Hello all   New to the forum  As a new pilot I spend a good deal of time pre planning my flights. Depending on situation and mitigating factors. Not unusual for me to spend hours planning a 6 minute flight. I have 5 hrs plus of flight time so far. Am I overthinking or is this about average for most?

Darrin

Better to be prudent and keep you're equipment, than foolish and lose it.

Unless you're recording for some sort of production, I think it's a bit much. But you can never be too careful. I think the most important thing is identifying any dangers in where you'll be flying.

Duplicated post...

Darrin,
i think your way is the right way to fly your "bird".  Before i plan a flight then i let the gimbal stay straight in front(not tilted down). Then i let my "bird" orbit me with low speed in different heights for the right height of RTH.
After that i take photos for each direction i need to plan the flight. I write the heights to the photos and verify them with the cards of the area the "bird" could(should) fly.and take clips. That´´s my way.
Thumbs up.

I think you are fine. Especially if you are comfortable with it. It may be a bit much for a lot of us, but like what was said, you really can't be too careful. Until you maybe become a little more experienced, and know what to be looking for such as altitudes, obstacles, tree limbs, etc., take as much time as you need to be comfortable with the choices you are making. Nobody will fault you for that. After all, it is you that is investing your time. I am sure you will get more proficient with time. As important as it is to know where you are flying, I think it is almost more important to know how to control or react to a situation with your aircraft. Spend some time out in the open, practicing the RTH feature, and flying in Atti-mode to get the feel of the aircraft. These things almost fly themselves, but when things go wrong is when you may have to know how to cancel a RTH, or take over your phantom and fly it back safely. The better you are at knowing what to expect is worth a millions bucks! There have been those who may have frozen under a situation, or just didn't know what to do when the aircraft didn't respond or was taking off in the wrong direction. Not saying you always have all the answers, but I hope you understand my thoughts.  

Thanks for the reply's.  After reading them, the last one in particular, I understand my course. My novice flying behind needs to keep on practicing. Possibly have already bumped into an over confidence mishap. .
Thanks again,
Darrin

Hi, Good topic.  Very new myself.... All my flights are pre-planned. Full charge on... Softwares up... My test and re-configuration flights last 1 to 10 minutes. With lower altitude and less distance. Above 50' I get better reception and distance reception improves too, for me. Presetting menu's will help. But there's so much going on at once..... keep flights managable..... just hover for now....it will turn in to +15 minutes

I always plan my flight even if they are just a fly around. I spend time on google earth looking at the area I want to fly over. I look for power lines, trees, buildings and most importantly safe landing sites in case of an emergency. I have a private pilots license so its kind of a habit of mine to preplan. google earth has a feature that lets you measure distance and distance between objects your seeing on the screen. I put pin markers on points of interest landing sites. I then print that out and take it with me flying, sort of like a knee board we pilots use in flight.  I can pull up weather and indicate prevailing winds on the map so I know if I'm flying into or with the wind in any direction. Planning a flight IMO is always a good idea you take many of the unknowns and make them known that's always a good thing. Happy Flying!

I am currently going through the final stage of the PfCO here in the UK, and my flying is thus preparing for all the flight exercises I will have to demonstrate to the examiner. On top of that is flight preparation which actially takes more time than the actual flights even using kittyhawk.io. So pelase do not apologise. If you plan well then your drone comes back with the images you want. If you dont plan well as the saying goes you plan to fail.

Depending on what I want to shoot it is perfectly fine for me to prepare a shoot (not with a drone yet) for a couple of days.
Scouting locations, first via Google Maps, streetview and sunlight app,
Next even possibly visit the location to check if all lines up as expected.
So I can imagine it won't be any different with a drone.
For casual shots things will go much faster. Just check NFZ, weather, light, batteries, map of the area and go shoot.

I was planned for 7 months to get a photo on my DSLR that I wanted. I envisioned what I wanted and knew the location. I then spent hours checking sun positions for different dates in the year, sunrise time, angles, and the list goes on and on and on. I also went out and took test photos of the location while I was waiting for the right time of the year for the final photo. I had a window of about a week where I could get the photo I really wanted. I planned how I was going to get there, how I'd ensure I was there at the exact moment I needed to be, everything. Was it worth it for one photo? I think that, based on the results, the answer for me is a big yes.

Obviously I don't plan all photos like this, but for every shoot I do I have a plan (and often a backup plan as well).

Since I'm new to using the drone I'm not planning difficult shots yet, but I spend time every day on Google Earth looking for areas of interest and then checking the ground heights from where I plan to launch and in the area I plan to fly; i.e. getting familiar with the relative heights of the terrain and stuff. I plan as far as possible where I'm going to take off, look for emergency landing locations, etc, etc, and come up with a preliminary route (or several options). Then when I get on site I "groundtruth" what I learned online and check the area for things that were not possible to do using just the internet: obstructions (and their heights), local conditions, etc, etc. I don't think it's over-planning at all. I don't think it's restrictive at all either (I adapt when I get to the site for any misconceptions I got from the limited internet data and stuff).

I do of course do things spontaneously or opportunistically as well, but if I can I will plan (at least a little bit)

One can never be too careful. The shot looks great. Thanks for sharing!

The other thing to consider is... do you enjoy this planning? If so, then just keep doing it.

The 6 P rule is a good one.  It says Proper planning prevents pi** poor performance.  That being said, sometimes it is fun to just preflight the Phantom and send it up, up and away.  Note:  you will have to figure out what pi** means, as the board won't let me post it.  The bottom line is, whatever amount of time it takes to make you comfortable with the flight is how long you should take.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2017-8-29 18:09
Not sure what sort of flights you are doing but it seems a bit excessive.  Extreme planning for a special project maybe?  From research, to 3 pre-mission RECON flights, through the final edited video, I don't believe I have 6 hours invested in this mission.  In fact this was the very first time I ran the flight!

https://youtu.be/WVi3yaWadxM

Nice video!
Thanks

Nothing wrong with being careful, guess I'm a lot different. I put the battery in and go flying. Guess that comes from flying RC planes for 12 years.