Flight Exercise 1

Welcome to your first flight exercise!

(Note: For all of our our flight exercises, we will be using the Syma X5C, which goes for about $40 on Amazon HERE. If you do not have a drone or do not wish to purchase a drone, take a look at the drone flight simulator options we listed in the “Drone Options for Flight Exercises” lesson earlier in the course.)

In this lesson, we are going to take our first attempt at connecting the drone, getting it in the air, hovering, and landing.

Follow along in the video as we try!

To connect the Syma X5C, turn the power switch on the remote controller on (the slider in the center of the controller) and then turn the Syma X5C drone on (power button on the back). Once both are powered on, toggle the left joystick up and down until you see the lights on the bottom of the drone stop blinking. The drone should now be connected. If you test the controller and try to take off (left joystick pushed upwards) and it doesn’t work. Turn the both the controller and the drone off and try the process over again.

Once you are connected, go to an open area, preferably outside or a large indoor space where there is nothing around that you wouldn’t want knocked over :). Slowly move the left joystick upwards until the drone lifts off the ground. Move SLOWLY with the controls. New pilots tend to go too fast with the joystick movements and lose control of the drone.

Try to hover the drone in place, using the right thumbstick to control forward/back and left/right movements. Once you’ve hovered for a few seconds, slowly bring the left thumbstick back down until the drone lands.

In case of emergency or if the drone happens to go wild, just cut the power by moving the left thumbstick all the way down. Remember, this drone is pretty light and usually won’t harm anything if it falls from a few feet up. (Just don’t land it on your mom’s crystal vase!)