This is probably by far , the most professional and informative instructional video I have ever seen on RU-vid. The amount of effort you put into it's creation was quite admirable. It shows the complete love that you have for this hobby and the safeguarding of it's principals and responsibilities as an RC pilot. Thank you very much!!! Ohio Sam
I always say I don't have an ego. Yet I felt I was doing OK learning how to fly a quad. Then I watched this. Now I feel ignorant again LOL. Thanks for a great informative and honest presentation. As others have said, "Bravo. Best I've seen by far."
+Del Quad4X Thanks for that, made me smile! A lot of pilots think they can fly and then can't do the basics.. Something to practice indoors with a mini-quad ready for the better weather :)
+Painless360 Getting lost was the worst thing for me when I flew FPV for the first time. I got so high that I couldn't tell where home was. I got used to it too much with having RTH and using it constantly that I need to fly w/o it. How it looks like up there is no where near the same as it is on the ground especially when many trees look exactly the same.
"Push the stick in the direction of the drift" is probably going to be the most important thing I take away from this! Thanks very much making this video.
Just what I've wished there was on RU-vid and you've done it sooo well. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this for us first timers. I've left it so late as I'm nearly 70 but have always been too busy, now I have the time it's going to be harder, never-mind I'll do it, it'll simply take longer, but I'm sure that with your excellent instructions and my effort WE can get there. Thanks again and best wishes to you.
watched the whole video after i have been learning how to fly on my own with a little hubsan that has now been pieced into some picnic quad frames... can do almost everything in the video but have been struggling with tail out hovering to the point of my head hurting. in motion tail out isnt too hard, but hovering has always been an issue. your one little tip of moving in direction of the drift took me 2 seconds to go from migraines to hovering tail out like a champ. thank you! it was like a lightswitch!
I have been flying for over a year now and this is the best instructional video I have ever seen on RU-vid. Thanks, I will use it as a refresher from time to time. Fly safe!
so, I'm new to the hobby and today I'm going out to take a crack at the 1st lesson. It's hard to distinguish EXACTLY the differences between some of the lessons, say 2 and 3. You performing a VISUAL demo for each lesson would be great. I subscribed and thanks again.
I'm a newb so my skills are as yet unrefined. But I laughed when I realized that this is a lot like learning to ride a motorcycle. Slow figure 8's on a narrow road are the things that taught me the most about handling and *feeling* the bike. I can't wait to get that same level of comfort handling a drone.
You are absolutely right. But many people don't care about this. It's great to see this here. I am still learning, too. I'm getting better, but I have tons of props, the setup is hard, the flying or hovering in any direction I can't still do that, but with goggles it's much better. Thanks for your time for that.
Great to hear that despite using FPV you are committed to learning to fly line of sight (LOS). This is a key skill and will make you a far safer and more accomplished pilot and give you a chance to save the craft and reduce damage when one of the systems on the model glitches. Happy flying, and practicing!
very informative, , yes i definitely agree 100% , i have been flying rc planes for 7 years and over this period have become pretty competent with most types of small and large aircraft, i built a quad a few months ago , and its taken me right back to my first days learning to fly at our club with the instructor , a total different discipline but just waiting for the penny to drop , then it should get easier, great advise, i will burn up a few batteries as i try to follow your lesson plan. many thanks
I have been flying (sorry-crashing !!!) my quad copter for a few months, on and off, so when I saw a list of things to do I was quite disappointed as I wanted to know how to fly and everything on the list seemed obvious !!! What then followed on the video was probably the most informative instruction I have seen and heard. I now know that I can't fly a multicopter....well not.yet but I will Thank you so much.. Alan U.K.
+Alan Douthwaite Hi Alan, hope it helps. Too often pilots think that as they can hover 'tail in' and fly in a circle (one way!) that means they can fly and reach for the FPV goggles. It takes years of practice to master a heli/multirotors and being able to fly and hover in any orientation is a real skill but a ton of fun to learn! Best of luck with it.. Best wishes..
Just got an Air Hogs Helix x4 as a first quad, it is made of foam and has ducted fans. Safe for kids and rank amateurs alike but all the skills can be learnt whilst not damaging or injuring anything or anyone. The model is indestructible, it takes a hell of a beating.
Thanks for this very good video. The steps you prescribe really makes sense to me, and soon as i can get my hands on another little indoors quad this is what i will be working towards. One motor on my old one died, and i can not get spares where i live.
Thank you for this video. I have my first quad on order H8 3d mini. I selected it for 2 reasons, one of the reviews recommended it for beginners in the beginner mode and the price made it so that it won't be as painful when I destroy it in a crash. I planned some very basic moves to learn control, but was unaware that the rotational attitude would take a long time to learn how to control, so thanks for the heads up.
+David Moran Learning to hover 'nose in' is one of the trickiest parts for many pilots - you may be one of the lucky ones! Best of luck with it all.. Happy flying
Just a quick thanks for all your videos. I've been learning a great deal even if I'm not using the same flight controller. Your details and explanations are still very applicable. Thanks!
Instant bookmark and subscribe! as a relatively new quad pilot who has managed to do damage to (thankfully only) my own equipment trying to run before I could walk, I'm going to go back and run through these on my FPV quads before I try and fly goggled up again.
Welcome to the Channel, all of content on here is aimed at those who are slightly newer in the hobbies so should be of use to you. Check out the playlist and my latest build where I'm making a quadcopter. Happy flying!
Great video. I'm a newbie who got a Mavic Mini for Christmas and now have a Tinyhawk and Tinyhawk Freestyle. New radio coming next week. I've done a lot of training inside with the TH, but it was nothing structured. I like your approach. Will give it a try. I have quite a long way to go before FPV, which is where I want to be. Thanks! And very happy flying!
Excellent video! Much appreciated. I'm trying to improve my coordination while flying figure 8's. Lesson 5 and 6 are certainly going to be a big help. Thx a lot!
Excellent job on this video! It's too tempting to just fly around and have a good time, which I tend to do all the time. I agree. Learning to fly in all orientations, know how to recover and maneuver is a valuable lesson. I'm still crashing and that's ok. I know how to and enjoy soldering, fixing things.
Well done video!!! This 10 step method is very well thought out. I like the way that the various skills are highlighted in each step and then brought together in the next ones. So I've worked my way up to Lesson 4 and will continue until I feel comfortable enough to go to 5
PROCESSOR302 Keep at nose in in literally took me two years to get it and be completely happy with it. Everyone takes a different amount of time. My little Hubsan X4 and one dark winter flying indoors nose in for batteries at a time cracked it for me.. Happy flying!
Just saw this..... And a few other of your productions........ And have now subscribed as i like your fanciable simple style.... Thank you for a great production......
Great video... I am pretty sure I did this exactly in reverse so I can recommend your approach! After playing with "toy helis" I went and built an 800 class hex years ago. That thing is big, powerful, and dangerous and I never really felt competent (was great at advanced hovering) until I had a good smaller model to play with. You can crash a small model, laugh at yourself, and start over... not so much with an 800...
Excellent instructional video. The more I read these comments the more I see myself. I started out a few years ago flying the mini helicopters.I recently moved to flying a syma xs5w to learn quadcopters. I thought I was fairly good at it so I got my next one. A 250 racing drone( forgive the term, that's how it's listed). I thought I would watch your fpv video, heard you refer to this instructional video. I said, meh, I can do all those basics, WRONG! I was woefully unprepared. I am now relearning using your basics so I don't chop off anyone's head.
this has been so helpfull, thank you very mutch! got myself a little x5c and been practicing these steps while i'm building my first fpv quad though i haven't doen mutch building since i'm having a blast learning these steps :D
I love your tutorial....absolutely the best one out there. I'm going through the steps and l with my Hubsan X4 I have managed to get step one down easy enough, however with step 2 we are to hover the craft about knee hight. Wow this is though. What is the best way to master this? My hubsan will slowly go up and if I back of the power is will go back down, its really challenging to stop it from yo-yoing up and down. Thanks Mike (Sydney, Australia)
+Mike Brana It is, ideally it needs to be just out of it's own ground effect (dirty air bouncing off the floor into the props) to give you a fighting chance ;) Best of luck!
Thats totally true, I started from rather big quadcopter, and its hard and scary to learn flying with such thing, that can easily make big damages to surroundings or somebody.
Awesome video. Much needed advice. Been flying about two weeks, hubsan q4 followed closely by 2 fq777's and another q4 to get the most flying time. Unsure what to upgrade to next. hubsans are amazing but the fq777s one is really good the other one has two dud motors
I appreciate this video Specific to MR's there aren't many learning to fly videos around. I started a similar way about 6 months ago, but really maybe less then 25 flights to date. Anyway, the thing is at least with the Syma X1 indoors, is you have to start compensating with both sticks immediately otherwise things go quickly out of control. So in a way, the lesson instructions sound calm, example - rudder about 10 degrees, but so far for me, I also have to do a good amount of Ail / Elev to keep it stable. I've had more luck in a larger outdoor space though where I have more time to compensate. Of course that was once I passed the "caught in a tree" and "fly away" initiations. ;)
Thanks for the comment, I always recommend the ol' Hubsan X4 because when it's trimmed and setup well it will hover in one spot and auto-level beautifully. Gives a real confidence boost and supports learning. Keep up the practice. By getting the ability to fly, and hover, in all orientations you will be far safer and more accomplished pilot! Happy flying (and practicing)!
I started learning indoors with small quads, but I found them very twitchy - I couldn't really think fast enough to control them properly in a confined space. By contrast, flying my Syma X5C clone outdoors was much easier. There was more time to think with no walls or furniture to crash into, and the quad itself seemed to proceed in a much calmer, more predictable way. So I think a case could be made for taking a Syma X5C (or similar) out into an open area such as a football field to try the steps you suggest in the video. I also find it's harder to hover in ground effect. The quad seems to scoot around like a skater on ice. Being afraid to get higher off the ground held me up for several weeks when I was learning to hover.
You are great! Thank you so much for all your videos. Each and every one helped me tremendously during the process of building my quad and learning to fly. Keep up with the good work. By the way, what's Chewbacca doing on the background @ 11:20 ???? Hahaha
This was a very informative video, but watching is learning, if you could have animated the quad showing the directions you were describing, that would have been a lot more helpful. Happy flying! ;-)
Yet another quality video ,thankyou, I fly a 250 racer and fpv , I do not have a natural talent or feel for flying but a total love for any kind of flying. I am exploring UAV at the moment but am a little overcome by the amount of prep required, I have been looking at reliable apm control boards but they seem to need an awful lot of knowledge and prep to get flying. My racer uses a Naze32 and I am starting to get familiar, with Cleanflight , seems good to me., not really the controller for a UAV , would you recommend a board, you have used most of them . Thanks again for all the work you are doing to help everyone !
Hi Derek, I have a video that covers the boards that I've setup and how I use them - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-k4tQAmg2ssA.html Hope it helps..
Thanks a lot for your great video. Very clear and very helpful. Just a quick question. Do you recommend to start using the auto level mode? If yes, when do you recommend to switch to the normal mode?
Thank you very much very good lesson, I will try to do with my micro 3d quad because i got my self 680 quad I now you going to tell me is to big I had my own training on Flam 450 until my friend ask me to try it so he went throw the face so went 1000 pieces to scrap, so after this I got the 680 X quad not yet flown but very soon.
James Lamb Agreed! I cover this more in the 'Learning FPV' video but you are spot on. A friend of mine lost a model recently as it 'flew into the sun'. GPS RTH anyone! :) Happy flying..
Excellent video for a beginner in quads. Would you intend for these lessons to be carried out in 'expert mode' from the beginning, on a Hubsan x4? -Cam.
Thanks for this! I have just started the hobby with a UDI U818A and have been practicing step one in my living room for the last three days. One question I have is what your recommendation is for the manner in which you move the controls. Currently I am finding that very short but full full range tweaks of the pitch and roll are the easiest way to nudge the quadcopter in one direction or another. By this I mean flicking the control one way and letting it return to neutral, flicking again, over and over. When I try to use small gentle continuous movements of the control, I find the quadcopter starts skidding around too much because I can't seem to put in a small enough input to maintain a position and instead send the unit into flight in that direction. I assume this latter gentle continuous control input is what I should be striving for, but just thought I'd ask your advice on the mechanics of giving RC control inputs. Thanks!
Some of the less expensive radios are not as smooth or easy to use. When I first started to fly then I found it easier to use sharp staccato movement to try and correct any drift. Keep at it. In time the corrections will start to happen automatically and then you can tackle the harder steps.. Best of luck!
You rock best how to I have seen I wish I had saw this 10 years ago when I got in to heli's I really would like to hear your thoughts on learning to fly mini quads FPV I am just starting and can't fly FPV without using self level What are the correct steps to learn to fly a quadcopter FPV and be able to fly in acro not self level
Hi, I sent you a PM with some details in. Let me know what you think of - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DXe6pPf2fXI.html Thanks in advance
Great Video, hope You don't mind I share it with Group Members "mostly noobs" so it promotes some safe practices for group. Thanks for making such an informative Video on this subject.. Happy Landings.. :)
Painless360 Awesome thank You Sir.. Yea just a bunch of like minded mostly newb Quad Pilots that can use all the help they can get...hehehe... Pretty decent group of guys and gals, always willing to help out a fellow hobbiest..It's mostly the Toy Quality Quads that we Fly, group is centered around and most Fly the WLToys V686G or something comperable. Come Join us if You like on Facebook @ WL V686G... Imagine that...lol Thanks again for that Awesome Tutorial.. It's already helping a bunch of us from loosing or killing Quads...lol Take care and as always... Happy Landings! :)
I just destroyed my Hubson x 4. Crashed it unknown times. My 16 hands horse stepped on it. Lost it in a tree for three weeks until a storm blew it out, found it the next day drenched. This craft can take a beating. but today after about 6 or 7 months of abuse, it died. I will try to rebuild it and then faithfully put the time into learning to fly it right. Thanks for the opportunity to become a good pilot. I live out in the country witch is great for not hurting anyone but not a lot of people to learn from.
Kitt Condrey-Miller thanks for the comment, great to hear that the plucky little Hubsan had survived 7 months of crashing. Most the the parts on my second one has been replaced now! Out of interest what had you learned in the months you have been flying it?
I spent a lot of time learning to hover. Then at waist high going from the office down the hall into, the kitchen and back. Then into each room and back. Up and back on the front porch then like walking the dog all over the property and then out onto the street. All pointing away because I just get lost once it is pointing at me. Just started flying around my body pointing in. All the same time i am doing this I am trying other operations that usualy get me onto trouble. Did some test this morning only had a bad prop. So Hubson lives on.
+Chris Curls Yep, it's easier when the craft is in motion than hovering nose in. Some pilots need to start with this step and avoid the nose in element. Best of luck!
+Painless360 thanks a lot for your quick reply. Great video by the way. Just got a Hubsan x4 and not found many tutorials for beginners but this is very useful. Had been following these steps, more or less, so far anyway. Trying to hover low down and move between markers on floor, increasing rotation each time the battery is recharged. Good to have some steps to follow in order to master each element.
I should have known better..... I decided I was going to make a fortune two years ago taking pictures of VERY expensive houses and (with the the owners' permission), use them to help sell their property or just hang on their walls to show off! So I went out (with no experience of flying ANY RC models) and spent close on £2,000 on a Phantom 2, GoPro, Black Pearl 7" screen and a 2000W (the UK limit is 25mW!) transmitter. A couple of months later I bought a set of Skyzone goggles. Flying with just two batteries was frustrating so I bought another eight. This may sound ridiculous, but I thought that as I'd flown real helicopters for many years and was a fixed wing pilot as well, flying quads would be a doddle. I still have the Phantom and GoPro (more luck and only flying over grass fields than judgement) but if only I'd been more patient and seen this or some other instruction video I'd certainly be a far better pilot than I am now. I only started to learn properly when I decided to build my own multirotors (thanks again, Lee!) and realised that the 'plastic' flying I'd been doing for so long had just lulled me into a false belief that I was a good pilot. Now I've bought a Syma X5C and will teach myself again from basics in my living room. I think we all need to be brought 'back down to earth' occasionally. :-)
+Doug McKenzie thanks for posting that. Many pilots use the flying aid in models like the Phantom or move onto FPV before mastering the basics of LOS flying hovering. They don't have the basic skills to safely control the model in the event of a problem/failure. The hobby would be a better place if more had this epiphany. Happy flying!
I started in Jan 2015 to learn on how to fly and it its not easy. Keep practicing, Still working on orientation. Yes Nose in is insane hard for me. I built a small ZMR250 carbon for training and the thing is pretty much indestructible and can take hard hits. Only have to replace props.
Excellent video. I am hoping to learn RCing by following your video. Roughly how much time would each of the lessons take? I realize that it would be different for everyone. But a rough indicator could help a beginner understand. So if you say - Lesson 1 - 2 hrs, Lesson 2 - 2 hrs, Lesson 3 - 6 hrs, ... and so on, I could roughly find out how much time could it be for me, by extrapolating it to my Lesson 1 time or Lesson 2 time. For an expert like you, that would be fairly easy to guess. For a novice like me, that would be a tremendous input. Thanks.
Depends very much on the pilot. For me it took 3 months to get through all of them.. If you've never done it before then the learning of how the radios controls the moment can take a while to become second nature.
Thanks Rafael, I'm sure this won't be liked by all. I try and make sure all the people I teach have the basics so that if all else fails they have the best possible chance of getting the model back to the ground safely without injury or damage to anybody of anything. These things are dangerous (I bear the scars - literally) and we have a responsibility as pilots to reduce the risks of damage to people and property in the event of something going wrong. Sadly, it is those pilots that don't take that care or apply common sense that appear in the media and help inch us towards the complete banning or cumbersome legal restrictions on this great hobby. (Soapbox over :) Happy flying!
Sorry for the offtopic question, can I use a 6S extension cable and plug in a 3S battery and balance it? Or do I need to use a 3S balance extension cable? Thanks!
Depends on the charger. You can't connect a 3s balance tap into a 6s connector though - the cut-outs will not line up. When is comes to LIPO batteries safe not sorry should be the motto. Get yourself the right cable and you'll avoid any trouble. Happy flying!
+Borivoje there is a lot of snobbery about expo. Without it new pilots can quickly get into trouble and give up. I would look at an expo between 15 - 30% and turn it down as you get used to it and and can control the craft easily. The aim is to make learning fun and accessible but not become a crutch for poor stick control. I would start with a small model like the Hubsan X4 before thing a bigger model. Best of luck with it!
I already have Blade 350qx 2 , fw2.0 . I made AP, Stability and Stagility mode on my Dx6i. Most of the flying time I am using AP mode. That mode is ok. I am very familiar but that mode is not for fun, only for video recording. Once I flew using Stagiity mode, and did Flips and rols. I was shaking but every went just fine. Several times i tried to fly in Stability mode, but I can not be able to maintain the same attitude in the horizontal flight. She always tend to go upward. My settings dir/expo settings are : Rudder P1 100% P0 100% Aileron P1 100% P0 75% +25 % Elevator P1 100% P0 75% + 25% Please, write me additional suggestion about rudder/throttle settings, please. Kind Regards.
+Painless360 which ever one is to fix the quad from drifting when i take off straight up....it drifts forward and to the left. i am compensating with the other controls but am sure that it should go straight (ish) up if only power is used
+Cillin C Not sure. Some mini quads let you reset the accelerometers to help with problems like this (see our Hubsan videos) but I can't find the manual for this online to give you a clue. Check that the trims on the transmitter are in their middle positions (they usually make a longer 'beep').. Best of luck..
Hi, there is a video which covers some of this - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KpDl_mopytA.html I would recommend that you FPV with a craft you know well and is trimmed and setup perfectly. Get a fellow pilot to be your spotter and they can help if you get stuck. Get to a large area devoid of obstacles and people. Make sure the craft is in a auto-level mode before take off so that you can let go of the sticks and it will self right. Make sure that it has some form of GPS RTH feature setup that can fly it back to you if you loose orientation or have an issue with the FPV video. Taking off is one of the trickiest parts - just blip the throttle and don't be shy about getting some height quickly. Once airborne, dip the nose and then fly it like a plane, use the rudder and aileron for smooth turns and keep that forward momentum at all times. Hovering is the hardest thing to do FPV as movement to the sides/backwards is hard to spot unless you are near to something. Moving forwards all the time also avoids 'reversing' into trees etc! Finally I don't land FPV, I get the craft in front of me, pop it into self level and pull the goggles up to bring it into land. This is where the spotter can be invaluable. Hope this makes sense and helps.
Hi, I sent you a PM with some details in. Let me know what you think of - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DXe6pPf2fXI.html Thanks in advance
thanks you for you information. is there any good way to monitor battery info on a cc3d? I have a little beeper which plugs into balance port so when I am flying it goes off. but after a few mins the voltage is higher as the load has gone off it. should I set buzzer lower so after the battery has rested it will be higher?
+neil200830 Depends on the radio and how you fly (FPV or LOS). The answer is not easily. I use almost exclusively timers on the radio these days as after a few flights you get a very good idea of what you can get away with.. Best of luck.
Hello I have been following your guide. when I try to hover it just off the floor and put a little bit more power in the quad seems to bounce in the air up and down like the motors are getting more power then I am putting in. and it going higher then stopping then hight then stopping. can you help me please
+neil200830 Don't worry, that is normal as the craft is hovering on top of the air 'bouncing' back from the floor. You'll find that as you land any hard, non porous surface with seem to 'push' the craft up as you come in those last few inches. This is sometimes referred to as 'ground effect' and 'dirty air'. It makes it harder to hit the floor but once you are above a few feet then you'll not see it at all.. Best of luck with the rest of the lessons!
What is the toy drone you mention in your video cant really make out what you are saying. I own a F210 3D and it really hard to control have been looking for something cheaper to practice indoors with out damaging my house ect.
petfrogg i know what you mean. I thought our kitchen was an ok size until I had a little four channel helicopter skipping over the tiles. Many hours of fun trying to get it stable, what a way to learn but I was able to hover and correct any drift like a champ once I'd finished! Happy flying!
Painless360 I am now doing "tap-dancing" in step 1. Took a while to come down to 1-2 cm but starting to feel confident. At first i thought it was hard to hover that low but it works out really nice. I have now started to test step 2 but is there a reason for flying 50 cm instead of 100 cm? By being a bit higher no prop-turbulence is affecting it - but am i suppose to experience the prop-turbulence as a part of the training?
You've got it. When the craft is lower the need for throttle control is less as you ride on the up draught from the props bouncing off the floor. As it sinks towards the floor the craft gets an extra lift from the rising helping it stay in the air, but this turbulence causes the craft to 'wander'. Step one is all about cyclic control. Step two is higher as this is adding throttle control to the mix and the height makes it easier as you are out of the downwash from the props. Best of luck with the program!
Hey hi painless one more request from your subscriber is that how can we make arduflyer from step by step like building the helicopter from each and every parts mounting the apm placing the gps most importantly settings required for arduflyer in the transmitter step by step Thanks , This is my request....pls accept it and let me know plls.....:) hav a nice day.
yuvaraj raj You are not searching on my channel or using the playlists are you ;) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-30cCs4aHdB0.html Happy flying!
