I know very little about quadcopters and need to find out more. Would like to meet up with other drone users in London who will be able to teach me a lot! On my first drone flight I lost it. It took off and ran away at great speed.
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We all have to learn somewhere, sorry I’m too far away but someone will help you out.
Which part of London please?
It’s a big city and most opportunities to fly are a little out from the very centre.
And on the topic of where to fly, https://dronescene.co.uk/ is very useful!
And which drone were you flying?
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I am in Edgware nw london. The drone I lost first flight was k3/e99pro. £33 down the drain
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I’m sorry to hear of your fly-away
I wasn’t that happy as well! I plan to fly the new one on a tether until I get used to it. Putting a phone number on it helps at least some chance of recovering it
Hi Dolphin and welcome.
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First flight of my new drone was indoors, with the drone tied down to a heavy object so that I could get the basic idea of flying it without fear of loss.
You need to be careful to carry out all the pre-flight checks, like calibration on a level surface, to have proper control.
Always read the manual carefully and watch a few Youtube tutorial videos on your drone before you try to fly it.
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Which I’m sure says don’t fly indoors or tie it down
You’re sure ? Please quote your source.
Common sense
So in fact, you have never seen a drone manual that contradicts my advice.
To my mind, it is common sense to first try out a new drone indoors to get the hang of it, rather than start off outdoors and immediately lose it.
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Tied to something heavy ?
I guess it depends on the drone, if its a GPS drone then flying it in doors you won’t get a GPS lock and therefore risk crashing it into your house and potentially damaging the drone and your property.
Also thethering it isn’t a good idea either because you’ll be putting strain on the motors and can potentially blow up the ESC controlling the motors.
All in all rather dangerous advice to be giving out to a new pilot in my opinion. Will either end up with a damaged drone or damage to their house.
Small toy grade drones can possibly be flown indoors with no issues. But the camera drones will to uncontrollable for a new pilot without a GPS lock.
And to be fair an experienced pilot would be able to fly indoors as well with a decent drone but as for tethering it nah sorry that is just asking for trouble 
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The other side of the coin is, outdoors you can step back from the drone, and I think more distance from people, walls, objects is safer when learning.
Outdoors in a field there are far fewer things to hit than indoors.
Outdoors — with a GPS drone — you will get a GPS lock with maybe 20 satellites, and that really helps with stability and holding its position.
Moving a control stick the wrong direction indoors may find a wall or somebody’s face. Outdoors it’s easy to position a drone at 3m height — which is still relatively very low — and make a mistake and have no cost.
Those spinning propellers are sharp! I’ve made mistakes and cut charging cables (indoors) and fingers (outdoors).
My Mini 2 manual says okay to fly indoors. As for flying while tied to a heavy weight? It says it may be flown with a payload. However it does not state drone may be tethered to a static object. In my opinion this would be dangerous. The Mini 2 (for example) gets very angry even if holding it from underneath and trying to tilt it off axis mid flight. The motors spin up really fiercely and from there I would think if it were unable to fly where it was trying to (e.g. if tied down) it’s going to get upset and probably crash violently.
Just my tuppence worth.
Out of the country at the moment, usually play football at hendon park and fly there most times. Glad to help if you need tips. we can plan to meet on a Saturday once I get back if that works for you.
Cheers
What if the first drone is a DJI Inspire? 
Didn’t see your reply before I finished typing mine. You said it all already! 
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Did you choose what your next drone might be?
The E99 drone under discusion from the beginning of this thread is non-GPS with a control range of 100m. (In common with my E58.)
Therefore it is (reasonably) safe for indoor flying in a (reasonably sized) room.
When I first got my E58, I tethered it with about 4 feet of cord and got the hang of syncing, calibration, taking off and trimming in the safety on my lounge.
Then I took off the cord and had a fly round the room (without breaking very many things).
So when I got outdoors, there were no unexpected out-of-control issues. Therefore I think my advice is perfectly sound for this type of miniature drone.