this might be a dumb question but bear with me. i fly a cinewoop mostly, not racing, not really doing anything serious just like recreational flying and the occasional backyard video. but lately ive been getting into just flying patterns and maneuvers for the sake of it - split s turns, slow rolls, trying to get a clean split from a hover without the nose dipping. its genuinely fun and i feel like im way more precise than i was six months ago.

but my buddy who also flies told me im basically wasting time if im not competing or filming anything because the stuff i practice doesnt translate to real world shooting anyway. he might have a point? like a clean split s isnt exactly useful for a smooth cinematic pan.

i dont know im not really looking to change what im doing i guess im just curious if other people do this and whether it actually made them better pilots overall or just better at party tricks

your buddy is wrong imo. or at least not completely right. the muscle memory you build doing maneuvers absolutely transfers even if the specific moves dont. like i dont ever do a split s in a real shoot but the stick precision and the comfort with the aircraft at weird attitudes means when something unexpected happens - wind shear, a subject moves fast, whatever - my hands just handle it. you dont freeze up when youve already put the thing through weird stuff intentionally.

also its just flying and flying is fun so who cares if its practical

tbh i do this all the time. got into the habit of spending the first 5-10 minutes of any session just doing boring precision stuff - hovering in one spot without touching anything, slow 360s at constant altitude, that kind of thing. started doing it because i read somewhere that race pilots do warm up laps before a meet and figured why not. i think it genuinely helps, my footage got noticeably smoother a few months after i started doing it consistently but thats hard to prove obviously could be lots of things.

the split s stuff sounds like it might actually be really good for your cinewoop handling because those birds are so twitchy, getting comfortable with aggressive input and recovery probably makes you smoother on the gentle stuff by contrast if that makes sense. like driving a go kart makes you better at driving your car even though the two have nothing in common really