Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Whether you’re a beginner drone flyer or a professional, sometimes your drone might stop working or your drone taking off because of a variety of reasons. Well, in that situation you may not know what you should do.
If your drone stops turning on, flies off in one direction, or just isn’t taking off, it could be something as simple as the battery not being charged to the motor being damaged, and both problems can be fixed to get the drone back in the air quickly and efficiently.
You might be wondering, how do I diagnose the issue my drone has? Don’t worry because I’ll let you know everything.
In this article, I’m going to talk about how exactly you can take off and fly a drone whether you’re a complete beginner or not.
I am also going to talk about the reasons why your drone might not be turning on or taking off.
Here I am going to provide you the solutions for all the problems your drone might be encountering, so, sit back, relax,
Read this article till the end if you want your drone to perform exceptionally.
First let’s talk about how to take off your drone.
Table of contents:
How to Take Off a Quadcopter Drone?
You can be a beginner, or a professional who’s looking for additional knowledge about taking off and flying a drone, I’ve got you covered.
From making the preparations of the preflight checklist to the right practices for taking off a quadcopter drone, here’s everything you’re going to need to do to ensure safe and accurate drone flight.
Preflight Checklist:
Before trying to get to drone take off and flight, making sure you’ve got all the equipment, and you’ve taken the right steps is incredibly important. Let’s take a look at some of the important steps of the preflight checklist.
- Charging the Battery
- Packing the Equipment
- Checking the weather
- Choosing the right environment
- Put the Propellers on
Drone Takeoff:
Now that you’re in the field and there’s no residence or public around, it’s time for your drone to take off. So, what do you need to do to ensure your drone takes off properly?
From the placement of the drone, handling the transmitter accurately to taking the drone off in a subtle and professional manner, here’s everything you need to do to take off your drone.
Placing the drone:
There is a lot of professional strategies involved in placing the drone correctly to make sure it takes off accurately.
Make sure that you place the drone front-side away from yourself. By doing this, you’re going to be able to map the trajectory of the drone in your mind and have a straight visual monitor on it.
Otherwise, the drone might just move towards you, knocking you over, causing injury, and simply getting damaged. So, best to make sure the drone placement is perfect
Adjusting the Throttle:
The most important step in taking off a drone is adjusting the throttle. With the analog sticks on the transmitter, you’re going to input the signals which will take off the drone.
Using the left stick, you can increase the altitude of the drone by moving it upward and decrease the altitude by moving it downward.
With the right-stick, you might be able to control the stunts, pitch, and roll of the drone. Depending upon the drone, leaving the throttle stick, the drone might remain in hover mode or slowly come down.
Now let’s come to the point:
Why Is My Drone Not Taking Off?
Why is my drone not taking off normally? I’ve seen this question all over the internet. There are not many helpful articles out there that answer this question but here is my take.
So, I decided to explain a few major reasons your drone might not be taking off normally. Let’s take a look at some of the major reasons your drone might not be taking off.
The first question is, does your drone turn on? If not, there can be multiple reasons for this problem. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons your drone isn’t turning on.
Battery Not Charged:
If you’ve just recently bought the drone and it isn’t flying out of the box, don’t worry. It is most probably because some drones do not come charged right out of the box.
And if you tried to turn the drone on right after taking it out of the box, it won’t turn on, and ultimately, it won’t take off. So, this could be a potential reason for your quadcopter’s problem.
Battery issues:
Sometimes after flying a drone multiple times, one possible issue that may have arisen is a damaged battery.
In such a case, the battery of the drone might actually be dead or messed up due to excessive flying. Your drone won’t turn on and in turn, won’t be able to take off at all.
Propeller issues:
There are a lot of issues that could cause your drone to not be able to take off. One of the more common kinds of issues is propeller and motor issues of the quadcopter drone.
Let’s take a look at the different kinds of propeller issues your quadcopter drone might be encountering.
Connection issues:
If your drone is turning on but is not connecting to the transmitter, that could also potentially cause your drone to not be able to take off or fly. You might be wondering, how does this happen?
Well, it can be because of damaged antenna and radio signals not transferring accurately and it can also be because of the software of the drone being out of date and not working.
Propellers are damaged:
The big possibility is that during mid-flight your propellers may have gotten damaged over time due to crashes and obstructions.
In such a case, the drone might move in a particular direction and tilt which may hinder the normal performance of the drone.
This very well may be the reason for your drone not taking off properly. It will just fly in a particular direction, lose control and crash again and again causing further damage, so the best option is to fix this before it causes excessive problems.
Warning: Never use the plastic rotors
Motor issues:
Your drone’s propellers are driven by the motors. If the drone gets damaged, the motor might get affected. This may cause one of the four motors to not work properly.
In such a situation, your drone might not stably take off and encounter motor issues. This is also common if a drone gets crashed.
Internal damage:
Another very common reason your drone isn’t functioning properly and isn’t taking off is because of internal damage.
The drone wiring or processor might be damaged due to which it isn’t taking off even after transmitter commands.
The reason for this internal damage is pretty normal. You might have been flying the drone for quite a long time and must’ve also crashed it several times while flying because we all do.
In that case, some kind of communication error or obstacle must’ve struck the drone a bit harder than usual. This may have led to the internal components of the drone getting damaged.
What Causes a Drone Crash and How to Prevent it?
Compass issue:
Another reason your drone not taking off properly could be that the drone hasn’t been calibrated or there are compass issues in the quadcopter drone you’re using.
This is a problem that mostly exists in new drones. Most people complain about their drone takeoff because they haven’t calibrated it before first use, which isn’t ideal.
How to fix a Drone That Won’t Take Off?
Well, the fixing of your drone depends upon the kind of problem it has encountered. To cover a wider area, let’s take a look at all the possible solutions and fixes to your drone’s not taking off the problem.
Fixing Internal Damage:
Well, this is going to be slightly complex than you might think. If you’re not a mechanical engineer, fixing internal wiring and replacing components might not be your cup of tea.
The best solution, in this case, is to get your drone checked up by a professional who knows what they’re doing. It will cost you, but your drone will get back into tiptop shape very quickly.
Fixing Propeller Damage:
Now, this is much easier to accomplish. In fact, propeller issues might not even require any kind of additional cost. Most drone companies offer extra propellers with their drones for this exact situation.
All you need to do is examine the propellers, then simply take the propeller off, take out the extra propellers, and put them onto the motor. And there you go. your work is done and the drone is definitely ready for takeoff.
Check Your Antenna:
If your drone isn’t outputting any signals and controls, it may be because of the antenna being internally damaged or physically damaged. You have to fix it or replace it.
This is going to cost variably depending upon the model and the technology used in the drone. You’re going to have to take it to a professional and they’ll fix it for you completely.
Updating the Drone Software:
Most modern drones come with incredible software that offers easy access to the drone a lot of different flight modes, options, and easy controllability of the quadcopter drone.
All you need to do is find the most recent version of the software in the Play Store or the App Store and download it to make sure the connection issues are removed and the drone can take off without a problem.
Charging the Battery of the Drone:
If you’re a complete beginner, and you’ve just taken your drone out of the box, don’t worry if it doesn’t work right away because as we spoke, the drone doesn’t come charged out of the box.
There’s a simple solution for this. Read the instruction manual or watch the proprietary video for the configuration of that particular drone.
Find the charging port and plug in the charger until the drone has charged completely, then turn it on.
Buying a New Battery:
Battery issue is very common in drones and if it has some kind of damage or has died out after a long time of usage, you’re going to have to spend a bit of money on the solution.
You’re basically going to have to get a brand new battery if the battery cannot be fixed.
To buy battery from a trusted source is important because you want to make sure that the drone doesn’t fail again and again even after the replacement.
Getting the Motors Replaced:
As we talked about it earlier, the motors are responsible to rotate the propellers and fly the drone. So, if the motors or one of them stops working normally, the drone can have takeoff issues.
To deal with these problems, what you’re going to do is basically get the motor or motors replaced if they’re damaged. Once this is done, your drone won’t tilt to one side and will be able to fly and hover stably.
Drone Calibration:
In order to ensure correct compass reading and an even tilt-less and smooth drone flight, you’re going to need to calibrate the compass of your drone before takeoff.
First, you’re going to want to turn on the drone and the transmitter and then move the drone 360 degrees horizontally for the drone to calibrate smoothly without error.
Then you’re going to have to move the drone 360 degrees vertically in order to calibrate the compass in the vertical direction. That’s all you need to do to calibrate your drone.
Conclusion:
Drone take off issues are more common than you might think. That’s why I want to make sure that all of your questions and concerns are answered accurately.
So, don’t worry if you encounter such a problem. There is a high chance that the issue can be easily resolved. I hope that you have an amazing experience with your drone flight.
Happy FLYING!
