Newbee scared to fly, need a confidence boost

[Numone]

As stated in the header, I'm a newbie. I got my P3A just after the holiday. I read all the manuals 2-3 times cover to cover. I went out for my maiden voyage and immediately had my first oops. Gone was my first set of props. I forgot one of the basics, know your orientation of the copter. I pulled left and it went right. Right into a fence 20 yards away. So now I come across this site and see all the horror stories and I am scared to fly. How about some good stories to give me some confidence.
Thanks.

I know the feeling... I still have to get the maiden flight under my belt.

 

[Shaba]

Similar to yourself, I was nervous my first few times out...it's a lot of money if I completely "wreck." I started out in the country and literally went in a triangle motion for the entire motion, just to get a feel for remote/wind speed and direction, and play with automated features (return to home, auto-take-off, etc.) While good experience, it did get a little boring after a few hours of flying. Then, I came back the boards here for additional recommendatiuons/knowledge. Turn outs, one of the links on this forum is for "Regional Meetups." I found the area where I live (Mid-West) and began searching for other pilots in my near vicinity. The majority of pilots on this forum are very nice, and enjoy the hobby and teaching others "newbs" just as much as flying for him/her self. Anyhow, I found a guy that lived closed to me on the forum, I reached out explaining that I was new, but wanting to learn, and would like to fly with someone who had more experience than I do. He promptly replied (Thanks Bobby!!), took me out to an open pasture location, and then we just spent the afternoon flying and learning. I found that method to be very helpful. Flying with another pilot who has hours of experience will benefit you, I promise! Since that time, I revisited the forum, always looking for more people in my region to meet up and fly together. Not only am I getting to meet new people with similar backgrounds, I learn something new every time I go out with other Phantom pilots!

 

[Numone]

I've have had a small army of mini quads and this little gem (pictured below) cost me $25 on sale...I have crashed it a thousand times and even put it in the reef aquarium one day where it sat for ten minutes before I was able to recovered it, dried it off and flew it again an hour later. In short, buy yourself one of these and learn to actually fly, it will boost your confidence and you will be a better/safer pilot in turn!

That's what I've been doing with the Syma x8 my family bought me for Christmas.... Practice, practice...

 

[Numone]

Lots of wise and good advices here already so I´ll just say what my RC mentor once told me when I started - and it stuck: Think of building confidence instead of boosting it Huge difference.

Yep, great advice. Nice one!

 

[TheRealNick]

I would buy a Syma X5 on Amazon for around $50 to practice with....it is actually really fun to fly as well!

 

[m0j0]

Just fly it. If you already have skill at the smaller less expensive copters this will be a breeze. The tough part isn't flying. It is the preparation for flight and forcing yourself to learn what to do when things like the GPS fails. It doesn't happen often but it has happened to me. I have actually taken time to practice what to do when the systems fail. Understand that you can fly without the display, understand that you can get it back when GPS fails. It is good to practice because it happens. Actually happened to me the first flight less than 30 feet away. There was interference because the Phantom switched to ATTI mode and started to drift. I actually didn't realize what has happened. I was used to flying the smaller drones. Was no big deal that there was drift. Fly anyway without any real problems.

 

[TheRealNick]

Something that helps me is to kind of have a plan in place. For example, I film my friends surfing sometimes and I have tried to train myself to immediately do up throttle if I think anything is wrong, to get more space to figure out next steps.

Another example is if you phone dies and you loose FPV and all data, to regain lost perspective I plan to follow these steps. Confirm orientation by flying sideways to myself, it is difficult to see forward/backard, but easy to see sideways movement. So, for example, if I think the phantom is facing away from me I will push left stick and see if it moves left. let's say it doesn't, that means either the left or right side is facing me or away from me...so now I try forward stick. Let's say it goes right....now I know to bring it back I need to apply right stick to bring it towards me. There is also return to home as an option, but the scenario I plan for is something like ATTI mode with no DJI app for help...probably unlikely to loose both the app and GPS at the same time...

 

[beeline]

So now I come across this site and see all the horror stories and I am scared to fly.

Stop reading this forum .

Seriously, all of the above (and below). I've been flying Phantoms for almost 2 years and still get the willies when flying a challenging site.

 

[bighi]

I've have had a small army of mini quads and this little gem (pictured below) cost me $25 on sale...I have crashed it a thousand times and even put it in the reef aquarium one day where it sat for ten minutes before I was able to recovered it, dried it off and flew it again an hour later. In short, buy yourself one of these and learn to actually fly, it will boost your confidence and you will be a better/safer pilot in turn!

This is the single best piece of advice regarding the matter of crashes and avoiding them. Get really good at flying one of these in your living room. Land and take off from anything you see in that room. Try different things. You'll crash and the. The crashes will stop sooner than you realize. After that you'll never crash a phantom again. Look at it this way. You just spent a lot of money on a phantom. What's 50 bucks more? Go down to the local toy store and grab any decent looking plalm sized quad you see in there. No prop guard or gimbal protector will be more effective over the long term than a mini quad.

 

[m0j0]

This is the single best piece of advice regarding the matter of crashes and avoiding them. Get really good at flying one of these in your living room. Land and take off from anything you see in that room. Try different things. You'll crash and the. The crashes will stop sooner than you realize. After that you'll never crash a phantom again. Look at it this way. You just spent a lot of money on a phantom. What's 50 bucks more? Go down to the local toy store and grab any decent looking plalm sized quad you see in there. No prop guard or gimbal protector will be more effective over the long term than a mini quad.

I have to agree but I think he already said he learned on a small copter. I think the real fear comes from the amount of crashes for mechanical failures reported here. I really think there are a lot of those posts here because.... this is the most popular system on the market = a ton of pilots... this one of the most recognized forums for the system. Everyone that has a problem comes here for research. It is how I came upon the forum. Decided I wanted a drone. Googled and watched a ton of youtube... this was by far the most recommended for my price point. BAM! Here I am.

Can say that I really have only had a few ohh **** moments. One involved a circling hawk which was unforeseeable. the other was a brief signal loss moment where we had a little drift.

Anyway just charge the battery to 100%, review the compass calibration thread, review how to monitor your battery, fly in an open area...