First Flight Guide for Quadcopters & Drones

So you read the top five things to do before flying your quadcopter and you are interested in a bit more detail of how to go about your first flight. Read further to find out what I consider some must do’s. You have a safe location picked out and it’s not too windy and all batteries are charged and you were careful to turn on the Tx (transmitter) before powering on the quadcopter. I like to put my quad onto the box i carry it in or any flat surface if there’s a lot of grass or the surface isn’t naturally flat. Also, I always try to grab a pair of sunglasses when I go fly so I have something protecting my eyes. The propellers spin pretty quick, so protecting your eyes is just a good idea. Plus getting a bug to fly into your eye while your trying to see which way your quad is flying is also no fun…ask me how i know :). Ok so now its go time! Your drone is turned on, if applicable you have calibrated the compass and the GPS signal is locked. Set a timer on your phone for however many minutes should get you to a safe landing voltage and get ready to fly. If your quad like my DJI Phantom requires a CSC (Combination Stick Command) command go ahead and perform it now. The rotors will all 4 start spinning at a slow speed. In other quads it may be that the rotors only start spinning when you apply throttle and then stop if you were to let go of the throttle stick again. In this case slowly raise the throttle stick and make sure all propellers are spinning freely. This is a good time to see if 2 are spinning counterclockwise or clockwise. On a quadcopter 2 propellers opposite one another spin CW and the other 2 CCW. Slowly apply throttle until your quad is hovering a few feet off the ground. I’d say eye level or just above is perfect. Anytime you are flying you ideally want to be “3 mistakes high” which means you can make 3 mistakes and still correct and not crash. That means takeoff and landing are inherently riskier maneuvers since you are close to the ground and less than 3 mistakes high, something to keep in mind. What I first do pretty much all the time from my RC Airplane days even though there I did it on the ground was check that the forward stick is really forward and backwards is really backwards. Same goes for side to side. This has saved my bacon once...