As a complete newbie to flying anything since paper airplanes in elementary school, I thought I would give my initial impressions to anyone one similar to me considering taking the plunge.

First, let's just get this out of the way:  This think is amazing!  Way more technology and machine than I am a pilot or videographer.

After working through all the fiddly bits of getting the apps downloaded, battery charged, firmware upgraded, the actual flying is pretty easy.  I just push the left stick forward and it lifts right off of the ground and hovers.

However, getting used to CONTROLLING this is much more difficult than I expected.  I am not a video gamer, so depth perception and translating what I want to make the copter do into the control is going to take a bit of practice.  

For all of you experienced DJI Phantom pilots, how long did it take until you either:

   1.  Not have to hold your breath for the whole flight
   2.  Learn to hold your breath for 15 minutes

This thing flies much faster than most shots require.  The hardest thing is to SLOW down.

There are annoying gimbal jumps in every footage.  Suddenly, it just jerks to the left or right.  I am not panning left and right, so it is just doing it spontaneously.

Tilting the gimbal up and down is like watching a caffeine addict with the jitters... At least when I do it.  I would like to see (or to find it if it is already available) a way of easing into and out of gimbal movements.  I would like to see a similar mode for flight, too.

Speaking of gimbal movements, there appears to be a function in the app that will allow the pilot to use the bottom buttons to toggle from tilt to pan.  NO joy.  Doesn't work at all.

I would like the ability to assign the right dial to pan and be able to toggle between gimbal control and exposure control with the bottom buttons.

I have flown it around the exterior of my house and on an empty HS football to avoid human contact and have been able to land it safely after each flight.

Can't wait to see how this develops!

Render

From my (very limited) experience so far, the controls are definitely touchy! That's not a bad thing, just need to learn to finesse them. You really don't have to push the sticks far to get some easy motion

Hi Render,

I am a retired Electronics Engineer, hold a Commercial Pilots license in Airplanes Floatplanes, Gliders,and Hot air Balloons in both the U.S. and Canada, and have been flying R/C airplanes since 1962 and R/C helicopters since 2010.  I have flown both full scale airplanes, gliders, R/C Airplanes, R/C Helicopters, and camera carrying multi-rotors in major motion pictures and TV commercials.

it took me a full year to master flying R/C helicopters at an intermediate level.  I had more than 10 crashes in that first year of helicopters.  You don’t really understand what “six degrees of freedom” really means until you have flown a single rotor collective pitch helicopter.

I have put about 6 flights on my Inspire One since I received it on last Monday.  It is not as hard to fly as a helicopter.  It will auto level unlike a single rotor helicopter.

Let me explain the problems you will encounter.  Start by putting the Inspire in front of you with the nose pointing away from you.  When you take off and hover and then push the right stick forward the Inspire will move away from you.  When you push the right stick to the right it will go right.  Now you turn it around so you can get a video of yourself.  Now when you push the right stick forward it will come towards you.  If you push the right stick right it will move left.  You must practice carefully until your body simply reacts correctly without your brain thinking about it.  Your first crash will happen flying towards yourself and you will freeze or move the controls the wrong way.

Go to your local R/C flying club and join the AMA and with it you will get instruction and liability insurance.  Buy a cheap quad copter ($60) and practice with it.  Learn to fly it in a figure 8 in front of yourself.  Do this until it is entirely automatic.

Now to the gimble.  If you fly in the “Follow Mode” the camera will face forward and when you yaw the  Inspire the camera yaw is damped and will stay for an instant and then slowly accelerate in the direction of yaw and then catch up with the nose of the aircraft.  If you are in “Free Mode” it will stay pointed in one direction regardless of where you point the nose of the aircraft.

You cannot change the yaw of the gimble when flying with a single pilot unless you touch the screen of your iPad and wait for a circle to appear.  You can then move in both pitch and yaw and control the gimble.  Looking down at the screen when you are first learning to fly is not a good idea.  Don’t take you eyes off of the machine.  Ask another person to help you and be spotter for you.  You can control the pitch with the wheel or the upper left corner.  You can also adjust the sensitivity of this control in one of the menus.  For very smooth control I suggest you change this from the default of 100% to 30%.  You will get much more professional results.

These are only a few suggestions.  I could write a book of tips on flying well and safely.

I hope this helps you get started with your new machine.

Clear skys and happy flying,

Ray Maxwell

Make sure you calibrate your RC controls.  I had an issue where my camera would pan down just fine, but when I would try to go back up it would go crazy.  Calibrating the controller fixed that little problem.

Listen to Ray he's giving you very very good advice and knows what he's talking about ..
Little steps at first will be very rewarding later .. And it won't take very long to be flying your inspire with confidence !
Do the ama thing find another quad pilot with experience , practice with a small semi cheap quad ,
you can also get an app for iPad and other tablets that is an RC trainer practice tool it's free and work very close to the real thing . I've been doing the rc aircraft for about 45 years ... Its fun and pretty easy to learn the ropes .. Good flying then

Yes it's all good advice and I have been lowering my gimbal speed as well. Last flight I was down to 40% and it was tooooooo! Fast so next flight will be 30%. I will second the cheap drone because you will crash it many times and there cheap to fix or at least I did lol

Mike

Enjoy your new Inspire I love mine!!!!!!!

daverm16a4 Posted at 2015-1-19 11:58
you can also get an app for iPad and other tablets that is an RC trainer practice tool it's free and work very close to the real thing

What's the app called?

It's called , Electric RC Sim / iOS App Store  and one version is free the other is $1.99 I believe , it's not a full on rc flight sim like you have with an rc controller pluged to a laptop running software , but a lot cheaper and you'll get the general ideas needed .
If you got the dji pilot app already and an inspire then your pilot app has a trainer built in , look in the pilot app , it does use your controller to fly in the training mode , I found it in dji academy page on the dji pilot page ... I haven't tried it out o you can let us all know eh ?

daverm16a4.emai Posted at 2015-1-19 14:27
It's called , Electric RC Sim / iOS App Store  and one version is free the other is $1.99 I believe  ...

Oh and maybe take the props off for the trainer operation ? Not sure if the motors are disabled or not for trainer ? Bet they are but just so ya keep the fingers ...

Having flown RC Helicopters for 11 years now has helped me tremendously with my P2V. Cant wait for my inspire. Follow what Ray says and work your way through the different orientations. The Dji products are very stable so no worry there. just get the orientation mastered. And most importantly if you do lose it, height is your friend and with a quad if it is GPS mode just let the sticks go so it pops itself into a hover.

Awesome info all!  Only thing I would add to what Maxwell said is that you can control the yaw of the gimbal without touching the screen.  You can go into your RC settings and change the C2 button to gimbal pitch/yaw and then clicking that button will toggle the gimbal knob between pitch (up/down) and yaw (left/right).  Works great that way!

rmaxwell Posted at 2015-1-19 11:10
Hi Render,

I am a retired Electronics Engineer, hold a Commercial Pilots license in Airplanes Float ...

Does AMA require you to be flying at a designated flying field?

Been flying quads since the P2. Here's a little trick I used when I was starting out - Reduce the gain on the main controls. This basically limited how fast the quad could travel, so you don't end up scooting into an immobile and unmovable object

Also, find a big open field devoid of people and anything expensive, practice figure-8s and navigation. Keep the quad in view. If you can't see it, it's too far away. Get used to the controls, then gradually work your way towards being able to fly using the video feed.

jmac@skycircles Posted at 2015-1-19 23:07
Does AMA require you to be flying at a designated flying field?

I live in Canada and am a member of MAAC.  They require you to fly at approved fields or have the permission of the property owner in order for the liability insurance to be in force.  I am not current on the AMA requirements.  When I fly in a movie production I make sure they have a blanket liability policy and that I am covered as an employee.  I am looking into adding a blanket policy to cover me in all other situations.

Ray

All,

Thanks for the good advice.

I am actually following it, just with the Inspire and not a cheap quad.   I am flying mostly at a vacant HS Football Field, making big circles, walking the dog and doing figure eights.  Must admit that I do, on occasion, go up 150 - 200 feet and fly out a few hundred feet, turn around and come back

It is still disconcerting, but I am having a great time.

You can go into your RC settings and change the C2 button to gimbal pitch/yaw and then clicking that button will toggle the gimbal knob between pitch (up/down) and yaw (left/right).

No, I cannot.  I have tried this and It does NOT switch the gimbal between pitch and yaw.  That's what I was referencing above.

I also think we need to have access to input custom curves for gimbal pan/tilt (pitch/yaw) so that we can smooth out the movements.

I still love it!  Just wish it weren't dark so early so I could practice more!

Render

rmaxwell Posted at 2015-1-19 11:10
Hi Render,

I am a retired Electronics Engineer, hold a Commercial Pilots license in Airplanes Float ...

Hi rmaxwel.. In writting you from Colombia. I just bought my inspire 1 and im hardly trying to understand how can i adjust the sensitivyty of my control for moré profesional results. You suggest to chance a settings in The menu from 100% to 30%.  Can you tell me wich settings i have to change and where can i find it in The menu's app?  real y apreciate your help. please Excuse my bad english.