First Flight Guidelines

Learning to fly is a lot of fun! These guidelines are designed to ensure that your first flight experience is enjoyable, educational, and safe.

Select a Good Location

Selecting the right location for your first flight is critical. The main things to look for are:

• Make sure the space is open. No high trees, hills or buildings next to it, because it will impair the GPS reception.
• Make sure no people are within 100 m / 300 feet.
• Make sure there is nothing that you shouldn't crash onto within 100 m / 300 feet - no houses, structures, cars, water, corn fields (hard to find drones in).

Note

100m clearance is a good "rule of thumb", but you should also ensure you comply with flight regulations in your area.

Bring a Pro

Bring someone with experience for your first flight. Get them to help you to run through the pre-flight checks and let them intervene if something goes wrong!

Plan the Flight

Plan the flight before taking off. Make sure you know the whole route and where/how the vehicle will land.

Limit the Damage

Damaging property or injuring people with your UAV can have significant legal and financial consequences (far in excess of the value of the UAV itself).

The UAV should always be manually flown within a safe zone where there are no obstacles or people, and it must be clearly visible at all times.

If you start to lose control over the vehicle, and cannot bring it back under control, crash it in an empty area as soon as possible.

Note

It can be useful to set a safety switch on your transmitter. This allows you to immediately return or crash your drone if necessary.