How to fly drones
Like most beginners in the quadcopter space after opening up my first drone, I was too anxious to just start flying rather than “learning to fly”. You should have seen me; I was in my house sitting on the floor, I throttled up and – zip – right for my head! I was diving, rolling, and ducking, not with my drone, but my body! I had a lot of fun and laughs, but soon after crashing several times and popping myself with the propellers, I realized that I better take the time to “learn how to fly” my drone with skill and precision.
First things first – make sure your batteries are fully charged and ready to go. They don’t come charged, or at least mine did not. One mistake I made, which was part of the reason I was having trouble flying, was that I didn’t calibrate my gyro. I was also getting a drift that I was having to fight against, which is what I am telling myself that contributed to my disaster of a first flight. Basic controls for drones are pretty easy, which is why it lends itself to new hobbyist.
Basic Controls: Pitch
The 4 basics controls are pitch, roll, throttle, and yaw. Pitch is a movement that is controlled on the right stick of the controller, which makes the drone “dive down” or either “pull up”. Forward on the right stick dives the drone down and back or down on the right stick pulls drone up.
Basic Controls: Roll
Roll is also on the right stick and is pretty self explanatory. Pushing left on the right stick rolls the quadcopter to the left, and pressing right on the stick rolls the quadcopter to the right. So everything dealing with the right stick deals with tilting the drone. Do you remember the game where you navigate the ball through the maze by tilting it? That is basically the movement you are doing to the quadcopter with the right stick!
Basic Controls: Throttle
The left stick controls the throttle and yaw. I’m sure most you of you, if not all of you, know what the throttle does but I am going to tell you anyway. The throttle gives you lift off. It’s what makes you go and controls the lift, decent and speed of the rc drone. Much like a remote control car controller, forward or up on the left stick sends it up, and down slows the propellers down causing the decent. A point to make about the throttle is it starts in the downward position and then slowly moves up so you get full range of motion. Depending on which drone you get or use, you need to be gentle with the throttle because if not, you may never see it again. Some of them are fast!
Basic Controls: Yaw
Now yaw is also on the left stick and moves left to right and instead of rolling one way or another, it rotates or turns. Again, pretty simple. You move the stick left then it turns left and vice versa, just like a remote control car would. The tricky thing here is that you have what’s called “nose-in” flying, which is where the drone is flying towards you. This causes the controls to be reversed, well everything except the throttle, that is. This just takes some good ole practice to get use to. Since you now know the basic controls, you need to go outside on a day without much wind and plenty of space to work on movement.
Hovering is the first thing you may want to start with to get a feel of the controls in action. After that, you can increase the height and go on from there. A suggestion I will make though, is to not start on concrete but grass or something instead. This is because you will crash or have to drop the throttle real quick if it gets away from you, or at least I did. You do this to avoid damaging or getting excessive scratches on it. Do these things and you will be a drone flying expert in no time!