so i finally went to one of those local club meetups everyone kept telling me to try and it was not what i expected at all. like i thought it would be pretty chill, maybe 8 or 10 people, turns out there were probably 30 guys there and half of them had giant planes with like 10 foot wingspans and i was just standing there with my little mavic feeling kind of out of place. nobody was rude or anything but there was definitely a whole system for how things worked, who takes off when, which direction you fly, radio freqency stuff i had no clue about. one guy was super helpful and basically walked me through everything but i wish someone had told me to just watch for the first hour before even unpacking. going back next month though, think ill actually know whats going on this time

haha this is exactly how my first one went. just stand back and watch until someone talks to you, thats the move. the old timers love explaining stuff once they see youre actually interested and not just there to show off some new drone you bought last week

the frequency coordination thing trips everyone up the first time, especially if its a club that still runs a lot of 72mhz gear. probably worth asking ahead of time if theres a channel list or anything like that before you show up next time. most clubs post it somewhere but its usually buried on some website that hasnt been updated since 2014