Well, I learned thats its not as hard to fly as I feared and once you're airborne its fairly intuitive to use. I also learned that the sticks are quite sensitive - my moves were too quick and that comes across in the video. Like many things in life, patience is key!

I will say that there were 2 minor issues - first when I started I made sure that the switch was in P mode but when i fired up the drone and DJI Go app, it said "Atti Mode". This also happened yesterday so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

The other issue (totally a brain fart by me) was that once I was ready to fly, I couldn't for the life of me remember how to arm the motors and get them spinning. Thank God for Google and cell phones - lol

I also tried my hand at putting the video on YouTube with music and titles, again this was my first time so its all a learning experience. This is the link

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When I got home, I found my iMac can't handle 4K so I ended up exporting the video to 1080 which still took forever to load onto YouTube. I also need to learn to edit videos - 9 min is too long but the next one will be better!

1st flight in the history books and looking forward to a summer of flying!!

Good post good flight aswell..one thing I notice..on take off the cameras don't like long grass ,give a silly Gimble overload warning,,keep flat board in car for take off landing..you can do a stick calibration makes controls nice.....but good maiden voyage...got simulator mode so you can lie in bed and fly mine comes up atti to but goes green

 

[Simsbury]

Good post good flight aswell..one thing I notice..on take off the cameras don't like long grass ,give a silly Gimble overload warning,,keep flat board in car for take off landing..you can do a stick calibration makes controls nice.....but good maiden voyage...got simulator mode so you can lie in bed and fly mine comes up atti to but goes green

Thanks! I thought the same thing about the grass/woodchips - going to get something to use as a launch/landing pad - thinking about a couple rubber door mats i can just keep in the trunk.

 

[olefolks]

enjoyed your video. Really envy you for the location. Perfect for your initial flight.

 

[normr]

You realize the top icon on the left side of the screen, the one with the circle with the up arrow is auto-takeoff, where it will start your motors record your home point and take off and hover at about 4 feet.

There is a you tube video that someone created that goes over every setting in the previous version of the go app that will help you, here is the link.

DJI Go App: A Step-by-Step Guide Through Every Menu & Button (Video & Written Tutorial)

 

[Simsbury]

You realize the top icon on the left side of the screen, the one with the circle with the up arrow is auto-takeoff, where it will start your motors record your home point and take off and hover at about 4 feet.

There is a you tube video that someone created that goes over every setting in the previous version of the go app that will help you, here is the link.

DJI Go App: A Step-by-Step Guide Through Every Menu & Button (Video & Written Tutorial)

Thank you very much for the link!! I was aware of the autotake off but wanted to learn to use it as manually as possible before I use the automation features.

 

[Fester]

Very nice indeed. Very good location for your first flight too. Even if you had used the "auto-takeoff" feature (which I did use for first takeoff) and only flew a few feet, then landed safely with a prideful sigh of relief, you've done well; and learned things too. I'm sure the ducks would have given you a round of applause too, but would have considered rolling over and clapping their feet together a bit undignified...

P.S. You might consider one of the "instant helipads" the round nylon fabric ones, not terribly expensive and work well.

 

[rhoffart]

Good Job and welcome to the forum. Yes, 9 min is too long. I like to watch videos when they are 1 - 3 min.