I was introduced to this hobby by my wife in November. She thought that I needed a distraction and stress release from my work (I am a systems and application engineer and the director for all technology for the city and county where I reside) so she get me an AR Drone for my birthday. To make a long story short, I became interested and bought a F550 in January and a Disco the following months (had to wait for orders to be filled). During this time, I have researched and added FPV, OSD, GoPro 3, HorizonHD, Naza-M with GPS and CC3D. I will look at a UHF but I need to find time to study and take the technician level HAM license test. Over the past several month, I have become better and gain more control flying both the F550 and Disco but that is not without my fair share of paying my dues and rebuilding both aircraft. This hobby does take a level of dedication, time, patients and (of course) lots of money. Being a techie person, the last part is what is quickly being depleted. I plan to keep my Naza in the F550 and will install the CC3D into the Disco this weekend as I start my rebuild (last month, I cut the corner too sharp on a turn and the Disco hugged a tree). I think the next advancement to OSD and GPS is proximity warning and collision avoidance with an option to tie it into an automatic override hovering function (as an option).
I agree if anyone (new to the hobby or transitioning laterally from soemthing else like fix wings, cars, boats or even the traditional rotary arena) still needs to know all about their craft and how it works. I have learn and do balance my motors, propellers and watch my crafts weight (I wish I watch my own person weight the same way, lol), the CG and related factors. Matching props with the correct and best battery and conducting pre-flight checks like making sure the propeller nut is on tight enough and checking all screws for tightness (I have also used blue lock tight at times) in important for I have had a nut and associate propeller spin off. lucky for me it was only about 20 feet off the ground and it landed i a way that only one arm was broken (I have learned to keep spare arms in white, black and red handy).
I have digressed too much and have gone off on a tangent...Sorry!
Thanks!