Whether you are new to flying drones or a seasoned expert, there are seven things that we see frequently that can be easily avoided. These mistakes are:
- Turning on your drone when it’s not on a level surface. – When attempting to fly, if your quadcopter drone immediately takes off at weird angles, flips, or is uncontrollable you probably don’t understand the importance of initializing your gyros. Before you take to the air, you must first initialize the gyros on your quadcopter so that it understands level flight. This is true for big and small drones.
- Getting disoriented when the drone is flying towards you. – Try to keep the back of the drone facing you as you learn to fly. When a drone is flying towards you, left is right and forward is backwards!
- Not giving enough throttle during takeoff. – Often results in flipping over. Hovering very close to the ground is a danger zone because of the ground effect. GE for any aircraft is caused by the increase in air pressure as the aircraft is flying close to the ground. This increased air pressure is caused by the air being pushed downwards by wings or rotors. Since the aircraft is close to the ground, the downward rush of air has no place to go, so air pressure builds under the aircraft.
- Flying your batteries to full discharge. – Not only dangerous, but bad for your LiPo batteries. A good rule of thumb is to start your landing process at 30% and don’t let the batteries get below 20%. If you are flying a drone without a “smart” battery, use the timer on your phone to know when you will run out of juice.
- Getting to high or too far away. – Remember you are not supposed to fly over 400 feet. But also remember that you can climb faster than you can ascend safely. So if you are 2 miles away and 350 feet in the air, make sure you have plenty of battery life left to get you back safely.
- Hitting small branches or power lines. – Buildings, mountains and trees are easy to see. However, don’t forget about the smaller more difficult to see things that can easily take your drone out of the sky! And be aware that there are not only obstacles in front of you but above, below and all around too!
- Landing too fast or at an angle. – Coming in hot will lead to a crash. Always try to land slowly and straight down. You can also catch the drone if you don’t have a good place to land.
To learn how to avoid these mistakes, check out this video!
Spread the love
