been thinking about this lately. when i was first learning i used to read all this stuff about doing figure 8 maneuvers as a fundamental practice drill and i put a lot of time into them. got pretty smooth at it eventually. but now i never really see people talk about that kind of basic drilling anymore, everything is either cinematic moves like orbits and reveals or its racing lines for the fpv crowd.

curious if people still practice the boring fundamentals or if theres a consensus that just going out and flying naturally gets you there faster. i kind of feel like the deliberate practice of specific maneuvers gave me muscle memory i wouldnt have gotten otherwise but maybe thats just me

not old school at all imo, figure 8s are still one of the best drills because they force smooth coordinated yaw and roll at the same time, you cant fake it. the issue is people get bored and stop doing them before they actually master them. id add nose-in hover to the list of underrated fundamentals too, like how many people actually practice holding steady hover with the drone pointed at themselves? exposes bad habits fast.

im kind of new to this whole thing so take this with a grain of salt but i actually looked up figure 8 drills when i was starting and they did help me a lot with coordinating my inputs. i think the reason people dont talk about it much is it's not exciting to post about lol but yeah i still do them when im at the field warming up basically