New Flyer After Any Tips I Can Get

[SargeR33]

Hey all,

I'm a new flyer. I have been flying small drones inside the home for a few weeks now and have something a little bigger. I got my self a Nighthawk 280 and have flown it twice outdoors in a large field and am having a blast.

What I am finding difficult is LOS flying at any fun range. Now my drone has an LED bar on the rear and it does help but I still get quite nervous as far away the drone is pretty damn hard to see and I have 20/20.

I can hover just fine, pitch forward, pitch back, roll right and left but when it comes time to yaw control and trying to, say, do a circle I get all nervous and it becomes a mess. I haven't crashed or anything but I come close to trees. I have about 500m/sq to play with at the moment and another thing which concerns me is tx range.

I've watched a whole bunch of tutorial videos and people seem to say LOS flying is much easier than FPV. Part of me finds this hard to believe since FPV I can see the direction I am going. With that said though I don't want to jump into FPV(I have it all setup and ready to go) until I can get LOS happening.

Does anyone have any tips? What I have tried is doing circles but it needs quite a bit of space and I feel so uncoordinated when I'm trying to control roll, pitch, yaw and throttle all at once. I found a video which suggested "walking" my drone, where I stay 1m behind it and walk and steer as I walk. I am nervous doing this. Where I fly is almost always windy and being 1m away from props spinning 10000rpm isn't somewhere I want to be. I need some tips. What is the best way to differentiate front and rear of a drone at great distance(70m+)? Should I fly with sunglasses? I will be going for a fly tomorrow and have about 800m/sq to play with. Later in the year I will have thousands of acres to play with but very hilly/bushy country.

I also have a question regarding prop selection. Stock props are 6045. I got some new gem something or rather props in the matching size but much less weight. This will bring inertia down and could give more speed. I also have some props in 5040. I am using 3S at the moment. What would be a good option? I cannot find 4S in any of my local stores.

Finally in regards to transmission range. What does it come down to? The ability for the TX to push a signal strong and far or the receiver? If I want to boost the signal, can I use a module to boost my TX and leave the RX as is? I've seen people do "range tests" but they're just 30m away from their drones, which doesn't seem like a range test. I was planning to leave my drone at home, no props and drive about 500m away and see if I can get it to respond. I'm in the market to buy a new TX so if anyone has suggestions that would be great. I was looking at the Radiolink(cheap, effective, great specs, cheap RX) and the Spektrum DX6i but the Radiolink has better specs and comes cheaper. I know people say you get what you pay for but the Radiolink seems pretty damn impressive. Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

[glowingturnip]

i posted up a training drill i did for myself in another thread, here, which is hopefully of use.

Regarding l.o.s disorientation at a distance, that's something that happens to me rather more often than I'd care to admit, especially when it's just a speck and is silhouetted against the sky. Best advice I've seen is to stop all movement on the right stick and let it just hover, then gently push forward on the stick, if it moves towards your left, more left yaw will bring it round to face you, and vice versa if it moves to your right.

Regarding transmitter range - yep, do that, leave it at home with a friend, with the props off, and go 500m-1km down the road and try it. I have a Flysky 6 channel FS-i6 which is cheap, does exactly what I want from it, and I'm comfortable that its range is far longer than I need.

 

[Jackson]

I can hover just fine, pitch forward, pitch back, roll right and left but when it comes time to yaw control and trying to, say, do a circle I get all nervous and it becomes a mess.

That's why you needed to stick with an inexpensive mini size quad till you developed the needed muscle memory and could do all that without thinking about it. Learning to fly entails lots of crashing.

http://www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopters/pp_147483.html?wid=1

 

[ringolong]

I second Jackson's post about starting with a smaller cheaper quad to learn with.

You are making a good decision learning to fly los first. FPV is easier, but if something that delivers video burns out or malfunctions then you will have the skills to fly home.

 

[SargeR33]

I've already got my self a small quad which I use a lot in doors and sometimes outdoors when its not too windy. Its a lot of fun but because I only use it close range and it isn't very fast, its easy to control. With the 280 size quad though you can become disorientated very quickly. I'm thinking I should do LOS flying with assisted screen flying so if I'm in trouble I can quickly look down at the screen and gauge direction and location.

I'm thinking of opening up the video transmitter and installing a heatsink on it. Even the antennae gets really damn hot.

Awesome link glowingturnip! I was also told to go with one of the cheaper chinese transmitters. Apparently they don't follow any regulations and its usually quite easy to tweak them to get good range out of them without needing boosters etc. I'm looking at the Radiolink AT9, Flysky i10, or if I feel like spending a little more maybe a taranis.

 

[RENOV8R]

The Radiolink AT9 has been getting very good reviews.

 

[SargeR33]

Yeah, it seems like a top notch value for money unit. DSSS is pretty solid too and out of the box its not hard to get a couple km radius out of it. I've ordered one with two receivers and a pwm voltage return module. Another good looking unit was the Turnigy 9XR or something but it required the purchase of a module and rx which I couldn't be bothered for.