Flight #1 - Maiden Flight

I flew the maiden flight on my Nova today. Just a reminder ... at this point my quadcopter-flight experience is very limited. I have never flown anything this big and heavy. Winds were 12mph.

It went pretty good. Got about 9 minutes on 2200mah LiPo. Practiced hovering, landings, and simple pattern flight. Landing soft without tipping over is harder than it looks. It also landed hard once (on one skid), bounced-up, and flipped over (sure wish my prop-guards would have arrived by now).

I had GPS lock so I arm-ed in Loiter Mode but took-off and flew in Stabilize Mode. In all the excitement, didn't even get to try Loiter (or any other modes) for normal flight.

I learned if you want to take-off in wind ... punch the throttle a bit and do it (don't baby it). Take-off into the wind (at least at first). To hold a decent hover (without constant adjustments) I had to apply a bit of trim at the TX (not exactly proper procedure for APM-FC, but I didn't know at the time). Also, when lowering throttle to reduce altitude, do it very slowly. Nova really picks-up speed on descent (and ground is hard :-)

Called it a good day. Only a few scrapes ... but props, landing gear, and rest of quad looks fine. Nice outcome of weeks of planning and plotting. I like it.