Replies to This Discussion

DeveloperPermalink Reply by jasonshort on October 3, 2011 at 9:13am

Yeah, I think you're missing the noob experience. I have never lost or crashed a copter in Simple mode while yawing. New pilots do all the time!

Once I lost a copter because it was too high to see the orientation and too windy to hold Yaw. Simple mode would have kept an 800 (and don't consider the time...) investment from flying away!

If it flies over you , don't panic, just fly it back. I don't even bother to turn around anymore, I just send it back over my head. 

I love it so much, I haven't flown normal Yaw in months.

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Permalink Reply by Helldesk on October 3, 2011 at 10:23am

I crashed twice in Simple, into the same apple tree no less, using Simple before the 5883L compass bug was fixed. ;) Before that I nearly lost my quad completely because I made the mistake of letting it fly too far to see its orientation - and the compass didn't hold true. (The quad was found on the only path in the forest the following morning, luckily.)

Before, I used almost nothing but Simple, but now I'm wisened just a bit and I don't rely on anything automatic. I'm still a bit nervous about using simple, which is a pity - when it worked and I didn't know to worry, it was great fun. Seriously though, every pilot should learn to respect their limits and preferably without a bad experience to force them into it. Nearly all systems have unexpected idiosyncracies or outright bugs, some of them just haven't been discovered yet. Train and prepare for handling at least the known risks and you'll be happy if you ever need those skills!

Emile: I know what you mean. Sometime back I had proposed a flight mode that is based on a darn simple polar coordinate system where the pilot can turn facing the copter as he pleases, one that trades that problem away. Since then Jason implemented the Circle mode. Try it if your vehicle is well tuned for holding gps positions! Stick "up" and "down" will control the distance to you, and "left" and "right" will always be left and right in a circle around you, no matter how the copter or you turn! I haven't gotten around to that yet, and handling behaviour close to the origin isn't an easy problem especially with real world inaccuracies, but it's a neat principle.

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Permalink Reply by u4eake on October 3, 2011 at 10:36am

Yeah, I also crashed once in simple mode  in my earlier days because I turned around and walked the copter through the garden, then accidently switched to simple.  Before I realised what was going on it crashed in the meadow behind me.

 

Thing is to learn new 'panic' behaviour.  When panic, first thing is to keep the copter in the air, so switch to stabilise or simple and throttle up a bit (if too low).  Then removed the panic, even if the copter is driftiing away from you, and decide on using stabilise or simple to bring it back, based on if you can still see its orientation.

 

The real key is to remove the panic as quickly as possible and start thinking rationally again.  

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Permalink Reply by agmatthews on October 3, 2011 at 2:30pm

What about a "panic" mode/flight plan.
0)Flip the switch,
1)Yaw to same direction as at launch,
2)Return to overhead launch location,
3)Descend slowly,
4)Wonder what all the fuss was about.

They key here is the yaw at the start.
My "panic" moments are all when the aircraft gets to high / far away an I loose orientation.

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Permalink Reply by Michal Rusina on October 3, 2011 at 1:07pm

What about a mode where the pitch stick controls the distance from you and the roll stick controls the azimuth of the copter from you (the takeof place) no matter how you turn. Something like circle and simple combined. If you dont move from the takeof site, this would be the best recovery option. Im not shure if its clear enough. If not, i post pictues tomorrow.

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian Gralla on October 3, 2011 at 3:19pm

well.... why not use RTL for this?

this mode you mentioned would not have any other use than bringing the quad back to launch position...

or am I missing something?

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Permalink Reply by Michal Rusina on October 3, 2011 at 3:32pm

sometimes rtl is not an option (indoors, or with trees or other structures in the way), this mode would be great for photography (yaw would not be locked). anyway, its possible to change interactively the radius of circle mode?

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