What I wish I knew before buying a quadcopter

Quadcopter and multi-rotor flying is an incredibly and rewarding hobby.

Well, more of an obsession.

Either way, there’s a myriad of choices out there right now, and it can be easy to make a mistake when buying and flying something for the first time.

I’ve made a couple of costly mistakes myself, so I’d like to share those with you in the hope that you can avoid them and enjoy the hobby more whilst staying safe and spending less.

Here goes:

Advice #1: Start with a cheap toy quadcopter

If you have no experience flying a quadcopter before, I would highly recommend not spending more than $50 on your first quadcopter.

Even though the quadcopter itself will be around $50 or so, you’ll end up spending quite a lot on accessories, too - batteries, extra propellers, other accessories - so if you’re new to the hobby and not sure how committed you will be to it, it’s better to start cheap.

For learning basic flight, a sub-$50 quadcopter is more than sufficient.

I started out with a Blade 180QX, which was around $170 when I bought it. I lost it soon after. I really wish I had started with a cheap Hubsan X4 instead!

Oh, and it’s a terrible idea to buy a professional drone like the DJI Phantom without having any previous flight experience. I was actually tempted to buy the Phantom as my first quadcopter, but I was deterred by the high price point - and I’m happy that I didn’t, too.

Here are some of my favorite toy quadcopters:

Blade Nano QX

This little machine is awesome. It flies well and you can easily progress from beginner to advanced on this one machine, because it has a “training wheels” flight mode in which the quadcopte will only tilt a certain number of degrees no matter how much you push the sticks, a second mode where the tilt degrees are greater, and also an “advanced” flight mode where there is no limit - so you can do flips and rolls, too!

Get it from the Flite Test store

Hubsan X4

The Hubsan X4 is also an awesome quadcopter. It’s only got two flight modes - one with less tilt and one with more, but it’s really awesome because it’s tiny, agile, and durable. For less than $50, this is the best buy you can get.

Accessories and replacements are also very easily available, which is good.

Get it from Amazon

I’m sure I would have crashed it/lost it very quickly trying some dumb maneuvers!

...Which brings me to advice #2.

Advice #2: As a beginner, stick to flying in wide open spaces

Trying to fly a quadcopter for the first time is harder than it looks. So when you are flying as a beginner, you must stick to wide open spaces.

Flying in open spaces gives you more time to correct your mistakes and recover your model. Otherwise you’ll lose/break your model quicker than you can say “lift-off!”

To keep a quadcopter flying, you have to control four axes at once! That means you have to constantly give input on both sticks in all directions to maintain proper flight.

This requires practice, and means you will make mistakes. But learning is part of the hobby, so set yourself up in the best possible environment so that when you do make a mistake, there’s no trouble.

Advice #3: Stay safe and do not fly around people!

You probably have noticed that quadcopters have 4 mean-looking propellers spinning incredibly fast - so as much as you want to show off your new gadget to everyone you know, don’t fly near people.

Getting hit with a prop is painful, and can give you or anyone else around you some nasty cuts. So when you practice, practice away from people.

This is especially important as a beginner because you may lose control, and then there’s no way of knowing where the quadcopter is going to go.

Safety is the most important part of this hobby - so make sure your flying is not a risk to you or anyone else.

Advice #4: Stock up on batteries

Quadcopters are power-hungry machines, and most toy quads only come with one battery. Which sucks, really. Because that one battery will give you 4-5 minutes of flight time, after which you’ll have to charge it for an hour.

4-5 minutes is really not enough to practice(or to enjoy, for that matter), so get yourself at least 5 batteries so that when you do go to fly, you have 30 minutes or so of flying.

This way you can really practice and get better.

Advice #5: Go easy on the sticks!

If this is the first time you are flying a radio controlled model, GO EASY ON THE STICKS! Small corrections will make big changes in your model!

Folks with experience flying planes and helicopters will already know that you have to be very gentle on the sticks - the same thing goes for quadcopters.

Making smaller corrections will give you more time to react, and make your quadcopter fly much smoother overall.

Advice #6: Practice maneuvers from easy to difficult

When you first get your quadcopter, practice maneuvers from easier moves to harder moves. As you master each one, progress to the next.

There’s a lot of information about this elsewhere, but here’s how I’d say you should do it:

1. Practice hovering and controlling the throttle stick. Ideally, designate an 2x2’ or 3x3’ area and set a certain height in your mind, and try to stay in that area and at that height.
   
   This is harder than it looks, if you have never flown - if you move the throttle stick and just leave it there, the quadcopter will keep climbing. If you lower it too quickly, it’ll lose its lift and descend too quickly.
   
   The trick is to play with the throttle - you’ll have to keep making minor adjustments to the throttle to maintain the quadcopter’s altitude, and even then, it’ll still be going up and down a little. But you want to try and keep that up and down movement as tight as possible.
   
   If your quadcopter drifts a little(and it will), give very slight inputs from the other stick to keep it in place.

2. Once you are comfortable with hovering, try flying away from yourself in a straight line while maintaining altitude as best you can, and bringing it back towards you. Don’t turn the quadcopter yet - just tip it forwards to fly it away, and tip it backwards to fly it back.

3. Next, try flying left and right - tip your quadcopter to the right, fly it away from you, then tip it to the left and fly it all the way to the opposite side. Now bring it back to in front of you.

4. Now it’s time to mix things up a little! Try giving mixed inputs - left + forward, or right + backwards and see what happens. Then fly it back towards you.

5. Start practicing yawing and inverted flight, now. The easiest way to do this is to fly straight away from you, straighten out the quadcopter, then yaw(turn on its axis) the quadcopter so that it’s facing you, and then fly it back to you.
   
   This is going to be very challenging, because your controls will now be inverted. Forewards on the remote will be backwards, left will be right, and so on.
   
   If you give the opposite input, don’t freak out! Just correct it(you should be giving slight inputs, anyway), and you’ll be back on track.

6. If you can fly straight, turn around, and fly back in a straight line, it’s time to try banked turns!
   
   Banked turns means turning by both tilting the quadcopter and yawing it. So to do a left banked turn, you’ll have to push both sticks to the left. This will be a proper turn, since the front of the quadcopter will now actually be facing the way you turned.
   
   Remember, once you’ve done a banked turn, your inputs will have to be relative to the quadcopter itself! So you’ll have to put yourself in the quadcopter’s perspective and remember that if you give left input, it’ll now move left relative to it’s position!
   
   This is the final step of basic flying, and If you can do a bunch of banked turns in succession whilst maintaining control of your quadcopter, you are there!

Another thing to bear in mind is to be patient! It may take you several batteries to master each technique, so keep at it.

This hobby is not for impatient people!

Advice #7: “How high can it go?” is a bad idea

I’ve seen so many videos on YouTube where new quadcopter owners have tried to see how high their quadcopter will go - and end up losing it!

Tiny quadcopters are not meant to fly so high, because they’ll be carried off by the wind.

Also, the higher you go, the less you are able to see the model - so the less fun you’ll have. Lesson? Stay closer to the ground and make sure you can see your model!

TIP: In case you do lose your model, write your name and phone number on it so if someone finds it, they can return it to you.

Advice #8: Accept that crashing and breaking stuff is part of the fun

Listen to me carefully:

You will crash.

You will break stuff.

A crash is not the end of the world. It’s part of the fun. If you crash, repair your model! You’ll probably break your props most often, so have replacement props on hand and switch them out for broken ones!

In a rough crash, you may break one of the quadcopter’s arms or mess up a motor. You may just be able to superglue the arm back together, or find a replacement part online.

You can also replace motors very easily. You should be able to find spares on Ebay, Amazon, or an online hobby store.

Advice #9: Have fun and keep learning!

This is the most important piece of advice I can give you! Flying quadcopters is a hobby to be enjoyed. There’s also a ton of stuff you can research and learn about - and there are plenty of resources to learn more.

The more you learn, the better you will understand your quadcopter and the better of a pilot you will become.

Flite Test, of course, has really awesome videos and articles. You can also scour YouTube for some good channels(I would suggest checking out Quadcopter 101). If you are also interested in learning about building your own quadcopter, you can check out Reddit Multicopter and also my own site, FPVFrenzy.