Could someone please recommend a good practice Drone before buying a Mavic? I purchased a Syma X11 R/C Quadcopter but you have to really stay on the sticks. It was more of a toy but it allowed me to get use to quadcopter controls. Battery life is just a few minutes. Does anyone have any better recommendations without spending a lot of cash?

Thanks

Get one of the more expensive Syma's, they are great learning tools.
That is really great that you want to get proficient on a inexpensive drone and not be a new pilot with a $1,00 aircraft.

Maybe DJI should make a practice drone like the Syma?

I got a Propel Zipp Nano from Costco for $25, and it is pretty stable for the price, the best thing about those nano drone is that they can takes a lot of beating.  And best of all, using those manual drone will make you understand a lot about orientation of the aircraft as that's what everyone seems to struggle when they first fly a drone or an helicopter.

I got a hubsan X4 from amazon for £25 to practice with. You have to be on the sticks a little with it but im already having great practice in how a drone moves, and since I already nearly lost it once, at least its taught me lessons now rather than with my £1000 drone Plus its super portable so I take it to work to fly at lunch times, as well as keeping me off the forums to bitch about why my mavic hasn't shipped yet ;)

+1 for Hubson X4 H107L, a great drone for practicing.
Well mine got caught in the wind and left me for drones paradise, but it's anothers story :-)

CrazyHorse019 Posted at 2016-10-28 08:38
I got a hubsan X4 from amazon for £25 to practice with. You have to be on the sticks a little with  ...

"...as well as keeping me off the forums to bitch about why my mavic hasn't shipped yet ;)"

That's funny! Thanks.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-28 08:30
Get one of the more expensive Syma's, they are great learning tools.
That is really great that you w ...

Thanks Ken,

I've been flying RC airplanes for close to 30 years, but drones are a completely different beast. It's just a matter to getting used to another axis and the controls. Let me know if you have a specific model of Syma you recommend. Trying to find something similar to Mavic characteristics. Thanks again.

CheckYourSix Posted at 2016-10-29 00:41
Thanks Ken,

I've been flying RC airplanes for close to 30 years, but drones are a completely diff ...

I would go with this one and pay for the extra insurance for $0.84. http://www.banggood.com/Syma-X5C ... 3827.html?rmmds=buy

CheckYourSix Posted at 2016-10-29 00:41
Thanks Ken,

I've been flying RC airplanes for close to 30 years, but drones are a completely diff ...

I've also flown RC airplanes for over 30 years. Then got into gas helicopters and kept smashing them up. Then I heard about multorotors and the Phantom1 that you attach your GoPro to (no gimbal, only a clamp)
I did not want to start with the Phantom1 as it was fairly expensive as a first drone and I knew nothing about them. I bought something called a HPQ1 or something like that for $200 and learned on that, then bought the Phantom1.
There's a Syma on Amazon that's about $50-$75 and I would go with one of those.

I would go for the Blade Nano QX. It is FAST and twitchy, perfect for indoors, propguards. Can really be beat up and still fly. In the end I started to do stunts with it, lost pieces of my frame and still flew fine   It was/is my first quad. Actually fixed it yesterday with a new frame that only costs a few euro. They even dropped the price.

First day I was like: DAMN, this is going to be hard but will not give up. Needed to feel how sensitive the controls were, I could take off, smash into the ceiling, then back on the floor.  Till I knew how to keep it steady on 1 level. Took me about 5 days till I had full control and then you start to seek the limits It is TOTALLY NOT a like a DJI product. Here you control it 100%, It will drift, wont break when you release controls, you break! It's been a year since I touched it, because I bought it to learn to fly quads. Tried it again yesterday after putting on the new frame I had lying around since last time and I took-off and it's like I never lost the feeling on how to fly it. Amazing Ok, took perhaps 10mins to get my reflexes back, but I was racing around my SMALL appartement again Lots of fun! Even a friend bought the same one back then and we started to race against eachother and try to crash into eachother (pretty hard to do actually ) That is how I lost pieces of my frame.

http://www.horizonhobby.com/mult ... -technology-blh7600

Check it out! You will love it. But do buy extra batteries, they cost nothing, I got 6 spare. So I can fly about 30-40mins in total.

Hubsan H502s - FPV, GPS and all the knobs. Great to learn with, small enough to bounce.

I make no excuses for the crappy video quality, its what you'd expect.

owenlees Posted at 2016-10-28 19:21
Hubsan H502s - FPV, GPS and all the knobs. Great to learn with, small enough to bounce.

I make no  ...

That is not a practice drone, a practice drone is to learn you how to fly without assist like gps. The only thing I still allow, is the auto-leveling of quads. But even that, you can turn off on the one I showed (and that is HARD!)

What people don't get, it that when things go bananas, you need to be in control (ATTI) and that is when things go wrong. Drifting... loosing altitude, panic... Crash... because they never really flew a REAL quad and don't know how to act/compensate. But a GPS, barrometer, VPS-assisted drone, is not good at all for practice. And the extra cost with a camera... Not needed.

You need to get a feeling on flying one, not shooting images with a cheap camera drone as "practice".

Just got the syma X5UC to practice with.  It just arrived!  Its a bit windy out, so I have been buzzing around in doors.  It's a great little practice drone!

Actually I disagree because the 520 has the ability to remove GPS hold and thats what I fly it in, it then feels quite like a helicopter in terms of needing to correct to hover in one place, especially in a breeze!
And I also disagree becuase unless you actually have a play with how the FPV works - how are you going to fare when needing to potentially use it on the expensive toy?

Please feel free to correct me about ATTI mode on the 520.

Mavic is so easy to fly, I would just practice by flying it in a park or field and not go high or far. Use that money towards another battery pack.

JJRC H31. It is a bit hard to fly to a beginner but if you master this you will master any drone.

I've got a Revell Nano Pocket (was €10, usually around €20-€30). Really small, like 5 centimeters or so, and charges inside it's controller. No GPS, no sensors, no smart stuff whatsoever. Not even a camera. Just goes higher when left stick is higher, it simply powers up the engines more when moving the stick up (no "middle" in left stick to hover), and very basic controls. When moving in any direction after "hovering" it actually moves in the direction and slightly down because the energy to make it hover is moved, so the engines need slightly more power with the left stick too. And after the movement you need to power them slightly down to prevent it from crashing into the ceiling.
It's small size and lack of any smart stuff makes it as easy to fly as it would be to tame a hungry lion with just your bare hands and no food. I do manage to keep it in control somewhat now, basically just hovering. I've already learned not to panic and put the left stick fully up when it drops too fast (makes it goes into the ceiling at full speed), or panic plus full down when going up too fast (crashes to the ground). But it's fun to try and tame it. I'm sure that when my Mavic arrives it'll feel as well tamed as a support dog for a disabled person, when compared to the Revell Nano Pocket.

My recommendation for folks getting their first 'expensive' multirotor is to buy any small one, and practice in your bedroom/garage/ or other tight spaces.

As others have stated, some of them are twitchy, and they lack the features that more advanced units have to make flight easy. That said, if you can get comfortable flying a relatively unstable drone in tight places, you should be pretty good at transitioning to a steady and stable platform out in the open air.

The mavic in beginner mode is very easy o fly and very difficult to get into trouble with.  Just make sure you have plenty room to fly. Pick a good day and have at it.

another vote for the Hubson X4 H107.......did wonders for me and my son while waited on the Mavic Pro to arrive.....

After reading this thread, I just went and purchased the X5C-1 from Amazon. I got their equivalent of the Play More bundle. It was roughly $75, but I added the carry case so my total was $100.00. It was all on Prime. I'll report back one I get it and the Mavic for your guy's reference.

I like the syma. It's about the right size and has a lot of ways to mod. I put on a down facing camera, fpv, extended the range quit a bit after converting the rc to lithium. Doubled battery capacity- it could fly almost 10 minutes. It made a great spy drone because you could fpv and it got the shots on the down facing camera. Noone really suspected lol Wrote some code to make it hover with pic microcontroller when it lost connection.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u7rmf ... 4GNe9sLNo0PhNa?dl=0

Some video at the park https://www.dropbox.com/s/0jrnt4in10ljt8d/20161209131504_1.mp4?dl=0

I think it'd be the best way to learn indoors because it's responsive (without mods) and has the size. If you replace the motors, it can carry loads. You can pretty much create a donkey for under 100 bucks if you like modding.

I agree with Owenlees. The Hubsan H502s is a great quad that's a step above the toy-grade drones. You won't find many drones with altitude hold and GPS-related features in the toy-grade range range. I'd go with something like the Holy Stone HS110. It comes with altitude hold and FPV for under $200. Might want to check out this list for more in that price range.

My Best recommendation:
Xiaomi Mi Drone WIFI With 1080P Camera 3-Axis
It has flying time of 27 minutes.
Equiped with GPS + GLONASS + vision-based positioning for max precision.
Link for the product and more details:
http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/Vj6IM7m

I would recommend MJX Bugs 3 Quadcopter, it is a brushless drone. This model has the longest flying time of any other drone on our best drones list today at over 15 minutes. Another nice aspect of this drone is the long range it has. At peak performance, the drone can fly up to 500m. You can check the video on Youtube or check the review here Best Drones Under 200

I would recommend you get a Mavic Pro to practice on ... this thing flies far better than any of the cheap tat you can pick up from most hobby shops. Just bite the bullet and buy the drone then take baby steps with it if need be.

Pwfirst Posted at 2017-2-3 14:14
The mavic in beginner mode is very easy o fly and very difficult to get into trouble with.  Just make sure you have plenty room to fly. Pick a good day and have at it.

This ...... It's the best first drone to get in reality and will keep you hooked until you need something with real professional levels of video and photography.

Bigga J Posted at 2017-11-15 06:16
I would recommend you get a Mavic Pro to practice on ... this thing flies far better than any of the cheap tat you can pick up from most hobby shops. Just bite the bullet and buy the drone then take baby steps with it if need be.

But, you not flying, you just flying the computer. What if something goes wonky in Mavic?  Can you fly it back without all the bells and whistle?

Maxi3D Posted at 2017-11-15 07:20
But, you not flying, you just flying the computer. What if something goes wonky in Mavic?  Can you fly it back without all the bells and whistle?

Not sure I understand what you are saying ... The Mavic is so easy to fly even for a complete novice, there are loads of tutorials on you tube for anyone new to the hobby that getting to know the drone before you have bought it is almost possible ... certainly for learning the basics etc.

By comparison these cheap drones while they fly are not a match for the Mavic and how it flies.

You can buy a cheap drone if you wish but it wont give you the flight envelope that the Mavic gives you, it may teach you left stick over right stick but thats it ... may as well go all in and buy the drone and learn on it.

I've flown and practice tons of time with the SYMA x8. I think one of the best practice quads on the market. You've get to hone in your atti-mode skills.

Bigga J Posted at 2017-11-15 07:28
Not sure I understand what you are saying ... The Mavic is so easy to fly even for a complete novice, there are loads of tutorials on you tube for anyone new to the hobby that getting to know the drone before you have bought it is almost possible ... certainly for learning the basics etc.

By comparison these cheap drones while they fly are not a match for the Mavic and how it flies.

What I tried to say is that Mavic is so easy to fly because of the GPS and VPS computers onboard so therefore you are not really flying the drone itself but rather, the computer on the Mavic.

Maxi3D Posted at 2017-11-15 08:12
What I tried to say is that Mavic is so easy to fly because of the GPS and VPS computers onboard so therefore you are not really flying the drone itself but rather, the computer on the Mavic.

Ah .. I get you now and agree with you in many respects but when face in left is right and right is left no matter how many computers help you.  Hence if taken slowly the Mavic is a great place to learn.

I totally agree with maxi3D and others. If you want to get the feel of the sticks and get used to fly a drone in atti mode the best thing is to have an erratic  and nervous litle cheap drone without any gps or sensors.