Hello MM Owners,
I just picked up my Mavic Mini from Best Buy 2 days ago(FlyMore Kit) and I am getting ready to take my first flight today. I've been reading and watching Youtube videos leading up to my purchase so that I can know as much as I need to, which lead to making my purchase.

What tips and input might you all be able to share with me leading into my first flight and also allowing me to learn and have a sound foundation.

Waiting on my Mini SD card to arrive - I have AirMap downloaded and the DJI Fly app already also.

Thank You all!

Hello and welcome to DJI Forum. Thank you for choosing DJI, I hope that our DJI co pilots can provide you the best information regarding this query. In addition, I would recommend to visit DJI Safety Guidelines and check the pre flight checklist for safe flying and I will be posting an official DJI tutorial video for the best practices when flying the drone. Thank you.

If you can download and run the DJI flight simulation on your computer. Try using that for a while to get used to the controls. You can also buy a cheap toy quadcopter to get familier with flying a drone.

Good luck fly safe .

1/ Never calibrate Compass unless prompted to.

2/ start AC leave until you receive enough gps lock ,

3/ if you get Compass interference turn off AC and move to another location,
without interference.

4/ In bottom left hand corner on your map you will see small red triangle, check to make sure that this triangle is pointing in the same direction (heading) as your AC, this will show good compass on the ground.

Raise AC to height of 8ft
Hover for 20 seconds
Fly forward 2ft
Backward 2ft
Left 2ft
Right 2ft
Up 2ft
Down 2ft
Yaw left
Yaw right
Each time returning to hover position
If you have a good horizontal each time, you will then know you have good GPS good IMU and good Compass, and your ready to fly.

This exercise takes less than 2 minutes and is worthwhile doing before every flight,

Maxi3D Posted at 2-6 08:17
If you can download and run the DJI flight simulation on your computer. Try using that for a while to get used to the controls. You can also buy a cheap toy quadcopter to get familier with flying a drone.

I'll look this up to try and find it. Sounds interesting!

Welcome to the "Club"...

Watch, and watch more vids. Read the manual, and keep it close and low until you start to get a feel for what happens with the bird.
Be very aware of wind speeds, especially if you climb up in altitude, stiff winds are not your friend.
Using the above checklist, you should have no problems, as long as you keep it close as you learn and gain confidence.

hallmark007 Posted at 2-6 08:30
1/ Never calibrate Compass unless prompted to.

2/ start AC leave until you receive enough gps lock ,

Morning Hallmark.
I pretty much have your protocol as well for pre flight and take-off.
The only thing I might add is:

2.5. Check your sensor states, IMU and compass(es), making sure that they are stable and in the green.

DJI Paladin Posted at 2-6 08:13
Hello and welcome to DJI Forum. Thank you for choosing DJI, I hope that our DJI co pilots can provide you the best information regarding this query. In addition, I would recommend to visit DJI Safety Guidelines  and check the pre flight checklist for safe flying and I will be posting an official DJI tutorial video for the best practices when flying the drone. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7M9JtfVwQE

Awesome - I will check both those out!

Flycaster Posted at 2-6 08:40
Morning Hallmark.
I pretty much have your protocol as well for pre flight and take-off.
The only thing I might add is:

Thank you both! I did notice in the app there was something about calibrate compass and IMU - and I was not sure if out the box they need to be calibrated or when to understand if they need to and why. It seems that it should be set up initially, and the app will tell me when I need to calibrate correct?

Flycaster Posted at 2-6 08:40
Morning Hallmark.
I pretty much have your protocol as well for pre flight and take-off.
The only thing I might add is:

I’m afraid you won’t be able on dji fly app, however checking small red triangle on the map lower left of screen will work fine for both compass and IMU .

Darn, Fly App, not Go4, my error,
"Sorry about that, Chief"......

My advice is don't fly too far and high during first flights and get used to basic manoeuvres (including manual return and landing) at VLOS.

Thank you all for the initial advice and input. My location is very busy skies, so I'm spending some time to learn the air space guidelines and rules. My brother flies a M2P so he has been helping me understand the differences in things. It's a lot to it, but I'm ready to learn and understand this responsibly before I consider later going to higher-end drone.

1/ Never calibrate Compass unless prompted to.   
can you explain that to me please.  

big lou Posted at 2-6 13:09
1/ Never calibrate Compass unless prompted to.   
can you explain that to me please.

Yes if the compass needs calibration it will prompt you, you can of course calibrate your compass you own it ;+):: but think of it this way, you can’t make a good compass any better by calibrating it, but you can make it worse.
Your compass doesn’t lose calibration and unless you remove or add something to your craft it almost never needs calibration, but dji have programmed your compass to ask for calibration every time you move 50km or so your forced to calibrate also if you don’t fly within 30 days, there is no logic expressed about this, you are also told as a disclaimer NOT TO CALIBRATE UNLESS PROMPTED.

For instance I own a Mavic Pro I have traveled all over Europe with it, I calibrated just once in 4 years and today it’s still perfect

hallmark007 Posted at 2-6 08:30
1/ Never calibrate Compass unless prompted to.

2/ start AC leave until you receive enough gps lock ,

hallmark007, I went with a friend today to fly on his newly acquired property.  Using the pre-flight info you provided me months ago I ran across #3 today (if you get Compass interference turn off AC and move to another location, without interference) .  I moved 20 feet away and still got compass interference.  My friend was having same issue with his MA.  So I decided to go back to the car and get out my metal detector and I kept getting massive hits on the detector.  So he called his other buddy to bring over his mini-excavator.  After 30 minutes of digging we discovered that a previous land owner had buried a metal farm trailer at that spot.  It was 7 foot wide and 20 foot long.  We got so into what was buried that we never got to fly because the wind gusted up too much.  So we just called "Miller Time" and took off.

Just thought you might want to hear #3 saved us today.  

Wind speed is a PARAMOUNT pre-flight check. Check the speed for gusts at height with a good cap on the maximum flight height you plan to achieve.

Keep in mind MM has a wind resistance and RTH speed of 8 m/s so you want to avoid flying with gusts above that level at all costs. Stay clear of the trees, don't fly above water for the first flights. Only operate in LOS... I am not claiming vLOS because to be in visual you should really have eagle eyes, but if you get it beyond were you see at least try to fly where you know you can see... not only as a safety measure, but also because the signal should pretty much get where you see and be blocked where you don't.

Good luck.

DowntownRDB Posted at 2-6 14:52
hallmark007, I went with a friend today to fly on his newly acquired property.  Using the pre-flight info you provided me months ago I ran across #3 today (if you get Compass interference turn off AC and move to another location, without interference) .  I moved 20 feet away and still got compass interference.  My friend was having same issue with his MA.  So I decided to go back to the car and get out my metal detector and I kept getting massive hits on the detector.  So he called his other buddy to bring over his mini-excavator.  After 30 minutes of digging we discovered that a previous land owner had buried a metal farm trailer at that spot.  It was 7 foot wide and 20 foot long.  We got so into what was buried that we never got to fly because the wind gusted up too much.  So we just called "Miller Time" and took off.

Just thought you might want to hear #3 saved us today.

Good job sounds interesting.

DowntownRDB Posted at 2-6 14:52
hallmark007, I went with a friend today to fly on his newly acquired property.  Using the pre-flight info you provided me months ago I ran across #3 today (if you get Compass interference turn off AC and move to another location, without interference) .  I moved 20 feet away and still got compass interference.  My friend was having same issue with his MA.  So I decided to go back to the car and get out my metal detector and I kept getting massive hits on the detector.  So he called his other buddy to bring over his mini-excavator.  After 30 minutes of digging we discovered that a previous land owner had buried a metal farm trailer at that spot.  It was 7 foot wide and 20 foot long.  We got so into what was buried that we never got to fly because the wind gusted up too much.  So we just called "Miller Time" and took off.

Just thought you might want to hear #3 saved us today.

Interesting story! Metal detector as a must have drone accessory...

You had some good tips here.
VLOS is awesome, is not for pussies, no need to send your mini too far,
Start slow, and near you and grow your confidence, I gave myself 5 hours of flying before attempting anything serious and it pays off.
Always do the checklist hallmark007 said in post 7#, you get used quick to it like waiting for minimum 11 satellites locked.
This tips will improve your skills a lot and then you will have a lot of fun.

Personal tip, watch out for birds! if you find that some, specially pigeons get too close, ascend rapidly and get out of there asap... sports mode is your friend.

virtual Posted at 2-7 02:50
Interesting story! Metal detector as a must have drone accessory...

Never leave home without my MM or my metal detector.  

InspektorGadjet Posted at 2-7 03:32
You had some good tips here.
VLOS is awesome, is not for pussies, no need to send your mini too far,
Start slow, and near you and grow your confidence, I gave myself 5 hours of flying before attempting anything serious and it pays off.

Love that bird tip.  I'm not sure what is up with the pigeons but they are really attracted to the MM.  I have to avoid one of the places I used to like to fly because the pigeons will do their best to take your MM out of the sky.  In a pigeon versus the MM I bet the pigeon would win so best to just avoid them.

DowntownRDB Posted at 2-7 04:28
Love that bird tip.  I'm not sure what is up with the pigeons but they are really attracted to the MM.  I have to avoid one of the places I used to like to fly because the pigeons will do their best to take your MM out of the sky.  In a pigeon versus the MM I bet the pigeon would win so best to just avoid them.

I think color and size makes them react.
I too feel a battle would have a clear looser, don't want to test it to find out lol

In South Florida right now it is rather gusty and rain due to a cold front coming in, so I will try on Saturday to take the first flight. I have my memory card, so I think I'm ready to go - just need to power up get everything connected and synced and then see what happens!

Find an open space, I mean a LARGE OPEN area.
I flew at a soccer field complex for a few weeks before I went anywhere nears power lines, trees or buildings.
It's sounds like something obvious, but I've seen too many "crashed on 1st flight" posts where there were trees or buildings.

Capt. Wild Bill Kelso Posted at 2-7 12:17
Find an open space, I mean a LARGE OPEN area.
I flew at a soccer field complex for a few weeks before I went anywhere nears power lines, trees or buildings.
It's sounds like something obvious, but I've seen too many "crashed on 1st flight" posts where there were trees or buildings.

I'm going to be looking for a large park to find some space - I def will take it easy the first few flights.

If you use the UAV Forecast App as a guide for wind conditions and follow the guidance of Post # 5 you'll undoubtedly have a successful first flight.  Happy flying.

jperkmr954 Posted at 2-6 08:42
Awesome - I will check both those out!

You are more than welcome. If you have further concern or inquiry, please feel free to post it here at DJI Forum, we are here to help. Thank you for your valued support and safe flying.

All great tips.  Thanks!

So, I successfully put my MM in the air and landed it a few times in short spurts. Def will take some time to get more comfortable with it. Question that maybe is just how it works. I took a photo - clicked gallery or albums or whatever, and it didn't show anything. Then I had to download the images from the drone to see them in the app. Is that normal that it will not just open the full camera gallery for everything I have taken? Was that just the first time that was needed?

jperkmr954 Posted at 2-9 06:44
So, I successfully put my MM in the air and landed it a few times in short spurts. Def will take some time to get more comfortable with it. Question that maybe is just how it works. I took a photo - clicked gallery or albums or whatever, and it didn't show anything. Then I had to download the images from the drone to see them in the app. Is that normal that it will not just open the full camera gallery for everything I have taken? Was that just the first time that was needed?

It should download as you go but it can be a bit behind, you should be able to find all in app under album photo video.

Sometimes leave craft running for a few minutes and photos should download to app. Or just go to album while craft is running and click on download, these photos will be low res you need to download from sd card to computer to get bigger files.

hallmark007 Posted at 2-9 07:00
It should download as you go but it can be a bit behind, you should be able to find all in app under album photo video.

Sometimes leave craft running for a few minutes and photos should download to app. Or just go to album while craft is running and click on download, these photos will be low res you need to download from sd card to computer to get bigger files.

Thank you
It seemed odd that when I clicked Albums, there was nothing there but a download Icon. I didn't expect I would need to do that, but it could have been the first time thing and ongoing it will work more how I assume it will.

#1. Do not fly until you have proper number of satellites. Take off and wait for the home point to be set. NOW you are ready to fly.

I'm going to be flying again in about 30 minutes, there is a message that I received that I wanted to ask about but I need to see it again to refer. I believe it is something in regards to the airspace near my location and Enhanced warning zones.

Hey Everyone!!!! Back and been putting in some time and getting better with my Mini - I am looking to find out more about approved tablets that can work with the Mini. I do recall seeing the IPad Air 2 and it seems those are pretty cheap also - is this a set in stone route to go?