Flying a drone is not difficult to learn, but proficiency requires practice. Master the controller, boosting your skills to professional levels with these exercises to master drone flying skills.

Professionals Value Practice

Professionals like pianists and guitarists know the value of regular exercises to improve skill. For example, practicing fingering exercises helps build and maintain finger agility which improves overall performance. Likewise, planned drone flight practice improves both flying skill and enjoyment, helping you master drone flying skills.

The exercises below form the foundation of controlling your drone properly. Learn each of these moves slowly, then increase speed while maintaining accuracy. Compete against yourself (or a fellow drone enthusiast) to keep yourself engaged and the practice enjoyable. Each exercise is designed to start from takeoff and finish with landing. Practice takeoff and landing with every exercise as this is where crashes frequently occur. Mastering these skills is crucial for anyone looking to master drone flying techniques.

The Skill Boosting Exercises

In addition to basic practice exercises, I included six intermediate exercises that are commonly used for cinematic filming. Practice these while filming then watch your footage to see how “professional” your mini-film appears. By mastering these drone flying skills, you’ll enhance your filming techniques significantly.

Professional drone flyers master the controller in order to perform the tasks necessary for their jobs.

Drones are used in agriculture to spray crops, test soil nutrients, plan crop rotation, and numerous other activities.

Basic Exercises to Master

  1. Out and back, then land: The goal here is to practice stopping at specific points. Try to stop directly over your take off point. Most drones stop quickly when you let go of the levers. However, each drone functions a little differently, so it is worth spending time with this exercise to familiarize yourself with your specific drone. This exercise also lets you practice take-off and landings. Learn to do this yourself even if your drone will do this automatically. It is an important skill to have.
  2. Vertical square then land: This exercises adds left/right and up/down movements to get you familiar with those controls.
  3. Forward & climb (both sticks up) then comeback (both sticks down): This is commonly called a “dronie” when the camera faces you as the drone climbs and ascends. This maneuver is so common that many drones have a built in “dronie” mode to do this automatically.
  4. Reverse Control: Go forward then turn around 180º so drone is facing you. Now go forward and move left, move right. Get used to using inverse controls. Inverse controls boggle the mind at first. However, with practice, it will become natural. The goal is to be able to watch your drone while controlling it regardless of what direction it is facing. Resist the temptation to watch the feed on your controller or phone. Keep your eye on your drone until you master inverse controls.
  5. S-Turn: Do a snake pattern. Use right stick: both forward and to right, then move to left, then right. Try to make curved “S” moves right to left rather than hard “V” moves. Do the same in reverse to move back to landing pad. Learn to do this as one smooth motion.
  6. Horizontal Rectangle: Go right, forward, left, back, then right to starting point. Then repeat with aircraft facing 180º. (Helpful Hint: Placing orange cones, red Solo cups, or some other marker in a rectangle pattern on the ground provides a visual reference when flying the exercise.)
  7. Horizontal Rectangular while constantly facing the direction you are going:Yaw 90º left at each corner to face the direction of the travel. For added complexity, round the corners by yawing to the left while you continue to move forward.
  8. Vertical Triangle: move right to make base, then move up and left, then down and left. You should practice this until you can do it in one smooth move.
  9. Follow a road: Try to go parallel with the road while facing the road. You will be moving left and right, adjusting the yaw to maintain distance to the road. (You can also use forward and back to adjust distance to road, but try using yaw.)
Drone controller mastery takes practice

Taking time to practice controller coordination will pay big dividends in your future drone flying and help you master drone flying skills.

Mastering Cinematic Filming

  1. Orbit: adjust camera to spot an item on the ground like a picnic table. Then slowly go left and adjust yaw to keep item centered in crosshairs and maintain the same distance from the object. Then go opposite direction. I practice this exercise around an outdoor basketball goal at a nearby park—just make sure no one is playing basketball!
  2. Forward Reveal: Face camera down to about 60º. Move forward and slowly raise camera. Add complexity by doing this while also climbing drone. Reveals are important in cinematography. This type of reveal frequently opens a scene in a movie to bring the audience into the action. Often, the reveal occurs as the drone climbs from behind a hill (or other obstacle) to reveal the scene (e.g. a town, a person) on the other side of the hill. Watch for reveals the next time you watch a movie.
  3. Corkscrew: pick an object on ground and point camera 90º toward object. Use left stick to climb while yawing. You can do the same thing coming down.
  4. Zoom Reveals: Move backwards and up. Left stick up and right stick down. You can do this going forward and down.
  5. Yaw & Reveal: Use yaw and gamble. Yaw to right and move camera up
  6. Tracking Sideways: Have someone walk and track them while they are walking/running. Random turns by your subject provides you with more challenge, causing you to think and move the controller quickly. (Many drones have tracking features on them. Make sure to learn how to use the tracking feature on your drone. The tracking feature easily tracks vehicles, people, and even animals.)

Conclusion

I hope you take time to practice these exercises. Being able to control your drone quickly and easily adds to your enjoyment of it. Also, if you attempt to make a short film for fun these techniques will prove invaluable. If you are considering a profession in drones, these exercises will lay a solid foundation to build on. Let me know if you use any of these exercises and also if you have another favorite exercise to master drone flying skills. You are now ready to master your skills of aerial composition.