Are we doing fellow pilots a disservice by providing quick and narrow focus responses to their questions instead of having them read and comprehend the battery and aircraft user manuals? They may be left with only a shallow understanding of a feature of this amazing, capable & technologically advanced, yet affordable, platform without seeing how the systems work together and thinking for themselves. This online forum should not be a substitute for being familiar with the various components before operating the aircraft. A little knowledge can be dangerous.

If you can lead a blind horse to water,
Will he drink the the KoolAid?

There should be a mandatory online 20 multiple choice test, and compulsory 5hr. SIM time...

RedHotPoker

Ideally, this forum should be service to ask about things that are not in the manual, as you say. But ever since I first started participating in this forum, people come here who are clueless and have no idea about reading manuals. Inevitably, they view a drone as something you just take out of the box and it flies automatically, not requiring any brain-cells on the part of the operator.

This is a problem not just for the Phantom community, but all new 'toys' in general, it is now considered normal to tear open the box, pull out the 'toy', try to use it, fail, then get on a forum to whine about their inability to get it going.

The Phantom series of drones are not toys, they are very sophisticated flying cameras, and you cannot master one without reading the manual thoroughly, as it is not a very intuitive process. It is essential to undertake further education.

But at the same time, the self-help user forum is increasingly seen as the way to solve this problem, and I don't think anything is going to change it in the future.

Aloha,

     All of the above!  Well, a little less on the SIM time - and I like SIMs!

Aloha and Drone On!

Have you flown on RealFlight yet?
Because that should be a minimum benchmark. ;-)

Yes, the @DJI onboard sim is very basic, but it IS basically all that a beginner needs to get started.

Much cheaper than even a simple repair. ;-)

RedHotPoker

It is not a disservice to read the manual thoroughly prior to operating any expensive equipment. Product manuals do provide extensive information on the product's functions, failsafes and especially any limitation that the unit may openly have. Not making an attempt to take this initial step is a disservice to the operator and those around them to not become familiar with the information provided directly by the manufacturer.

With that said, the DJI Forum, as Geebox has mentioned, does have a wealth of information that is provided by the community which have had ample amounts of time with their units and can have some information that may not be present in the manual at the time. You will get the most from this forum, however, if you take the initial step in studying all the manuals and other various component guidelines that are available to you.

DJI-Jamie Posted at 2016-6-21 19:33
It is not a disservice to read the manual thoroughly prior to operating any expensive equipment. Pro ...

Aloha Jamie,

     Very well said!  And fortunately we have some understanding Australians.

     But, you know that Canadian with his deep neural nets!  How does he sleep at night.  Left turn, right turn, straight to the bathroom - or what!  He could confuse the students - in his sleep!

Aloha and Drone On!

I've read the manual at least 10 times now and I think each time after the first time I still learned a few things.  There are soooo many subtleties on this thing!  Functions that aren't used regularly get pushed to the back of my brain...I fear that in a pinch they wont come back to the front lol.

Not a toy, DJI seem to class them as such. Customs declaration in mine said electronic toy lol

RedHotPoker Posted at 2016-6-22 10:46
If you can lead a blind horse to water,
Will he drink the the KoolAid?

Well the FAA will be making the latter a reality shortly, for commercial use anyway.

kdcox Posted at 2016-6-22 20:35
I've read the manual at least 10 times now and I think each time after the first time I still learne ...

It's great you're doing all that you can to fully understand the product.

The human brain is far more resilient with information that we give it credit, so I'm sure that you'll do fine in a pinch.

New owners don't read the user manuals. Seasoned posters don't read the first sentence of the OP. No difference.

DJI-Jamie Posted at 2016-6-21 22:33
It is not a disservice to read the manual thoroughly prior to operating any expensive equipment. Pro ...

You're overlooking the wealth of inaccurate and useless information on this forum that the inexperienced may not be able to distinguish.

Airspace Explor Posted at 2016-6-23 00:16
New owners don't read the user manuals. Seasoned posters don't read the first sentence of the OP. No ...

Agreed! We all tend to use, what we consider, the easiest path to solving our immediate problem, whether it's posting a question or replying with an answer.

This "NOW" mentality is reinforced by the emerging technology industry's reluctance to disclose detailed information about how the system really works because of "trade-secrets", and instead provide sophisticated systems that operate almost autonomously with little required user knowledge or understanding.   

There's over 27K posts in the Phantom Forum, yet few search before posting a question.

In many threads, answers that provide links/references to the DJI documentation or links to sources for the answer, can help direct both new and experiences users to appropriate reference material, if that's the goal.

I didn't even power my P1 and P3P on for about a week after receiving them, reading and watching videos.

I started with this dude:

Providing answers on the forum is ok, if the user is not responsible enough to read the manual, look through the forums, watch tutorials, that is not our problem. We all OFTEN tell people to read, research, learn, there's only so much we can do.... hmm.. i think we help as we can, make suggestions if we feel the user is not doing research on their own.. and leave it at that... that is all we can do.. if someone wants to risk their expensive toy, oh well, it's their right....

Thinking back a year, When I had to wait in line, those long weeks eventually turned into two months. for my turn to pick up the new drone.
Yes, it was frustrating and I voiced my feelings plenty on here. But through out that waiting period, I would spend endless time, reading and going over the PDF manuals.
It became a good habit, to go online and read them over and over. So by the time my drone was in the city, It felt like we had been old friends already, for a very long time.
Even those boring drone unboxing videos were a pleasure to view, again and once more.;-)

It's important to have that basic understanding of your new RC model, before you even crack open the sticker...

RedHotPoker

Phantomski Posted at 2016-6-23 01:15
Providing answers on the forum is ok, if the user is not responsible enough to read the manual, look ...

Well said, I tell everyone to go to the Academy section in the app and read the manual and watch all the tutorial videos.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-6-22 14:18
Well said, I tell everyone to go to the Academy section in the app and read the manual and watch a ...

Ken, is that RIGHT AT THE TOP of every sticky in the beginner, welcome, and other such forums? I think people who flew toy drones, simply do not realize the complexity of this device - so they do not realize that you don;t just grab it and fly. I did only because I remember how complex the flight modes were on my Blade 350... but not everyone has touched such a machine. For many DJI is actually a first quad EVER.. so maybe it's a question of proper wording in big red letters on all "welcome" and "rules" forums?
The best you guys can to is encourage, but we will never get everyone to read and study.. heck even those of us who did, still have stupid things happen sometimes....  that's life...

terrylewis Posted at 2016-6-22 10:05
Agreed! We all tend to use, what we consider, the easiest path to solving our immediate problem, w ...

RE: "... yet few search before posting a question."

Given the often vague thread headings, rampant misspellings and personal opinions not based on fact, this is not practical.

Phantomski Posted at 2016-6-23 06:02
Ken, is that RIGHT AT THE TOP of every sticky in the beginner, welcome, and other such forums? I t ...

I think there should be a test before you can activate the aircraft Just kidding, but with the technology built into DJI aircraft reading the manual really does help a lot.

If the general response to any question is "just read the manual", then this forum has absolutely no purpose.

We shouldn't try to "police" how others educate themselves, worrying if they've read the whole manual and other instructional pamphlets.  It can be too much for some.  Others, and I assume this is most of us, learn best if it's point by point, growing upon each topic.

So in general, the default answers like "the answer is in the manual" is the real disservice, and I mean no disrespect by my reply.

techmyjustin Posted at 2016-6-23 10:30
If the general response to any question is "just read the manual", then this forum has absolutely no ...

The answer is is the manual is not something that DJI will tell you. Look at my thousands of posts in this forum of answering questions and assisting people.
Yes, a ton of those questions can be answered if they had read the manual, but I always still post an answer to the question. The only time I do not is if the same person keeps a thread going with multiple questions one after another. After I've replied to about 10 of their posts of a new question in each post only then do I stop and tell them the information is in the manual.

I think everyone agrees that answering the questions is what the forums are for, but pointing to and stressing reading the manual, watching videos, and searching through the forums are additional pieces of info that have their place in many discussions. That's how it is with almost every forum for any product.. Many people just aks, many people ask because they are frustrated. Manual CAN be confusing - not everyone learns the same way, hence tutorial videos and discussions that usually do not limit the conversation to just an answer to a question, hence it's a forum, not a QA ticketing system ;) I think thsi works well, so my answer to the original question of this thread is "no"

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-6-23 10:36
The answer is is the manual is not something that DJI will tell you. Look at my thousands of posts ...

Hi Ken, I wasn't replying directly to you, but to the original poster.  Thanks

techmyjustin Posted at 2016-6-24 22:22
Hi Ken, I wasn't replying directly to you, but to the original poster.  Thanks

Yes, I know and I was not meaning it for you but responding in general.
No problem.

RE: "If the general response to any question is "just read the manual", then this forum has absolutely no purpose."

Agreed.

Airspace Explor Posted at 2016-6-25 02:04
RE: "If the general response to any question is "just read the manual", then this forum has absolute ...

I agree 100%, this forum is here to assist users in questions. Even though the majority of questions asked can be found in the manual we still provide assistance in answering.
BUT, if the same person's questions have been answered and then he/she has question after question after question when the answers can be found in the manual, then it's time for them to read it.