15 Common Drone Flying Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Introduction

Entering the world of drone flying is exhilarating, but the learning curve can be steep. Even with today’s increasingly user-friendly technology, new pilots regularly encounter challenges that can lead to frustration, damaged equipment, or even dangerous situations. The good news is that most of these pitfalls are completely avoidable with proper knowledge and preparation.

As experienced drone instructors, we’ve witnessed the same beginner mistakes repeated time and again. This comprehensive guide addresses the 15 most common errors new drone pilots make and provides practical solutions to help you avoid them. Whether you’ve just unboxed your first drone or have a few flights under your belt, these insights will help protect your investment and accelerate your progress toward becoming a confident, skilled pilot.

Pre-Flight Mistakes

1. Skipping the Manual and Basic Research

The Mistake: In excitement to get airborne, many beginners ignore the user manual, skip tutorial videos, or neglect to learn basic controls and features before their first flight.

Why It’s Problematic: Modern drones are sophisticated flying computers with complex features and safety systems. Not understanding your specific model’s operation can lead to unexpected behavior, improper setup, and preventable crashes.

How to Avoid It:

Read the entire user manual before your first flight
Watch manufacturer tutorial videos specific to your model
Join online communities for your drone model to learn from others’ experiences
Start with a simulator app if available for your drone
Take time to learn all controller functions on the ground before flying

Pro Tip: Create a quick-reference guide with the most important functions and emergency procedures to keep with your drone kit.

2. Flying Without a Pre-Flight Checklist

The Mistake: Taking off without systematically checking aircraft condition, environment, and settings.

Why It’s Problematic: Even small issues like loose propellers, uncalibrated sensors, or incorrect settings can lead to crashes or flyaways. A minor problem that would be caught in a pre-flight check can quickly become catastrophic once airborne.

How to Avoid It:

Create or download a comprehensive pre-flight checklist
Include physical inspection of propellers, batteries, and connection points
Verify compass and IMU calibration when at new locations
Check app and controller settings before every flight
Confirm GPS signal strength and home point accuracy
Never rush through pre-flight checks, regardless of experience level

Pro Tip: Download our SARVision Pre-Flight Checklist to ensure you never miss a critical step.

3. Neglecting Weather Conditions

The Mistake: Failing to check wind speed, precipitation probability, and other weather factors before flying.

Why It’s Problematic: Consumer drones have specific wind tolerance limitations (typically 15-25 mph). Flying in conditions beyond your drone’s capabilities can cause loss of control, excessive battery drain, or crashes. Even within wind limits, conditions can make flying challenging for beginners.

How to Avoid It:

Check specific wind speed forecasts for your flight area
Learn your drone’s official wind resistance specifications
Consider both ground level and flight altitude wind conditions (wind often increases with height)
Use weather apps designed for drone pilots (UAV Forecast, Windy, etc.)
Be aware of changing conditions throughout your flight session
Always maintain a healthy margin below maximum wind tolerance

Pro Tip: If trees are swaying noticeably or you feel strong gusts, conditions are likely too windy for safe beginner flights, regardless of what apps indicate.

4. Flying With Low or Unconditioned Batteries

The Mistake: Using batteries that aren’t fully charged, properly stored, or in good condition.

Why It’s Problematic: Battery performance directly impacts flight time, power availability, and safety. Low or degraded batteries can lead to unexpected landings, reduced performance, and potentially dangerous situations.

How to Avoid It:

Always start flights with fully charged batteries
Check battery health indicators in your drone’s app
Store batteries at 40-60% charge when not in use for extended periods
Allow cold batteries to warm to ambient temperature before flying
Maintain a battery log to track cycles and performance
Retire batteries showing significant capacity degradation

Pro Tip: Set a minimum return-to-home battery threshold (typically 30%) and never ignore low battery warnings, regardless of how close your drone appears to be.

Flight Operation Mistakes

5. Losing Visual Line of Sight

The Mistake: Flying the drone too far away, too high, or in conditions where you can no longer clearly see its orientation and position.

Why It’s Problematic: Beyond the legal requirement to maintain visual line of sight in most countries, losing sight of your drone makes it difficult to maintain orientation awareness and spot potential hazards. It also makes recovery more challenging if technical issues arise.

How to Avoid It:

Keep your drone close enough to clearly determine its orientation
Be conservative with distance, especially as a beginner
Consider the drone’s color scheme against the background (sky/terrain)
Use the drone’s position lights to enhance visibility
Wear polarized sunglasses to reduce glare and improve contrast
Never rely solely on the camera view for orientation

Pro Tip: If you momentarily lose sight of your drone, stop all directional inputs and allow it to hover while you reestablish visual contact. If necessary, use the map view to help locate it, then return to visual control.

6. Overreliance on Autonomous Features

The Mistake: Trusting too completely in GPS, return-to-home, obstacle avoidance, and other automated systems.

Why It’s Problematic: While modern drones have impressive autonomous capabilities, these systems have limitations and can fail. Overreliance creates a false sense of security and underdevelops critical manual control skills that may be needed in emergency situations.

How to Avoid It:

Learn to fly in ATTI mode (non-GPS) in a safe, open environment
Understand the specific limitations of your drone’s obstacle avoidance system
Practice manual return-to-home procedures
Test autonomous features in controlled environments before relying on them
Develop muscle memory for taking manual control quickly
Treat autonomous features as backup systems, not primary controls

Pro Tip: Periodically practice the “what if” game—asking yourself how you would respond if various automated systems suddenly failed at your current position.

7. Ignoring Return-to-Home Altitude Settings

The Mistake: Leaving return-to-home (RTH) altitude at default settings without considering the specific flying environment.

Why It’s Problematic: If RTH altitude is set too low, the drone might collide with trees, buildings, or other obstacles when trying to return. If set unnecessarily high, it wastes battery power ascending before returning.

How to Avoid It:

Assess the highest obstacles in your flying area
Set RTH altitude at least 20 feet (6 meters) above the tallest obstacle
Adjust this setting for each new location
Remember that RTH navigates in a straight line to home point
Consider terrain variations between your position and potential flight areas
Account for the fact that GPS altitude can have some margin of error

Pro Tip: When flying in new areas, monitor the drone’s outbound path for obstacles and adjust RTH altitude accordingly before venturing further.

8. Poor Control Inputs

The Mistake: Using excessive, abrupt, or jerky movements on the control sticks.

Why It’s Problematic: Aggressive inputs can cause the drone to behave erratically, stress the motors, drain battery faster, and make smooth video capture impossible. It’s also a common cause of crashes for beginners.

How to Avoid It:

Practice gentle, progressive inputs on all controls
Start with control sensitivity set to the lowest/slowest setting
Imagine the sticks moving through molasses to encourage smoothness
Release sticks to center position to stop movement rather than overcompensating
Practice hovering exercises to develop fine motor control
Use cinematic mode (if available) to dampen control response

Pro Tip: Try practicing with your thumbs making contact only at the very tips of the control sticks for more precise, delicate movement.

9. Inadequate Situational Awareness

The Mistake: Focusing exclusively on the drone or screen while ignoring surroundings.

Why It’s Problematic: Tunnel vision prevents pilots from noticing changing conditions, approaching people, aircraft, or obstacles outside the camera view. This can lead to unsafe situations and missed photographic opportunities.

How to Avoid It:

Develop a scanning pattern between drone, environment, and screen
Position yourself to maintain peripheral awareness while watching the drone
Consider using a spotter for more complex flights
Regularly check your surroundings, especially in public spaces
Listen for unusual sounds (approaching aircraft, people, etc.)
Maintain awareness of wind changes, approaching weather, etc.

Pro Tip: The 70/30 rule—spend about 70% of your attention on the drone and its surroundings, 30% on the screen, especially when learning.

Camera and Creative Mistakes

10. Flying Too Fast for Good Footage

The Mistake: Moving the drone too quickly for stable, usable video footage.

Why It’s Problematic: Rapid movement creates shaky footage, introduces rolling shutter artifacts, and makes composition difficult. Even with a stabilized gimbal, fast movement often results in unusable video.

How to Avoid It:

Follow the “slow is smooth, smooth is professional” mantra
Use cinematic mode if your drone offers it
Practice consistent, gradual acceleration and deceleration
Try counting to 5 during any major movement to force slowness
For video, use slower settings like 24fps for more natural motion blur
Review footage after flights to identify speed-related issues

Pro Tip: Most professional drone shots move at between 1-5 mph—much slower than you might think. What feels painfully slow in real-time often looks just right in the final footage.

11. Neglecting Composition Basics

The Mistake: Focusing solely on getting airborne while ignoring fundamental photography principles.

Why It’s Problematic: Height alone doesn’t make a compelling image. Without attention to composition, lighting, and subject, drone photos and videos often fail to engage viewers despite the novel perspective.

How to Avoid It:

Study basic photography composition principles (rule of thirds, leading lines, etc.)
Use grid overlays in your drone app to assist with composition
Consider the quality of light and time of day (golden hour is ideal)
Include objects of recognizable size for scale and interest
Look for unique patterns and textures visible only from above
Plan shots before taking off to maximize battery efficiency

Pro Tip: Try the “altitudes exercise”—photographing the same subject from multiple heights (10ft, 50ft, 100ft, 400ft) to understand how altitude dramatically changes composition.

12. Overlooking Camera Settings

The Mistake: Using automatic camera settings without understanding the implications for image quality.

Why It’s Problematic: Auto settings often produce acceptable but not optimal results. In challenging lighting conditions, auto settings can lead to overexposed skies, blurry images, or excessive noise.

How to Avoid It:

Learn basic manual camera controls (ISO, shutter speed, aperture if adjustable)
Understand the exposure triangle and its impact on image quality
Use ND filters in bright conditions for proper video exposure
Consider shooting in RAW format for photos to maximize editing flexibility
Learn to read histograms to verify proper exposure
Check focus before critical shots (tap-to-focus or manual focus)

Pro Tip: Create camera setting presets for different scenarios (daylight, sunset, etc.) that you can quickly access during flights to maximize your time in the air.

Post-Flight Mistakes

13. Improper Landing Procedures

The Mistake: Landing in unsuitable locations or using incorrect techniques.

Why It’s Problematic: Poor landing technique can damage your drone, particularly through “prop strike” where spinning propellers hit the ground or other objects. Landing on uneven or inappropriate surfaces also risks equipment damage.

How to Avoid It:

Choose flat, clear areas for landing
Approach landings slowly, with controlled descent
For precision landings, use visual positioning systems or markers
Be particularly careful when landing on uneven terrain
Consider hand-landing (where appropriate for your model) in difficult terrain
Power down motors immediately after touchdown

Pro Tip: Create a portable landing pad to ensure a clean, visible landing spot in any environment—this is especially useful in grass, sand, or dusty conditions.

14. Neglecting Post-Flight Inspection

The Mistake: Packing up the drone immediately after landing without checking for damage or issues.

Why It’s Problematic: Minor damage that goes unnoticed can become a major problem on your next flight. Small issues with propellers, motors, or the gimbal are easier to address when caught early.

How to Avoid It:

Develop a systematic post-flight inspection routine
Check propellers for chips, cracks, or bends
Look for dirt or debris in motors and cooling vents
Verify gimbal movement is smooth and unobstructed
Inspect the drone body for any new damage or loose parts
Review battery performance and condition
Address any warning messages that appeared during flight

Pro Tip: Take photos of any damage or concerning wear to track progression over time and for potential warranty claims.

15. Improper Storage and Transport

The Mistake: Storing or transporting drones without proper protection or battery management.

Why It’s Problematic: Drones are precision electronic devices that can be damaged by improper storage. Batteries stored at full charge or extreme temperatures can degrade rapidly or even become dangerous.

How to Avoid It:

Use a proper case designed for your specific drone model
Store batteries at 40-60% charge when not being used for extended periods
Keep drone and batteries at moderate temperatures (40-70°F/4-21°C ideal)
Use lens covers to protect camera and gimbal
Install gimbal locks/covers during transport
Keep propellers either removed or protected during transport
Store in low-humidity environments when possible

Pro Tip: Create a dedicated “drone go bag” with all essentials pre-packed and ready, making it easier to ensure you have everything needed for safe flights.

Conclusion

Every drone pilot, regardless of experience level, has made mistakes along their learning journey. The key is to learn from these common errors without having to experience each one personally. By being mindful of these 15 common pitfalls and implementing the suggested preventative measures, you’ll progress faster, keep your equipment safer, and have a more enjoyable experience as you develop your drone piloting skills.

Remember that confidence comes with competence—focus on mastering these fundamentals before advancing to more complex maneuvers or challenging environments. Take your time, practice regularly in safe locations, and gradually expand your capabilities as your skills and knowledge grow.

For structured skill development, consider following our SARVision Drone Pilot Training Course, which provides a comprehensive progression from beginner to advanced piloting techniques.