Quadcopter Diary Part 2: Flying Tips

Today’s Post by Mark Toal

Please read Part I: Learning and remembering how to use the remote controller can be a little tricky. For some reason in all the videos I watched on YouTube I couldn’t understand where to set the two switches on top of the remote controller.

My friend Dave Richardson came to the rescue by giving me a preflight checklist for DJI Quadcopters but it’s probably similar to what’s available from other brands. There are lots of similar lists available, on-line including this one called the “OpenPilot Preflight Checklist.”

A couple of other things that I learned this week by making mistakes:

1. The Quadcopter will fly slightly forward when taking off and then straight up. This may seem like a minor point until you try your first takeoff in a confined space. You can see this happen in the video.
2. When the battery is running low and you have a light camera on board the Quadcopter will stop rising and start to come down slowly to let you know that the battery is low. If you have a heavier camera your flight time is reduced and it will come down much faster, and I mean much faster!
3. No matter how good a pilot you think you are at this point stay away from trees and cement.