Have you considered using a drone's flight planning function? Is automatic flight easier than manual flight? For beginners, flight planning is a major test of your drone piloting skills and experience.
Here, we'll explain the 10 most common flight planning mistakes new drone pilots make and how to avoid them.
What is drone flight planning software?
Drone mission planning involves presetting the drone's flight path, waypoints, altitude, speed, camera angle, and other parameters before flight, allowing the drone to complete the mission automatically without manual control of the joystick or thumbstick.
This makes repetitive missions simpler and less risky. However, each drone mission planning approach varies in complexity and key challenges. Beginners should start with simple waypoint missions to familiarize themselves with flight parameters and camera settings, before gradually moving on to professional-level applications. Let's examine the key elements of drone flight planning.
Best Drone Flight Planning Software
The right planning software depends on your mission objectives, drone hardware, and regulatory compliance requirements. This includes not only drone planning software released by drone manufacturers but also software from third-party software service providers.
The most popular drone planning software on the market includes DJI FlightHub 2, Autel Explorer, DJI Pilot 2, Autel Enterprise App, PIX4Dcapture, FlytNow (FlytBase), GreenValley, International, and AirData UAV.
If you have purchased an EVO II series drone, please download the Autel Explorer app for drone route planning. If you have purchased an EVO Max series or EVO Lite Enterprise series drone, please download the Autel Enterprise app for drone route planning.
10 Common Route Planning Mistakes Drone Pilots Make and How to Prevent Them
For beginners, route planning is a common area where mistakes are easily made. Incorrect route planning can not only lead to flight failures but also cause safety issues or regulatory violations. Here are some common issues and how to prevent them.
1. Ignoring Local Regulations and No-Fly Zones
Many novice drone operators fail to research local drone regulations or no-fly zones when planning their routes, leading to flights near airports, military installations, other sensitive areas, and controlled airspace, creating legal risks.
Prevention: Use a drone flight management app to check for no-fly zones and temporarily restricted areas. Before flying, be sure to understand local regulations and obtain the necessary flight permits. Pay attention to geofencing restrictions displayed by the drone software and fly legally and in compliance.
2. Not Considering Battery Life
Newcomers often overestimate their drone's battery life and plan overly long routes, which can lead to a low battery upon return, resulting in a forced landing, aborted return, or even a crash.
Prevention: When planning your route, always reserve 20-30% of battery power for return and emergency response. Calculate your flight time before departure, familiarize yourself with your drone's flight time, adjust your route length based on wind speed and flight mode, and have spare batteries available.
3. Ignoring Terrain and Obstacles
It's important to note that the drone's obstacle avoidance function may fail during mission planning. Novice pilots may overlook obstacles such as undulating terrain, trees, buildings, or utility poles, leading to collisions or signal loss.
Prevention: Adjust flight altitude and speed based on the specifics of the environment. When flying in mountainous areas, use a drone that supports RTK/PPK to avoid insufficient mapping accuracy. Enable both the tracking function and the drone's obstacle avoidance function.
4. Not Presetting a Return-to-Home Point or Return-to-Home Altitude
Novice pilots often forget to set or check the automatic Return-to-Home (RTH) point or altitude, causing the drone to fly to the wrong location or collide when signal loss or battery low occurs.
Prevention: Verify the Return-to-Home point before each flight and ensure it is in a safe, open area. The drone's Return-to-Home altitude should be greater than the highest obstacle height + 20 meters. Regularly check GPS signal strength and the automatic Return-to-Home function to ensure proper functioning.
5. Planning Overly Complex Routes
New pilots sometimes pursue complex flight plans (such as panning or multi-point aerial photography) but lack the experience to handle unexpected situations, leading to operational errors.
Prevention: Start with simple straight or circular routes and gradually increase the complexity. Before attempting complex flight missions, simulate flight routes and parameter settings. Once you've mastered manual control, try advanced automatic flight features.
6. Ignoring Weather Conditions
New pilots may fail to check weather conditions and fly in strong winds, rain, snow, cold temperatures, or low visibility, potentially causing loss of control or damage to the drone.
Prevention: Use a weather app to check wind speed, rainfall, and visibility before flight. Preheat the battery in low winter temperatures. Avoid flying in winds exceeding the drone's maximum wind rating.
7. Failing to Perform Preflight Checks
New pilots often take off without checking the drone's status, sensor calibration, GPS signal, or route settings, leading to problems during flight.
Prevention: Create a preflight checklist that includes battery charge, propeller status, GPS signal, sensor calibration, and route parameters. Ensure all equipment is functioning properly before taking off.
8. Over-reliance on Automatic Mode
New pilots often over-rely on automatic flight mode and neglect manual control skills, leaving them unable to react when the drone deviates from its route or encounters an unexpected situation.
Prevention: Practice manual flight frequently in a safe area to familiarize yourself with the drone's control characteristics. Use automatic flight only as a supplementary tool, and be prepared to switch back to manual mode at any time. During surveying missions, the drone's speed and overlap ratio may require rapid and proficient adjustment based on the actual situation.
9. Failing to Consider Signal Interference
When flying in urban areas or areas with severe electromagnetic interference, new pilots may fail to consider the risk of signal loss, resulting in loss of connection.
Prevention: Choose open areas for flight and avoid high-voltage power lines, substations, or areas with dense Wi-Fi signals. Use a signal booster or maintain line of sight to reduce the risk of drone loss.
10. Neglecting Data Backup and Recording
New pilots often fail to record flight data or back up their route plans, neglecting to review post-mission data. This makes it difficult to analyze flight problems or repeat successful routes.
Prevention: Use a drone app to record flight logs and save route settings and footage. Regularly back up your data and check compliance to facilitate analysis and improvement of future route plans.
Conclusion
Route planning is the core of drone flight. Proper planning improves flight safety and photography quality. For drone beginners, systematically learning and practicing route planning can help them gradually avoid the common mistakes mentioned above. This will not only improve their flying skills but also enhance their enjoyment of flying drones.
Before each flight, new drone operators can take the time to research the environment, regulations, and equipment status of their drone route planning to ensure safety, accuracy, and efficiency. This will help them gradually improve their skills and achieve more stable and long-range flights!
