The FAA’s Know Before You Fly website can show you whether or not you can fly your drone in a specific area.Ĥ. Do it on your Wifi connection at home or in your office. You don’t want to be out in the field with a weak connection, and be forced to download a major update.
From there, you’ll have to download and install the latest firmware on your drone and remote controller.Ĭheck the night or morning before your flight for any updates. Most updates tend to take between 5-15 minutes and require your app to be updated to the latest version.
Software and firmware updates are usually a good thing in improving your drone flying experience, but they can be annoying, particularly in some (luckily, rare but mandatory) updates where your drone cannot take off without going through the update.
Other updates just mean a more delightful user experience, like a major DJI Spark update that introduced a new gesture feature to start and stop video recording, an enhanced “QuickShot” video feature and a mode for 180-degree photo shooting. But they can sometimes be major, like a major geofencing update DJI implemented to prevent drones from flying in unauthorized airspace. Software and firmware updates are often minor, addressing small bugs. Yes, drone companies are constantly working to improve the product you bought - even after they’ve taken your money. Check for software and firmware updates: The hardware on your drone will obviously never change since you purchased it (unless you make your own modifications), but the software and firmware changes. As long as you’ve saved your past footage, tap it, and you’re ready for your next flight.īefore every drone flight, check for software or firmware updates so you don’t end up in Hawaii, unable to fly your drone, because the connection is too weak to download the update.ģ. Scroll to the tab that says “Format SD Card”.Open the DJI Go 4 app and go to the camera settings.To reformat your memory card directly via the DJI Go 4 app:
You can usually reformat your memory card within the drone. If you accidentally deleted footage, you may be able to access old footage via image-recovery software, but don’t count on it. So only do this if you’ve already transferred your footage from your last drone flight to a computer or hard drive elsewhere for backup. Just know that formatting your SD card (or any sort of drive) will clear all of its files. You want your memory card to be a city with 1 road. But if there’s only 1 road, it’s a lot likely you’ll get lost or detoured. If there are 8 roads in a city, you can certainly get to your intended destination. Format your SD card: Formatting your SD card is a process that instructs your camera to set up a new file management system to store images and videos.īy reformatting your memory card before every flight rather than just deleting the past footage that you’ve already transferred to your computer or hard drive, you’re essentially allowing your camera to write information more efficiently to the card - and cutting back on the odds that footage gets incorrectly stored - and potentially corrupted. The microSD card slot on the Skydio 2 is tucked underneath the battery compartment.Ģ. Before every drone flight, here are the 4 things I do that you wouldn’t necessarily think of:
That’s why I’ve made a pre-flight drone checklist that covers the things the user manual won’t tell you. The user manual has a lot of good stuff - read it. These learnings often come from experience - having done a lot of trial and error - and alas, having learned from past mistakes.
But here’s the thing: there’s a lot more you need to remember beyond that - and they’re things no one tells you. Of course, you always have to check the batteries are charged, and make sure you’ve packed all your gear. Ever gone out on a drone flight and taken amazing shots, only to return home, pop your memory card in your computer and find out the card was corrupted? Yeah, me too - and it can easily happen without giving “reformat memory card” a spot on your drone checklist.įlying drones is the best, but I’m the first to admit there are many pitfalls: little things can go wrong unexpectedly, and there’s surprisingly a lot you’ll have to remember to have a smooth flight.