Stressed when flying?

fly-catchers

fly-catchers

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I have had my Phantom V1.2 since September and flown roughly 30+ times. No incidences so far apart from recently finding a crack near the philips screw at the end of one of the arms. And a second smaller fracture on another philips screw mount. But find myself increasingly stressed when you read these constant threads of battery failure, fly-aways etc. It does tend to pass once I am flying and disappears (for a while!) after a sucessful batch of flights. I enjoy this totally new hobby but wish one could just have a bit more confidence in the product!

bill
 
I completely agree. Just got a v1.1.1 for Christmas - took it out for its maide flight two days ago and was extremely nervous thee entire time!
 
Have to agree. I fly my Phantom on my beach and normally around 50-100 feet. I love to fly up to 300+feet to get a serious look of the coast line, and friends love a sunrise video from those altitudes. BUT , I do sweat alot as I fly my investment around over the water or more than 400ft down the beach. Maybe its a disbelief that this device can fly so high and so far legitimately. I do follow all precautions for fly aways and so far have always flow in open areas with little interference. My first panic with fly away was when I tried return to home, and i was a distance away from its takes off location. From my perspective it fly way past its home location and thought i had lost. Watching the video play back, it did EXACTLY what it was supposed to. That made me feel more comfortable in all my subsequent flights. I think the only time to be nervous is when we dont follow the suggestions DJI has given us to avoid fly aways. Some of us want to try to fly in exotic areas and those flights might be the questionable ones that lead to fly-aways.
 
I've flown mine over a least 50 or more times and I still get the butterfly's in the tummy every time I take her up. I feel a little better once I put my fpv goggles on and start flying because I feel that I'm at one with the unit and will be able to tell where it lands or direction its headed in case of a fly away! But I don't like heights so I kind of get nervous about that too :)
 
The feeling is normal. It shows you value money. Just make sure you are working with full batteries and you are mindful of your flight times and you keep the craft in good shape. Use balanced props so you don't get vibrations. You can vibrate a soldering point loose and then you'll be in for a nightmare. Don't fly 3 minutes out into the ocean when you only have 4 minutes of battery left. Really its all just common sense. The reason you hear so many horror stories is because thats normally why someone comes to the site. They crash their phantom and don't know why and go online and phantom pilots pops up in google. They come here and their first post is a flyaway story. The majority of phantom flyers have not had a crash and are flying just fine and have never had a need to come to the site. I think your horror stories are really a very small percentage of the phantoms but just like the 10 o'clock news, no one cares about the guy who posts "just bought a phantom and it flies great and I love it." Everyone wants to know more about the guy who crashes it into the ocean.
 
It's all natural. Even the great Icarus felt the heavy thumps drumming within his chest as he prepares to take his legendary flight... and when he finally flew up to the sun-- er.. never mind.

Seriously though, as time passes, the community have uncovered the weaknesses of the early batch of PV and how to mitigate the problems one by one... so things are definitely improving at its pace.
 
Had 4 more flights today on a lovely calm sunny winters day- no issues :) Got quite a few positive comments from passers by (as per that other thread!) And two people went off preparing to buy one- no pressure from me. Was a bit amused when the wife(?) hid behind her husband as the Phantom flew down and he said "Don't worry dear he is in perfect control of it- what could go wrong..."!

bill
 
Me too. But I also get bummed out when I can't fly it due to weather, lack of daylight, time at work etc.... I cherish the days that I can take it out to get better at flying it. Everytime I get the "Out of Range" error my heart skips a beat. When I see "Going Home" I'm about to trow up :) I'm still too afraid to take it up over water (ice) and haven't tested it too much at night. I just enabled IOC and added a 14dbi antennae to my P2V to get it fly further and when I tested out IOC that made some of my stress go away. It's a little comforting to know if you loose sight, orientation, FPV etc.. you can flip into IOC Home Lock and just pull back on the stick. Just a little more assurance that makes it a little less stressful to fly.
 
phantomflyer said:
I've flown mine over a least 50 or more times and I still get the butterfly's in the tummy every time I take her up. I feel a little better once I put my fpv goggles on and start flying because I feel that I'm at one with the unit and will be able to tell where it lands or direction its headed in case of a fly away! But I don't like heights so I kind of get nervous about that too :)
Click to expand...

Woo hoo, It's not just me, getting that butterfly in the tummy feeling. I'm just beginning to get used to flying with goggles but I do feel that I'm at one with the unit when I put them on (I don't have the height problem though).
 
Ksc said:
The feeling is normal. It shows you value money. Just make sure you are working with full batteries and you are mindful of your flight times and you keep the craft in good shape. Use balanced props so you don't get vibrations. You can vibrate a soldering point loose and then you'll be in for a nightmare. Don't fly 3 minutes out into the ocean when you only have 4 minutes of battery left. Really its all just common sense. The reason you hear so many horror stories is because thats normally why someone comes to the site. They crash their phantom and don't know why and go online and phantom pilots pops up in google. They come here and their first post is a flyaway story. The majority of phantom flyers have not had a crash and are flying just fine and have never had a need to come to the site. I think your horror stories are really a very small percentage of the phantoms but just like the 10 o'clock news, no one cares about the guy who posts "just bought a phantom and it flies great and I love it." Everyone wants to know more about the guy who crashes it into the ocean.
Click to expand...

I agree. The number of Phantoms that are being flown with absolutely zero troubles vastly outnumber the very small percentage of fliers who have an incident. The reason you hear so much about fly-aways is because no one ever complains that if flies great...they complain if it doesn't; it's human nature.
I posted a mini-rant some time ago about this very thing; people being reluctant to buy or fly because of the possibility of a Fly away or some other issue. So many complaints...what they fail to look at is the fact that DJI sells something in the order of 10,000 units per week (this is a "guesstimate" from a large N. American dealer. It may/may not be accurate, but I suspect it's close) and only a fraction of a percent has ANY issues. I've NEVER had a fly away with either of my Phantoms. I have an F550 on order right now; I bought DJI because it is the most common brand of flight controller available. Also, the equipment they put out is some of the toughest in the business. I've dumped a Phantom into a tree (trunk) at speed...it then dropped to the ground from 30 feet up. I picked it up, turned it over and set it down, then flew it away; there were NO damages to the equipment.
I'm looking forward to getting my new 550 in the air because it will offer me greater capability in terms of what cameras I can carry, and the ability to fly in wind conditions that may ground the Phantom. I will likely sell one Phantom, but will keep the other; the smaller footprint offers advantages too.
Don't be afraid to fly; be sensible. Don't do something foolish with your aircraft and you will be rewarded with hours of trouble free flying
 
I'm a brand new phantom owner, and I have a different kind of stress. I'm quite happy flying my v1.1.1 as I've been messing around with various little helis and a couple of micro quads for a while.

But, what stresses me is where I can fly without getting in trouble. I live in Switzerland, and if it's not written that you are allowed to do something then you assume it's forbidden (bit like the FAA lol).

I went for my first FPV flight, found a beautiful little spot in a clearing in some nearby woods. Set up my phantom and started checking everything, and within a few minutes a 4x4 is coming down the track behind me. I'm thinking that I didn't even get it up in the air before the land owner came after me. I was on a public path, but as I said if it's not written that it's allowed...

Turns out the guy was just driving along it for fun, stopped to see if I needed helped (thought I'd come off my bike) and had a big grin when he say my Phantom.

But I know at some point I'm going to get an angry Swiss farmer after me. I guess I could go visit every nearby farmhouse I see to ask for permission, but my Swiss German isn't great and I'd expect an immediate no answer. So that's what stresses me so far.
 
I get a subdued version of the combined excitement, wariness, and anticipation of the unknown that reminds me of everytime I climb on to the sled and take to the asphalt. The same as pre-flight checks, I have a routine that settles most of the glaring concerns that should be obvious (tires, gas leaks, important moving parts and brakes and throttle cable/clutch cable, etc)

I think what you refer to is what draws me into the hobby- that unknown part... it can shake a person to the core. I have always been far too reprobate to know the dangers of that- I am more interested in where that envelope pops at... or to be more precise, where that point is just before and not crossing it. In my opinion, if it is all about the money, then expensive pursuits will only bring you sleepless nights.

I have more titanium on my right side than bone as a testament to how detrimental pushing limits can be, but when I fly... I know I won't feel anything if the worst happens like what put that metal in me.

To be honest- I am stressed when I can't fly... like now, with polar feckin vortex bs outside, and average winds at 20 to 30 (mph for you international folks) and that is a limit I will not test- no unknown there- it definitely will fly away.
 
I am still new to flying and am always stressed when it's up in the air. It's so much money!! People that watch me fly it don't really understand why I am worried...they see flawless performance of the unit, and think "what could go wrong?"....but then they haven't read the flyaway horror stories or read about software glitches or batteries falling out. I still am not flawless with controls. Occasionally I will move the lever the wrong way or even move the wrong lever. It makes my heart skip a beat when I do that. So I am still flying cautiously and trying to make flying it second nature, but I still have to think hard to make certain maneuvers. I am looking forward to the day when I don't have to think so hard to know which stick movements I need to do.
 
Wow..what a relief. I'm not alone.

I can't wait to get the thing up in the air…and then I can't wait to get it down safely. I just love this machine but that mix of excitement and stress takes it's toll.

I too, have a fear of heights which does not help. Perhaps continual practice will bring calm and confidence.

I also find it very difficult to take my eyes off of the phantom and look at the FPV screen instead.

Perhaps goggles and a stiff drink are the answer.
 
Yes I'm stressed too! I've had 2 times where my phantom went out of control on descent and crashed{luckily only broken props}and e'clips were off when I checked the motors,dont know if impact knocked them off or they came off in flight,so now every flight scares me.
Just got back from Grand Canyon and flew my phantom there but was a nervous wreck.I would have loved to taken it out in the canyon further but was too worried it could drop out of the sky at any moment from one of the eclips coming off.
Heres the video if you wanna check it out.Its not that good,not that bad.I dont have a gimbal yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1l6BzF ... LScaVdkdHQ
 
Do you remember the first few times you drove your car in dense traffic? Maybe as a teenager some people are more gung ho but I remember having precisely the same feeling. I have crashed twice and had 2 diagonal landings. Each time I feel it again until I build my confidence up a little.

One crash; however was entirely due to stress WHILE flying. I was filming someone climb a 35m tree in attitude mode due to bad gps coverage and keeping focus on a gently swaying P2V in a 4+ m clearing as I raised it vertically to 25m. At that point I realised I had to bring it down because adrenaline was kicking my arse.

Soon after I took off again on a road through the same forest and did an easy cruise down it, calming me. When I attempted to pop out of a clearing in the trees to get a view the stress came back and with the drone switching automatically between attitude mode and gps I lost track of its heading and somehow it managed to go 30m through forest with me dodging trees before a branch came out of nowhere.
 
I was and still am nervous when flying my $40.00 Syma X1!!! I haven't purchased my Phantom yet, but will be in the next couple of days. I can only imagine my fear of flying a thousand plus dollar toy. To calm my fears, I hope to find a local RC club, and really become involved with them, and hopefully learn as much as I can. I guess it all boils down to not buying something you can't afford to lose. Also, I plan on attaching a parachute on mine, with a very, very long string that I can pull to me in case of failure! Maybe some helium balloons as well. And a very tall crane hooked to my phantom! Any other safety suggestions would be much appreciated!
 
I've flown perhaps 30 or 50 times. I'm over a lot of the anxiety so long as I stick to nice open areas. I've had some NASTY crashes and have replaced the shell once and am now probably replacing a motor. You have to keep in mind a lot of the negative experiences with phantoms are due to pilot error (not all... but many). I am nervous though surprisingly steely when flying over water but am very cautious. I got my phantom more for the photography/videography aspect of the hobby but enjoy flying as much as the rest. Whenever I sense something may be amiss I slowly bring it down, if I am getting flustered or confused with the controls I take my fingers off and give my mind a moment to reset. I came into this a total RC novice and I don't have a lot of money to throw around as far as losing my investment. I take it slow until I have the confidence. I personally have thankfully not had serious issues with my phantom. i do not however rely on homelock or ioc and I do not fly it out of my view. always do the gps dance and just... breath <3
 
Rowdy13 said:
I was and still am nervous when flying my $40.00 Syma X1!!! I haven't purchased my Phantom yet, but will be in the next couple of days. I can only imagine my fear of flying a thousand plus dollar toy. To calm my fears, I hope to find a local RC club, and really become involved with them, and hopefully learn as much as I can. I guess it all boils down to not buying something you can't afford to lose. Also, I plan on attaching a parachute on mine, with a very, very long string that I can pull to me in case of failure! Maybe some helium balloons as well. And a very tall crane hooked to my phantom! Any other safety suggestions would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...

heliworld has 1.1.1's on sale right now. I'd advise against tethering your copter.... I don't know if people have done it but I imagine if it got sucked into your rotors you'd be sorry especially if you are flying over people... or cement... or tall trees... Take the time to become comfortable with your machine
 

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