A flying drone is not a big deal at all if you are interested in learning how to fly drones and passionate about getting to know simple tricks and information the very first time then you can become an expert drone pilot. You just need to be curious, ready to drive, must focus with a positive mind, have passion till getting all the expertise in flying drones from beginners to experts.
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5 Steps For Beginners Before flying Drone – A Smart Primer
Here, we would like to express a very basic five-step to learn and fly drones very quickly, simply, and also successfully. After that, we will guide you in complete detail and provide you with a more succinct overview for beginners and such discussion will be based on mainly 12 steps with which every drone pilot should be familiar before drone flight.
Proposed 5 Primary Steps For Beginners:
- To have a real drone in hand
- To know about your particular drone type and its controller
- Focus on all necessary safety guidelines and regulations before registering your drone
- Ready your drone for safe flight
- To start flying drone
To Have A real Drone In Hand:
Theoretical knowledge is not as important for a drone pilot. Whenever you are not practicing you could not fly properly. So, it’s the best option for learning drones practically rather than theoretically. We would like to recommend that flying a toy-type drone is the best because it does not require a high budget, you can fly it by having low GPS and camera that also provides you normal photos and it makes your drone flight much easier as a learner.
To know about your particular drone type and its controller:
You must know about your drone’s type, features, attributes, and limitations. You must be familiar with your drone’s controller and adjustable settings to secure your flight simply.
Whenever your drone will be in there you become attentive to the controller’s buttons and its functions. We would like to advise you that it takes some time to become familiar with its sticks to know how they work efficiently then your drone flight would be saved.
Focus on all necessary safety guidelines and regulations before registering your drone:
In this step you need to show more attention to the drone’s safety guidelines, rules and regulations yourself. Because drone can cause harm to yourself and others also. That’s Why you should be aware of all these things for a safe flight by following all possible safety tips.
There is another important point which we would like to talk about is your drone’s weight. If the drone is over the weight of 0.55lbs that means 50g then make sure your drone registration takes place with the FAA, otherwise, the penalty will be charged and you have to bear losses and be restricted by the FAA.
Ready your drone for a safe flight:
It’s time to prepare your particular drone for a straight-out safe flight. Before flying you need to consider some compulsory things that include charging batteries, downloading controller applications, updating firmware, etc. And for doing this excellent WIFI signal should be there or a strong internet connection.
To start flying a drone:
Try to follow a preflight important checklist and make sure that your drone is now ready to take its flight in the presence of safe procedures. Now fly your drone and enjoy an amazing flight experience.
Top 12 Most Important Steps Before Flying Your Drone:
These are mainly 5 steps now let us talk about the top 12 steps about the drone’s beginners guide that would be most beneficial for effective drone flight.
Step 1: Choose Your Drone First
Step 2: Know Your Drone’s Model And Its Functions
Step 3: To Know Your Drone’s Controller
Step 4: To Understand The FAA Rules And Regulations
Step 5: Drone Registration
Step 6: To Learn Various Important Tips For Drone Flight Safety
Step 7: Make Your Drone Ready For Flight
Step 8: To Have Preflight Checklist
Step 9: To Keep Your Hat on, Enjoy Your Flight
Step 10: Learn Your Basic Drills As A Beginner
Step 11: Be Alert For Emergencies
Step 12: Just Go On A Long Way From Beginner To Advanced
Step 1: Choose Your Drone First
A little ‘very initial step in getting started with ted on drone flight here are multiple varieties of drones available in the market place and new are also coming with advanced features and attributes periodically. Now it’s time to select the best drone that you can handle easily and simply without getting injured as well. As a beginner, you can take the cheapest toy drone without worrying about your investment.
- Selection of Toy Drone
Toy drones its type of small ones under $100 but it’s safe and simple to fly indoors and outdoor too. Such types of the drone comes with a separate controller, having no screen. There is no advanced feature or sophisticated flight aids, mostly toy drones have no camera but beginners use them. They even can’t rely on such cheap drones. So, we can say that toy drones may be harder to fly like you might get disappointed after flying them.
- GPS And Camera Drones
If you are interested in doing aerial photography then you should choose a mid-level camera drone because the main benefit of a camera drone is it comes with GPS, which is user-friendly. It has various helpful attributes to be considered, including proper hovering, obstacle avoidance, and also it has a return-to-home button that surely helps beginners to enjoy safe and successful flights.
Some camera drones are available in the market with a controller. They work with downloadable controller applications to use smartphones to fulfill the purpose of other flight functions. By using pre-programmer flight mode drones you make plans for automated flight.
Step 2: Know Your Drone’s Model And Its Functions
When you have bought your drone then you need to know everything about your drone model and its working features to spend some important time, you will get to know a toy drone or quadcopter. Some important parts about which you should be aware are:
Electronic Speed Control (ESC) – It connects the battery with drone motors and increases speed by sending signals to the drone motor. Just like that drone works on the received knowledge from the controller. We would like to inform you that there are also some toy drones you get from the market which ESC is unseen under the shell, which may or may not be removable with drones.
Motors – Motor provides power to spin the propellers. Some beginners use brushless motors at standard level but they are powerful and quieter and after some time you need to clean them occasionally.
Flight Controller Board – It is called the brain of the drone but you don’t need to worry and do anything with the flight control board like the average beginner.
Radio Receiver – A radio receiver may be an antenna or flush drone by using it, the drone picks up signals which are sent from the remote controller.
Propellers – Do you have any idea about propellers? These are the plastic-made spinning blades, connected to the end of both arms to lift and drone’s directions. Such propellers move at different speeds in various directions. This part is very common to break that comes with spares.
Battery – Batteries are commonly removable in the camera drones but not in toy drones and may be charged with a separate charger as per the drone’s model. We suggest that a removable battery drone would be best for you because it gives you more flight time.
Gimbal – A good camera drone also has a gimbal. Do you have any idea about gimbals? Gimbal is a system that stabilizes the camera during flight time.
Frame – Frame is the X or + shaped arms and body of the drone that gather all the parts and pieces including landing gear and arms. Its foldable design is very convenient to use and transport.
Step 3: To Know Your Drone’s Controller
Without controllers, your drone can not fly anymore and does not go anywhere that’s why it is an important part of a drone or quad. By getting some training and a little bit of practice you can easily and quickly control it according to your need. You must be familiar with controllers before flying and become comfortable with them.
There are mainly eight directions of your drone or quadcopter’s flight.
- Left/right
- Forward/backward
- Up/down
- Pivot left/ pivot right
Let’s talk about the left stick controls.
Throttle – It is a control of the altitude and height of your drone. When you fly it and push the left stick forward, the drone goes up and when you push the left stick backward, it goes down
Yaw – It is known as the pivot action of the drone. The meaning of Pivot is rotation in place to a different position. like left and right pivot directions of the drone.
Now we discuss right stick control.
Pitch – Pitch is a forward and backward direction of your quadcopter. By pushing the right stick, the drone moves toward the right and by pushing the right stick backward, the drone goes backward.
Roll – It is a right and left movement of the drone.
With all these stick controls, you can fly your drone in any direction faster. As you push these sticks in any direction as a result, the drone will move faster in various directions.
There are some more attributes and features that you get in your controller. We discuss them here one by one.
- Return To Home ( RTH )
If there is a GPS drone then there must be a return to the home button. By just pushing the button, the drone returns to land in a minute.
- Camera Shutter Option:
In a camera drone, you will find a button to take a picture and start and end a recording video.
- Flight Modes
This is another feature of the controller. It has multiple flight modes options to help in flying efficiently.
- Smartphone Holder
Some drones are present in the market without a screen on the controller, especially for beginners level. The smartphone slot into place depending on your specific controller design.
Step 4: To Understand The FAA Rules And Regulations
In the technological world, drones are considered aircraft, and FAA rules apply to this. There is a complete list of rules that everybody has to follow for recreational purposes otherwise you have to pay a fine. So, here we are going to mention some important recreational drone or aircraft rules.
Register Your Drone – First of all, you need to register drones whose weight of over 0.55 lbs means 250grams. After registration, you must label this number on your drone. It will help you to fly the drone without any fear or hesitation.
To Fly Drone 400 Feet Above Ground Level – All drone pilots should fly their drone at or below400 feet above the ground surface to prevent interference with drones that are flying at that place.
Keep Away From The Controlled airspace – You should avoid and don’t fly drones in controlled airspace like flying near airports without having authority from the Federal Aviation Administration. And for your ease, you can also use the FAA’s B4UFLY application to find out particular areas.
Keep Away from Any Manned Aircraft – as you are a beginner and new learner of flying drones and having smaller aircraft so you must give the way to any manned aircraft.
Try To Be In Visual Line Of Sight – You need to be sure and keep knowledge about your path and always consider and focus on your drone while flying. Try to always keep your drone in the visual line of sight.
Avoid Flying At Night – You should not fly the drone at night unless it has lights because the chances of mishaps or accidents increase and that can be damaged.
You Should Not Fly Over a Person Or Vehicle – Drone pilots should not fly in an overcrowded area or any person or moving vehicle. A crowded area may be like a sports event, grand functional activities, or ceremonies.
You need To Stay Out Of The Way Of Emergency Response Activities – These emergency response activities include firefighting, accidents, disaster relief, etc. You must avoid their ways.
Clear The Safety Test – This is another important rule you should consider. Drone operators or recreational pilots need to pass a drone safety test before getting right to fly a drone.
These are the basic most important rules to keep everyone safe. You need to learn them and take them seriously otherwise you will have to pay handsome fines.
Step 5: Drone Registration With FAA
If your drone weight is more than 0.55 lbs, you must be registered with the FAA, this registration is complete within ten minutes for just paying $5 for three years. Most toy drones and even DJI Mini have less than 0.55lbs weight so you can easily fly them.
Drone Registration Process:
Let’s highlight the drone registration process to understand it simply.
- Just by entering your email address and password, you create your account first
- You will provide a physical or mailing address
- You need to select registration types like commercial registration or recreational registration
- After registration, you will provide drone manufacturer or model information
- We agree with FAA rules and safety guidelines
- After that, pay $5 with your debit or credit card.
After completion of the registration process, you will get a unique ten-digit number, which you have to display on your drone with a label maker or durable tape whenever you fly.
Step 6: To Learn Various Tips For Drone Flight Safety
You should keep in mind some tips for safe flights and preventing injuries. Try to focus on such key points that will be beneficial for all beginners and drone pilots.
- Try to keep your hair, fingers, nails away from spinning propellers because they can cut sharply so you should use propeller guards which come with drones and you can also buy them separately.
- If you have a mini drone or a really small toy drone, do not fly indoors because so many things may break indoors.
- Fly your drone in an open area to reduce obstacles such as buildings, trees, overhead wires, moving vehicles, etc to learn how to handle and fly a drone.
- Do not fly drones in windy, rainy, too dark, and thunderstorms weather. Choose the right weather condition for flying a drone.
- You should fly your drone but the drone should not be so close to the ground
- Although the drone has obstacle avoidance sensors but still be careful when using the return home button
- Your drone should be in controlled range, if your drone goes beyond the limit then you have to face so many difficulties and couldn’t fly properly as the result, the drone drops out of the sky into trees or land
- Try to minimize controller interference. The minimum interference, the more drone receives signals from your controllers
- You should not hand off the controller to anyone else while flying.
Step 7: Make Your Drone Ready For Flight
Before going on a drone flight, you need to check out several things. As you know that GPS or camera drones have multiple advanced features to help in flying and toy drones there may not be such amazing things compared to other drones. We will be going to highlight a recommended list but be sure that you have an excellent wifi signal or internet connection.
- The first point is to download the flight application onto your phone specific to your drone model on App Store and Google Play Store.
- After that, create your account by providing login information for timely updates.
- Now power up or charge up your drone and its controller batteries. Generally, controller batteries are not attached to it so you need to charge them separately
- Connect your device to the controller by following some steps
- To keep your system updated, you will need to perform firmware updates for drones and controllers as well. Because every single minute system needs up-gradation for giving best performance but you should be more passionate for doing all such things
- It’s time to verify your system setting and status for a few things just like your drone height limit, flight mode setting, return to the home setting. So Just take some time to start flying
- You will need to format your SD card if you want to take pictures and videos and get ready for a wonderful drone flight.
Step 8: To Have Preflight Checklist
Under this umbrella, we will mention some important things that a beginner must be familiar with and remember clearly. We will be pointed out to mission planning, pre-flight plan, and take-off notes.
Mission Planning:
We will plan for our mission before flying and analyze some new things to become successful. Such as
- We will do a weather forecast
- We check out recent updates of drone or controller firmware and also application
- We will select and do research flight locations through Google Map/ Earth, or B4UFLY application
- We must charge all related necessary batteries like batteries of aircraft, phones, and controller
- We will be completely ready after packing our equipment
- First aid will be essential for your safety purpose
- Last, we will format the SD card
Pre-Flight Plan:
In this plan, we will focus on the given things. For example:
- We must remove the lens cover or gimbal clamp
- Need to inspect aircraft for knowing any craft damage
- We need to be a clean camera lens
- Try to confirm the SD card in your drone
- Need to check that all batteries are fully connected and properly fitted
- Firstly turn on the controller after that turn on the aircraft
- We will set the maximum height to 400ft of drone and also set our home point and return to the home height
- Confirm satellite connection and its strength
- Effectively perform compass calibration if we need
- We will select our desired flight mode and verify the camera setting too
- Choose photo storage location to SD card and check wind speed with weather situations
- Need to consider and double-check for problems like power lines, buildings or trees, etc
- Selection of take-off and landing place and the important thing is to take notes of your backup landing location as well.
Take Off Notes:
Important and considerable take off-notes are given below:
- Try to clear the take-off zone completely
- Throttle forward and push the take-off button
- Need to monitor that all controls are quickly responsive
- We will hover at ten to twelve feet for 15 seconds to check stability and responsiveness
Step 9: To Keep Your Hat on, Enjoy Your Flight
You should keep your hat on because there are still some things remaining that need to be highlighted before your drone leaves the ground. We analyze and find out any signs of damage or losses, removing the drone camera cover and also gimbal clamp and making sure that all propellers and batteries are charged completely.
There are some more setting key points that we will recommend for those who are beginners or starter drone pilots.
- The first thing is to set a maximum height of 50 feet
- Then set the maximum distance of 170 feet
- Need to set return to home altitude to 30-40 feet depending on the height
- last but important point is to use beginner mode before the flight and you must have at least 5-8 satellite signals before take-off
Step 10: Learn Your Basic Drills As A Beginner
The next area of our discussion is based on learning about your drone sticks. Such a drill helps you to become comfortable going anywhere you want it. You should practice and get overall knowledge about your sticks but do not focus on fancy flying until you can do both forms smoothly and efficiently.
Hover – To become a master the hover is not a big deal if you have a GPS drone. If you are flying a toy drone without GPS then that will be a big challenge for you to achieve a steady hover. Keep practicing a hover about six feet by using the left stick, this left stick controls the throttle and yaw. You just enjoy and play with it until your drone becomes steady.
Forward and Backward – You will push the right stick forward and the drone moves forward several feet. When you pull it back, the drone will stop. Whenever you pull the right stick back, the drone moves backward and when you push the stick back or release it, the drone will stop. Now keep repeating this process to learn stick responsiveness.
Left and Right – You push the right stick to the left, the drone moves left, when you push to the right, it goes toward the back. Repeat this method many times to become an expert.
Fly in a square – When you push the right stick to the right side, a drone flies to the right then hovers in place. And similarly, the drone rolls backward several times, when you push the right stick to the left. Repeat this drill until you learn.
Fly in a Circle – To fly a drone in a circle is a little bit challenging task that involves pitch and roll particularly. By learning this skill, you can fly a drone in two directions. Clockwise or counterclockwise. You must try switching ways to fly to the opposite side.
Rotate – You learn how to rotate your drone around 360 degrees. You will also understand how the controls react when the drone is on your opposite side.
Continuous Flight – Make your drone flight continuous by starting slowly and smoothly and keep practicing various flight patterns and angles of flying a drone smartly.
Step 11: Be Alert For Emergencies
As a drone pilot, you have to face different kinds of problems and various issues with your controller or drone. Such issues arise because of your insufficient knowledge, the weather conditions, or any unknown emergencies. So, as an expert, you have to analyze all these problems and develop a B plan to deal with them quickly with your present mind.
Here we mention some of the emergencies that you might face.
- Loss Of Controller Link Or Not Responding
- Fly Away From You
- Low Battery
- Bad Weather
Loss Of Controller Link Or Not Responding:
While drone flight, suddenly you get to know that the drone is not responding to your controls. That could be happening because of flying out of the range or you have crossed your flight path. So, the first thing that you should do is select the return to the home button to go back on the land.
Fly Away From Your Desired Location:
Due to the disconnection, your drone can be going away from you or there may be some other reason for this happening such as motor failure, software malfunction, or propeller failure. To overcome this problem you need to be sure that your firmware is updated on your drone and controller and there is no damage to propellers.
Low Battery:
Different drones have various battery life depending on the size, model, and attributes of the drone. So when the battery becomes low, your drone could land automatically. Before flying you must check the battery of a drone or aircraft.
Bad Weather:
Sometimes weather disappoints your drone flight. Try to fly in clear and calm weather instead of windy or inconvenient weather.
Step 12: Just Go On A Long Way From Beginner To Advanced
After taking all the measures, knowing various basic and advanced flight skills, you just enjoy a long way without bounding hours of flight time. Prepare yourself from beginner to advanced drone pilot, you will have to set some targets and learn advanced skills to change this hobby into a successful career.
You can also learn about FPV which is a first-person view guide by Google or Software. There are various online courses available on the internet to help you learn different flight skills, photography skills, drone/aircraft camera skills, and more. Which are cheaper in price and excellent in results.
