30 years ago I was mad for RC cars and planes. I’m finding it difficult to get excited about my drone.
It is one of the more basic under 150g drones (Holy Stone 360S), but has features so advanced, it almost takes the fun (challenge) out of the hobby.
There is also the absence of comradery among drone fliers. When I was into planes, we had a club at work (Bell Labs Holmdel) and got together weekly to fly, teach learn and boast.
About the only fun I had with it was harassing a nest of yellow jackets that took up residence in my shed. But, even they thought it was unremarkable. They barely took notice of it even when hovering at the nest entrance.
So, can any drone fliers here give me some ideas on how I can entertain myself with this doohickey?
Try FPV flying. You’re welcome to try out my FPV drone/goggles. Whole different experience.
There’s several RC clubs in our area with dedicated fields (I haven’t joined any yet, but on my bucket list):
Make maneuvering more challenging (and exciting) by trying course flying - throw some “obstacles” in your back yard (punch the bottom out of some big cardboad boxes and put them up on a card table to fly through, make hoops out of pool noodles, etc.).
Do more “sightseeing” flights - take your drone to interesting places and do some flights with a goal of capturing good video.
I just did a back yard flight (with one minor crash) and three things I’d like to note.
The drone has two speeds, mummy and rocket.
As a former RC “pilot” I hate that up and down are reversed compared to an RC controller. On the drone controller, down is down and up is up. While this may be intuitive to noobs, old dogs like me who are used to flying RC planes can run into trouble.
Almost lost my drone in a tree because of return to home on low battery. The “system” was warning me that the battery was low (beeping incessantly) so I landed the drone and checked battery, still had 50% according to on battery led display.
So I decided to hover the drone to see how much battery life was left in actual time. The drone, without warning, shot up about 60 feet and would not respond to the joystick. The auto return to home overrode my inputs. The drone is not smart enough to know it was already hovering four feet above the takeoff pad.
One more… The speed of ascent is MUCH faster than the descent speed.
Sounds like you’ve got a “beginner friendly” drone. All of these properties make total sense for the “hopefully has a mean time of more than 10 seconds between going from under the Christmas tree to rapid unscheduled disassembly” market.
I hear you, I’m also a “down on stick = front of aircraft up” devotee. Check to see if your controller is configurable. My DJI FPV controller is, including swapping the “throttle” and “attitude” stick assignment.
See if that’s configurable too. On my DJI RTH engages at 25% battery (and is cancellable via controller input). 50% seems overly protective, but I also “get” setting that value for a “beginner” drone.
Yeah, that’s likely by design too. Same thing when I’m in “assisted modes” in my DJI, sink rate is throttled to be much less than climb rate, but if I put it into “manual” mode, I can both fall out of the sky like a rock or even go inverted with full throttle for maximum descent speed (I haven’t executed that maneuver, but I know it can do it).
I just got a “cheaper” drone a few days ago. Brought it out a couple days ago in the front yard and it worked great. I brough it out yesterday to a bigger field to try it and it kept going rogue when either out of range or low on battery. It’s supposed to come “home” automatically. First time it hit a tree and we were able to retrieve it in the woods. Second time it responded and I was able to control it home. Third time it wouldn’t listen to a damn command and got itself stuck in the tallest tree in the area. Currently waiting for a wind storm to knock it out of the tree.
I’m gonna try water bottle on a string method tomorrow. I already asked for a refund from the seller lol I also bought another drone that will hopefully perform better. Maybe I’ll try to hit the first drone out of the tree with the new drone.
It looks like a knockoff of my Holy Stone 360, the controller is almost identical. If it is as good as my Holy Stone, you should be satisfied. The only dubious claim is the 45 minutes flight time. My d360S gets 20 minutes max. The one you ordered seems to come with two batteries. Don’t expect 1.5 hours of combined flight with both batteries. No way they can put a 45 minute battery on that drone and stay under 250g
EDIT: What I don’t see is the cable physically connecting the phone to the controller.
