so ive been flying for maybe a month now, got a mid range drone nothing fancy. i keep the drone pretty close to me because im scared of losing it but my friend keeps telling me i should push the range a bit to get comfortable with orientation. the thing is once it gets past a certain distance i genuinely cant tell which way its facing and that freaks me out. is there like a trick to figuring out orientation when its far away or do you just kind of guess and use the screen. also i live near some houses and a park, not sure if thats relevant

the orientation thing trips everyone up at first. what helped me was always keeping it in fpv mode on the screen and basically flying by the camera feed rather than looking at the drone itself. your eyes will lie to you at 80 meters out. also try flying toward yourself from different angles on purpose, like in a safe open area, just so you get used to controls being reversed when it faces you. sounds dumb but it actually clicks after a while

honestly your instinct to keep it close is not wrong, a lot of people push range too early and then panic when something unexpected happens and they dont have the muscle memory to recover. i wouldnt worry about what your friend says, flying close and precise is way more valuable than flying far. the park situation depends on your local regs though, some parks are restricted airspace and it doesnt matter how good you are