background: been flying for about a year, mostly self taught, got decent at basic stuff but my footage still looks a little jerky especially on combined movements. like if im doing a pan while also pushing forward it just doesnt look clean. ive watched a ton of videos and everyone says "practice smooth inputs" which thanks, very helpful, but nobody actually explains what they do to build that muscle memory.

currently flying a mini 3 pro in normal mode. i messed around with the expo curves a bit but honestly not sure i set them up right. been thinking about trying to do regular figure 8s just to force myself to use both sticks together but i dunno if thats actually a good exercise or if im wasting my time. what did people actually do when they were trying to level up their flying

figure 8s are genuinely good, dont write them off. but the thing that helped me most was slowing way down. like slower than you think makes sense. fly everything at half the speed you normally would for a week and you will start to feel where your inputs are too abrupt. your brain kind of recalibrates. then when you speed back up the smoothness tends to carry over. sounds dumb but it worked for me.

also if you havent tried cinematic mode do that for a while. the input smoothing it adds is kind of a cheat but it also shows you what smooth actually feels like which helps when you go back to normal mode and try to replicate it manually.

expo curves made a huge difference for me but yeah theyre easy to mess up if you go too agressive. i basically back off the sensitivity on both roll and pitch so the center of the stick throw does almost nothing ? means you have more physical range to work with for fine inputs before the drone starts really responding. it feels weird at first like the drone is drunk but after a few sessions you get used to it and it just feels more precise.

the other thing ? and this is gonna sound random ? is i practiced a lot in windy conditions on purpose. like mild wind, not crazy. it forces you to make constant small corrections and that repetition builds the stick feel way faster than just cruising around in calm air doing the same thing over and over