Multi-rotor syllabus

[Robert Alexander 1]

I am one of those forced to learn alone. I googled as much as I could to find good suggestions on how to approach learning to fly my quad and found a number of different approaches and also received some good advice here but was wondering if there's some form of sequence of steps that are demonstrated to lead to a good learning.

I am currently in the very initial phase of having conquered flying with the quad aligned with my line of sight (meaning the "front" is always pointing away from me" and if I keep things this way can handle very windy conditions and mostly land very near a given target without wrecking anything.

I'm still wrecking things more that I'd like if I change the rotation so the "front" is in the 90 to 270 degrees orientation unless air is totally still and I have ample time to think out the consequence of my sticks wiggling.

Given this for example the advice about "learn to fly eights in front of you while flying low" does not give good results given that such a session is usually promptly terminated by breaking one or more props

When I learned flying "real" sailplanes, our school had a detailed number of steps and you needed to demonstrate having mastered each one before the instructor challenged you with the following one (and yes when you reached getting out of spins induced by the instructor while you kept your eyes closed you understood there was still a lot more to learn ).

I wonder if any organization has defined such steps to follow to learn.

Thanks for any opinion.

PS When the wind is calm I can venture rotating to 90 or 180 or 270 degrees and I actually speak aloud the direction I have to steer towards and then move my sticks accordingly. This works but I have no clue as to if it's really a good way to learn since of course it's very slow.

[Tony Read 2]

Hi Robert!

Have you flown the quad that Chris built yet?

Not sure that there is any defined path that you can take to master your quad. Its a case of training your brain and thumbs to react to what you want the quad to do. Practice is the name of the game. When I fly I tend to spend one battery flying a large pattern, much as I would fly a plane. I have very bright LED's to tell me where the front is. For the second battery I concentrate on close in flying in different orientations. Then I go back to large circuits etc on the next, and so on. This way I don't get too bored doing one thing.

I tried the Phoenix flight sim but the quads on there did not 'feel' the same as my quad. I tend to use the Hughes 500 for getting a bit of practice in on the sim.

Hope this helps.

Edited By Tony Read 2 on 20/05/2014 13:10:59

[Mart49]

I have found myself in a similar position. I am gradually getting better, and have found that by flying in large squares or circles really helps. Figure of 8's are next! And a large amount of concentration is required, at least by me! As Tony says, plenty of practice is the key.

[Chris Jones 7]

Convince a friend to buy a quad and teach them. I always learn more when I'm teaching than when I'm just doing.

[Robert Alexander 1]

Hey Tony, Mart and Chris nice to read you As Chris knows I've been mired in "real life" problems and never had time to setup Chris model until yesterday night. It looks and handles really well !!! I did a couple of short flights in my living room and it responds a lot better than my first quad !!!

Today I could fly but DARN it's pouring !!!!

Thank you all for your advice and yes finding a flying mate would be great to teach each other but there seems to be a lack of people spending time away from their Facebooks these days

You all take care and please forgive the Italians for having vanquished your national soccer team (disclaimer: I cannot care less for soccer).

Robert