Well, my first flight has ended with success.
Definition of success in this case: Quad is in one piece, in the same condition as when it started.
I have flown quads before. I built my own a few years back, so have some experience.
Took my P3A to a field and my kids and wife went off to the park while I did my flight. More or less uneventful, but a few things got to me.
1. It;s small!
I got to 38m (Around 110 ft), and a distance of 164m away (530 ft). I flew out watching the screen, but when I turned back, the sun was setting, and the screen went dark, except for the sky... so I couldn't make out the ground. So looked at the quad. It was like a little speck! Back to screen.. all dark, rotated until I had acceptable vision, and then flew back on screen. But even when I got closer, and then hovered, and looked at it, I could not make out which way it was pointing, unless I moved the sticks. That was a bit scarey, but something I will get used to. But it is really small up there. even close in and high, I battle to see which way it's facing.
2. GPS loss.
I noted a few times, I saw my green 'Safe to Fly' go orange, with 'No GPS' or something. And then it came back. It seems it loses GPS signal intermittently. Normal? Issue?
3. Brake system.
Well, I'm not used to that, but when flying back to myself, and I release the elevator/forward stick to slow down, it brakes with a lot of 'wizzzz' sound. To, props spin faster and it tilts back to slow down. This was disconcerting. Sounded like it was having an issue briefly. Is this OK? I was scared to stop incase it lost control of it's self.
4. Scared.
I'll be honest, my nerves were buizzing while I flew. I was too scared to go over 40M. I would get up, and then my head would be, 'What if I lose power! What if it's flys away now!', and I'd chicken out. Is that normal for day one??
Anyway, here it is... 18 minutes of flight down to 2 minutes. Most of the flight was hovering and slow flight.
Definition of success in this case: Quad is in one piece, in the same condition as when it started.
I have flown quads before. I built my own a few years back, so have some experience.
Took my P3A to a field and my kids and wife went off to the park while I did my flight. More or less uneventful, but a few things got to me.
1. It;s small!
I got to 38m (Around 110 ft), and a distance of 164m away (530 ft). I flew out watching the screen, but when I turned back, the sun was setting, and the screen went dark, except for the sky... so I couldn't make out the ground. So looked at the quad. It was like a little speck! Back to screen.. all dark, rotated until I had acceptable vision, and then flew back on screen. But even when I got closer, and then hovered, and looked at it, I could not make out which way it was pointing, unless I moved the sticks. That was a bit scarey, but something I will get used to. But it is really small up there. even close in and high, I battle to see which way it's facing.
2. GPS loss.
I noted a few times, I saw my green 'Safe to Fly' go orange, with 'No GPS' or something. And then it came back. It seems it loses GPS signal intermittently. Normal? Issue?
3. Brake system.
Well, I'm not used to that, but when flying back to myself, and I release the elevator/forward stick to slow down, it brakes with a lot of 'wizzzz' sound. To, props spin faster and it tilts back to slow down. This was disconcerting. Sounded like it was having an issue briefly. Is this OK? I was scared to stop incase it lost control of it's self.
4. Scared.
I'll be honest, my nerves were buizzing while I flew. I was too scared to go over 40M. I would get up, and then my head would be, 'What if I lose power! What if it's flys away now!', and I'd chicken out. Is that normal for day one??
Anyway, here it is... 18 minutes of flight down to 2 minutes. Most of the flight was hovering and slow flight.