ok so i finally caved and bought a drone, been wanting one for like 2 years and my wife got me one for my birthday. its a mini 3 pro i think she did her research lol. anyway i charged it up and took it out in the backyard and honestly i was terrified the whole time, kept it like 3 feet off the ground and even that felt sketchy.

my question is i guess... is there like a proper way to learn this? do people just practice in open fields or is there youtube stuff worth watching? i dont want to crash it on day one but i also dont want to just hover it at ankle height forever. also do i need to register it somewhere, i saw something about the FAA but it was confusing and i closed the tab

yeah the FAA thing is real, if youre in the US and the drone is over 250g you do need to register it, its like 5 bucks and takes 10 minutes on the droneZone website. mini 3 pro is right at that threshold so just go ahead and do it, not worth the headache if something happens and youre not registered.

for learning i honestly just spent the first week doing nothing but slow figure 8s in a park near my house, no wind, early morning when nobody was around. boring as hell but it clicked eventually. the DJI fly app has some tutorial stuff built in too, worth going through even if it feels basic. dont skip learning to fly in atti mode eventually but dont worry about that yet

im basically in the same boat as you, got a mini 2 SE a few months ago and was super nervous at first. what helped me was just... accepting im gonna make small mistakes and thats fine. i did clip a tree branch once going too fast but nothing broke. the obstacle avoidance on yours is way better than mine so you have that going for you at least