First Flight and some observations

[Skydreamer]

btw,flying in Cine mode is such a blast

 

[Pongoglo]

Got a chance to try out my new NEO today. My first impression on removing from the box - Wow, this is smaller that I thought!

First I tried the NEO with my iPhone in Follow mode set at Flat and Far. I flew it along a bush trail that was wide and did not have lots of obstacles like branches to avoid. The NEO did a great job and I was Impressed at how well it followed me. I expected the phone control to be much like my Tello and it was. I still need to get used to the phone only interface.

Next, I few the NEO manually along a more dense trail with me following behind using the RC-N3 with my phone. It was immediately noticeable how much more control you have with a controller and I felt much safer flying it this way. I also tried Active Track out and was pleased that it behaved the same way as when it was following me with the phone. This is different from my Mini 3 Pro which doesn't follow my exact path and sometimes cuts corners (not good on a dense bush trail). I also have to get used to the limited buttons on the RC-N3 since I fly my other drones with a screened controller. I noticed I kept bumping the short lightning port cable on my iPhone causing the display to loose connection with the controller.

Battery Life - Boy am I glad I got the FMC with 3 total batteries. My first flight was 13 minutes and the second 11 minutes (was fumbling around with controller). I like the new charging hub. Being able to charge 3 batteries in an hour is great.

Picture/video quality is what I expected so no surprise there.

I still have more testing to do, but overall I am very pleased with the FMC. Even though I haven't tested the NEO in all the situations I want to fly it in, I think it will be great for my uses. I see myself using all 3 methods of control regularly - NEO only, NEO plus phone, and NEO plus controller and phone.

Chris

Very useful thanks . One thing that confuses me is you say you are able to get it to Active Track when just using your phone ie without the RC N3 , mine doesn't appear to offer me this option or am I doing something wrong? What I would really like is to be able to designate a target for object track using just the phone and then leave NEO to do it's stuff . I nearly lost my NEO when skiing off piste and trying to fly it manually using just my phone to track a mate , had a near disaster as NEO flew out of range of my phone signal and decided to land in a drift . I was able to locate it using ' find my drone' and we were making plans to retrieve it when fortunately a ski instructor from another group who had seen it land picked it up and returned it to us first. There are good people out there still. I suppose the one major lesson here was that a future software fix should allow return to home when using just the phone on loss of signal or at least return to phone . This would prevent disaster when flying over water or in this case even deeper snow. We live on n hope !

 

[Chrislaf]

Very useful thanks . One thing that confuses me is you say you are able to get it to Active Track when just using your phone ie without the RC N3 , mine doesn't appear to offer me this option or am I doing something wrong? What I would really like is to be able to designate a target for object track using just the phone and then leave NEO to do it's stuff . I nearly lost my NEO when skiing off piste and trying to fly it manually using just my phone to track a mate , had a near disaster as NEO flew out of range of my phone signal and decided to land in a drift . I was able to locate it using ' find my drone' and we were making plans to retrieve it when fortunately a ski instructor from another group who had seen it land picked it up and returned it to us first. There are good people out there still. I suppose the one major lesson here was that a future software fix should allow return to home when using just the phone on loss of signal or at least return to phone . This would prevent disaster when flying over water or in this case even deeper snow. We live on n hope !

Sorry for the confusion but didn’t say you could get Active Track when using phone, only with a controller.

I have used the NEO with the phone in Follow mode while Nordic Skiing and it worked great but I imagine Alpine skiing would be more of a challenge as the speeds are much greater and there are usually less distinguishing features for the VPS sensors to lock on to.

One of the downsides of using a phone only is the phone signal range is very limited. Although the specs say 50m, I’m lucky if I get 30m.

Chris