How to learn how to fly drones

yashax

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A little history. I wanted to get in the hobby a year ago and purchased FrySky X12S, but did not do anything with it. I do own DJI Spark which I have been flying for a while.

Following the advise of other forums I downloaded the Velocidrone and LiftOff and hooked it up to my X12S. It calibrates OK and everything seems to setup OK. I even used settings recommended to start very very basic.

No matter what I do, I can not figure out how to fly. Even if my movements are tiny. The drone just takes off. I can barely fly straight between pylons. Forget about turning.

I really want to learn, but being really discouraged.

Please help.

Jake
 
I’m not a drone flyer, I fly RC fixed wing and trying to learn helicopters. I did have an urge for a FPV freestyle drone after watching some members fly at my club and went as far as doing a load of research on goggles and the best parts to build my own. I also tried the simulators and bought Lift Off.

Now what do you mean by flying?

I find I can take off and fly around in Lift Off very easily, but this is out for a Sunday stroll flying, big circuits - I’m nowhere near good enough to fly the course.

So do you mean flying the course or just flying in general.

If the latter, then something might be wrong with the setup.

What controller are you using? Is it like an game controller or a proper RC controller? Both will work but the game controller will be much more sensitive because the sticks have much less throw (I mean if you move your thumb an eighth of inch that equates to more movement on a game controller than an RC controller.

What model are you using? Some a lot more docile than others.

Beyond that you can play with dual rates and put exponential in the sticks to soften the movement around centre stick.

And generally, flying RC (and full size flying) is much more about small stick movements - if you have come from computer gaming where you yank the stick around.

Finally, and this doesn’t matter so much. How do you hold the sticks, thumbs on top or pinched between fore finger and thumb?

The latter is generally thought to give more control and if you are starting out with no prior muscle memory then that is the recommended approach. If like me you are already used to thumbs on top it is very difficult to make the change so people generally don’t bother. People who have done a lot of console-based flying games already have ‘thumbs on top’ ingrained.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Practice, practice practice...
I started in a large empty office, so no breeze and nothing hard to hit. Tiny movements, learning to fly nose in and nose out, hovering over a meter square and maintaining position.

Once you have the muscle memory for this, flying figure of 8s and other shapes at different altitudes all while directly observing the drone. Only then switch to FPV and you will find the change in perspective easier to handle.
 
I was a bit confused by the first post .You have a Spark and have been flying but cannot fly with the X12S. I though you were trying to fly the Spark with the X12S. I take it you trying to fly with a PC simulator program. I see there is particular specifications required to run Lift Off . Minimum cpu requirements i5 on Win 7 . Is your PC /laptop upto scratch.
If you wanting to get better at flying , just practice with the Spark . Fly about 6 to 8 foot off the ground and fly forwards, backwards, sideways etc and you will get proficient eventually.
 
Flying "manually" without all the pilot aids that you get on all the current drones is a totally different experience. You need to practice close to you before you think about trying to fly any distance.

Do however check the remote is setup correctly. It's very easy to get a stick the wrong way round so that the drone turns the wrong way.

Sport drones are much harder to control, so at low speeds you should expect it to be tricky to master and to require minimal stick inputs. Can you adjust the virtual PIDs to reduce the drone response?

I use Phoenix RC to practice. I find this to be much simpler to learn and I can fly most of the aircraft on their with some degree of competence!!
 
I've just had a quick play with Liftoff. Didn't have a setup in my transmitter (Futaba T8FG) so quickly created one - just basic four main controls no dual rates or expo. Selected advanced pilot in setup.

Picked a drone. Picked free flight. Picked a flying site - the straw bale field - used 'V' to change mode so I wasn't in FPV google.

Put in some throttle and the drone rose into the air and sat there hands-off, bit of drifting but hardly any really. Flying around was a breeze (just general flying around at altitude not going through hoops or anything). Just nudge the stick gently and it goes in the direction you want.

If you are not experiencing this then maybe something wrong with your setup.

Just read your original post properly and see that you are using a decent FrSky transmitter. You shouldn’t have any problems using Liftoff with that.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
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Does anyone know if a Mamba MSR receiver is compatible with the BetaFPV Lite SE radio? The Mamba receiver states that it is compatible with accst 16, but is that the same as frsky16?
 
Practice, practice practice...
I started in a large empty office, so no breeze and nothing hard to hit. Tiny movements, learning to fly nose in and nose out, hovering over a meter square and maintaining position.

Once you have the muscle memory for this, flying figure of 8s and other shapes at different altitudes all while directly observing the drone. Only then switch to FPV and you will find the change in perspective easier to handle.
Hardest part is going from self level mode to acro mode! It’s like the difference between flying an RC plane versus a helicopter.
 

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