Everyone encounters various difficulties when piloting a quadcopter for the first time. After you have purchased a drone from our Buyer’s Guide, you might need some guidance on flying your quad for the first time. If you too are facing troubles, then that’s completely normal and you shouldn’t worry about it. If you are looking for your first flight guide for quadcopters, then just read on. We’ve also included a great video at the end for reference.
Step-by-Step Instructions
The first step to a safe flight for a drone is identifying a safe location where it is not too windy. Once you’ve identified the right location, you need to check the batteries if those are fully charged or not. Then, follow below-mentioned steps to get started with flying your drones.
- Place the quadcopter on a flat surface, put on a pair of sunglasses for protection of your eyes, and at last, turn on your quad.
- Make sure to calibrate a compass and enable the GPS.
- On your phone, set a timer to determine a safe landing voltage.
- If your quadcopter needs a CSC (Combination Stick Command), then you need to perform it.
- The rotors will begin to spin at a slow speed as you apply throttle and when you want to stop the rotors, release your control over throttle stick.
- To ensure free spinning of the propellers, slowly raise the throttle stick. You can also check if two of the rotors are spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise, as two propellers that are opposite to each other spin clockwise with the other two rotating counter-clockwise.
- Apply the throttle in a gentle way and let your drone fly to a few feet, let’s say 5-6 ft., high. This is the time where you can afford to make mistakes, but as soon as the drone is flying at a significant height, one small mistake made by you will result in quadcopter crash.
- As you see the quad hovering in the sky, you can keep it flying in one spot using the flight computer. It is a big task to keep the drone flying in one spot, so be proud of yourself for being able to do that.
- You need to find a spot where you are able to see and control the quadcopter properly.
- Keep the quad away from you in order to feel how to handle a straightforward flight. You can change the current input on the forward control stick to notice the difference the input has made on the attitude of the quad.
- If the quadcopter begins to venture too far away from you, it is your responsibility to center the pitch control stick in order to pull back the quadcopter. Once the quad starts getting closer to you, slowly release the input in order to make it hover at a comfortable distance from you.
- Do the same for left and right, but make sure that the quad is facing you while you move it left or right.
- Once you perform this much perfectly, it’s time to do a 360-degree turn, which is not going to be easy because as you rotate the quad to 180 degrees, controls are changed, as the quad left and right positions of the quad are reversed. The only thing that remains the same is the throttle.
- Now, you should try to fly diagonally, combining forward and sideways flight. You need to get the feel as to how much you need to move the control stick is required to attain the desirable movement.
- You should also try to turn the quadcopter to 180 degrees, so as to control the quad when it is facing you.
Tip: You need to pretend as if you are sitting in the ‘cockpit’ of your quadcopter. Therefore, your left is drone’s left and your right is drone’s right.
The Landing Process
When you have taken the maiden flight using the first flight guide for quadcopters, it’s time to land the quad. Make sure to land the quad when there is at least 20% battery left in it, so as to find another spot suitable for landing, in case the first one was not good. Once you’ve identified the right spot, start lowering the throttle control stick in order to bring the quad down steadily. Concentrate on the exact spot on the ground where you want the quadcopter to land in order to make a perfect landing.
Safe Shutdown
Once the quadcopter is fully down and you are sure that it won’t slide sideways or tip over, you can lower the throttle completely to shut off the motors. If the drone is sliding around or bouncing off the ground, then you can add the throttle and get the quad a bit higher in order to land it again. It is better to take the quad high and land it again rather than having it tip over and damaging itself.
With that, your first flight concludes, and you can be proud of yourself for doing everything perfectly in the very first attempt. If you follow all the steps provided in this guide in the exact same way, then you won’t experience any major issues.
