Tutorial

Since I wrote this out on discord, I figured i would share it here as well!

There’s a couple of different ways that you can start the juicy flick.

1. Get up to speed and then do a little throttle blip, to gain 1-3ft of elevation. This is more of a high speed type of flick that is primarily for precision while also placing an emphasis on the roll itself.
2. Or you can pitch back maybe 20-30° and then do the throttle blip. With this method, it’s going to give of a rainbow arc 🌈 . I use this method if I want to track something while I flick over something, which place is an emphasis on the object itself.

Method 1:

Start by learning the flick itself. Start up high get up to a normal speed, and without the throttle blip, just flick forward and try to do consistent 180 segment flips so that you’re always stop with the horizon behind you. Once you feel like you’re consistent, do it 30 more times just to make sure.

Then once you’re really comfortable, try doing it closer to the ground. Since we’re not going to do a pitch back with this method, you’re going to want fly at an upward angle of 5° as you approach the object so that you’ll gain just a very tiny amount of elevation when you throttle blip, which will reduce the likelihood of hit the ground as you’re rolling. At the very end of the throttle blip, you’ll immediately follow it up with the segment flip. And because you’re so low to the ground, it’s going to be a very brief segment, But you’re going to want to make sure that you actually perform the pause because this is where you’re going to perform the roll. Then do this at least 20 more times.

Skip down below to read about the roll

Method 2:

Fly forward out a normal pace and then practice your pitch backs. Ideally you’re only going to want to pitch back so that your drone points up about 20-30° or so.

Then you’re going to simultaneously pitch forward while adding throttle at the same time for that rainbow arc that I previously mentioned. Practicing segment flips isn’t going to work very well with this because you’re going to be more focused on tracking whatever object is beneath you. Which means that the speed you’re going to flick is going to depend on the speed that your flying at as you approach the object. The faster you’re flying, faster you’re going to track the object, and visa versa.

Rolling:

There’s a few different methods for rolling (Picture below for reference):

1. Pitching forward, bringing it to center, rolling, bringing it to center. This is more than likely what most people are doing.
2. Pitch forward, ride the edge of the gimbal in a circular path, bring back to center after you’re doing rolling.
3. The hybrid of 1 and 2. Pitch forward, make a direct line from max pitch to max roll, finish roll
4. The inverse circular path. So you’re going to make a curved shape with the sticks that takes you back closer to center while still starting the roll. This is a little harder to explain, so make sure to refer to the picture below.

Something to keep in mind:
Mixing is important. For those who are not familiar with mixing, if you want to do a perfect roll with the center axis in the middle of the screen, you’re going to have to mix yaw with the roll (in the opposite direction). The higher the camera angle is, the more yaw you’ll have to mix in. This is important because it can really make juicy flicks look weird if you don’t mix at all. So make sure to complete the full 180 pitch back before starting your mixed roll.