Get 'good' quad copter and you don't really have to a thing. It will hover directly over the take off point regardless of the wind and will do so until you tell it to land. Impressive but not exactly flying.
Your talking about automated DJI style quads. Seems everyone else is talking about REAL quads. In either case skill needs to be learned to be able to fly both on good and bad days as every one of em will have an issue at some point where auto level or return to home fails.
@trey Just like any other thing in this world it takes time and repetitive practice to learn how to do things. Unlike a plane you cant throw a quad in the air and bang sticks around until you figure what works and what doesn't.
Start your practice in the sim or live with a real quad line of sight with NO assists on. Do this twice a day in short sessions. Doing it too long reinforces bad habits. You can be getting into a stable hover with no assist in about a week and using further steps as you progress you can be "Cruise level" flying in two to three weeks. If you can video your progress so you can see what you do and what you need to work on most.
1. Using only the right stick (mode 2) slowly push the stick in a direction just until the quad starts to lift the opposite side off the ground. USE NO THROTTLE to do this. You should be able to with minimal practice get the quad to tilt up in two corners and set back down without ever leaving the ground. Once you can do this with ease on all four sides move on to step two.
2. This time using throttle only you want to slowly raise the throttle until you see the quad start to get "Light" you will notice this as it may want to slide around on the ground in the sim or even in real life on hard flat surfaces. Once you can do this every time with ease then you can start grouping step 1 and 2 into 5 minute practice exercises.
3. Now that you have that soft touch and are not ham fisted like a new pilot its time to lift off the ground. Throttle up like in step 2 but then bring the throttle up enough to get the quad just a few inches off the ground. Don't try to hold it there. The key here is easy up and easy back down don't worry about a little drift. That WILL happen as its in ground effect at this point. Once you can do this again add it into your previous practice session.
4. Next is actual hovering. use step 2 to get the quad light. Step 3 to get off the ground but slowly add more throttle until it gets about waist high and no higher then chin level. You don't want to look at the bottom of the quad just yet. Again its going to drift a little but you can work at keeping it in a small area with the right stick using soft slow controlled changes. The idea here is not to hover in one spot just yet but to get it up to waist high count to 5 and slowly set it back down. Once you can do this with ease in 5 second time periods go to 10 seconds. Then to 15. by that time you should be able to get it in the air. Control the height between waist and eye level and stay within a 10 foot circle. It actually helps to make a string circle (make sure its held down good so if you get close it cant get tangled in your props). Once you cna do this in 30 second stages its time to go to the next step.
5. Stable hover. The only difference between this and step 4 is you want to close the circle to about 5 or 6 feet and hover as long as you can without leaving that circle. If you leave it land the quad. Take a short break (this is important to not do back to back) and start again. Don't do this more then 5 or 6 times in a row as you will be unlearning from tension and frustration everything you worked up to.
IF you stick to this and do no more and no less two times (morning / afternoon After school / After dinner doesnt matter as long as there is a break between rounds) each day you will progress fast and steady. If you push to far too soon all you will be doing is creating bad habits that will follow you forever. Once you can do all that video it and link us the video and Ill put you on the next path.
