DJI Phantom 3 Advanced - 11 Noob Piloting Tips



DJI Phantom 3 Advanced
and DJI Backpack

I've had the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced drone for a few weeks now and haven't done much except watch YouTube videos and practice flying with it. In large part it's because I've been battling a sinus infection for about 2 months and it's kept me from getting out much. I've flown in my back yard (tight quarters), in the green area of my housing community (better), and at a couple of places in the desert (the best).

You'll see people say it on YouTube - if you fly a drone you're going to crash it. I have twice now. The first time actually roughed up the expensive gimbal ($409) and slightly bent it. The bend doesn't affect it much, it's maybe 1 degree out of perpendicular. The second time chipped a prop and loosened one of the rubber gimbal mounts.

I did fly through my three batteries today and had a pretty good time practicing some things so I thought I'd share what I've experienced so far with the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced. Some of these things won't apply if your copter doesn't have all of the same features such as the warnings, return to home, GPS/GLONASS tracking, etc.

1. I purchased a gimbal guard but frankly I haven't used it much. I bought the DJI Phantom 3 backpack and you can't put the copter in the backpack when the gimbal guard is installed. Where I've been practicing the ground is pretty level so the guard isn't really necessary. I think it was an impulse buy after my crash that scratched up the camera and even if I'd had it on during that crash I'm not sure how much good it would have done.
2. Practice flying in large, open areas without fences (like brick walls common in Phoenix, AZ or weeping willows like in my back yard). That way you've got plenty of room to recover from losses of orientation which is what caused both of my crashes.
3. Make sure you let your battery levels go down so that you can get used to keeping calm and collected while alarms are going off on your $1,000 device. My first crash was also due to experiencing the alarms for the first time and worrying about what was potentially going to happen instead of maintaining control.
4. You're not supposed to ever fly over busy streets or people and I think that is especially true while you're learning how to fly. Those things can hurt. I was landing on a T.V. tray in my back yard, standing just a couple of feet from the drone. It was down but the motors hadn't stopped and a light gust of wind blew it off the top of the tray. Instinctively I grabbed for it, sticking my hand in the spinning rotors. Ouch and bloody.
5. This is from a YouTube video - if you loose orientation and there is nothing above the drone, give it altitude to help keep it from running in to anything while you figure out which direction it is headed. This is a good reason NOT to fly under trees or other obstacles until you've had some pilot time.
6. This is from a YouTube video - when you fly the drone some distance away it can be easy to loose the orientation. As long as you've stopped flying while you still have some room, you can maneuver the drone to re-establish the orientation. Give it forward pitch (make it go forward). If it goes to the left, give it left yaw (make it turn left) so that it's coming towards you. If it goes to the right, give it right yaw (make it turn right) so that it's coming towards you. In other words, assuming a "normal" joystick configuration, if the copter goes left push the left joystick left, the same direction as the movement of the drone. If it goes right push the joystick to the right. If the drone starts going the opposite direction you've over-corrected and you just need to reverse the joystick direction to match the drift of the drone. This will bring the drone home to you (make minor adjustments as required to keep it headed towards you).
1. If you give the drone forward pitch and it doesn't go left or right then it's headed towards or away from you. Give it some left or right yaw. If it turns the same direction that you steer it's going away from you. If it turns opposite of the direction of the yaw then it's coming towards you.

   

   Intersection where I used "Return to Home"
   Interstate 10 and Loop 303 from 112 feet above ground

    
7. Even with the above tips I had a couple of times today where I hit the "Return to Home" (RTH) functionality because I couldn't tell how much room I had to play with to figure out the orientation. The RTH will cause the drone to point towards you and rise up to a set height before giving itself forward thrust to return to you (or more specifically, to the set home point). In one case I was near an intersection on Interstate 10. I knew I wasn't over it and that there was nothing above the drone. In the other case I realized I'd gotten close to some power lines. In both cases the drone ascended and started heading back. After it got to where I could tell what its orientation was I took over the controls again.
8. Regarding the power lines, it didn't dawn on me until I got close to them (I was still probably a decent distance away but they made me nervous) that there are two problems with high voltage power lines (yeah, the big ones): a) you could run in to them; b) the magnetic field could interfere with the control signal transmissions. I did actually have something minor go wrong with the signals and I had to land and reboot everything. The controller has a switch that makes the camera point down or straight out and it stopped working. The reboot restored the functionality. The controller also has a wheel to control the camera angle and it still worked - it was just the button that stopped working.
9. While learning to fly I shot some video and still images but I don't really care much about them yet. I'm just concentrating on keeping control of the craft for now and the video and images are just a minor distraction.
10. It is hard to see my tablet in the Arizona sky. I could at times use it to determine the orientation of the drone (I was trying to use it) but unless I really got the tablet in some shade it was hard to see it, including when trying to change controls (like go to "waypoint" mode).
11. The videos I shot had a lot of propeller in them. I think this is due to two things: a) there was a bit of wind and I think the craft is running at more of an angle to try to keep it's orientation correct; b) I think it would be good to always drop the camera angle a bit below horizontal to avoid the propellers.

Looking south down Cotton Lane
from 228 feet above ground

I'm partially enjoying this learning process but at the same time it seems like a distraction from photography and that there's a lot of skill required, which in turn requires investing time, and that time is being stolen from practicing photography. For now I'll keep up with it a bit longer but unless I get some pictures from this soon that provide some wow factor I am half of the mindset that I'd have been better served getting that Nikkor 200-500 f/5.6E lens. Maybe once I'm cured from this sinus issue and start actually taking some photographs again I'll find that this thing is cool. Otherwise I may have to take up my co-worker on his offer to purchase it.

Looking West along Interstate 10
and Phoenix Trotting Park from 228 feet above ground