So forgive me, I come from flying traditional helis (and it's been years since I had to fly a fixed pitched one). I'm curious about descending with a quad, and if my problem is to do the fixed pitched nature of most quads, or if I need to tune something (well I always need to tune something).
Here's my problem:
When I'm in stabilize mode trying do a vertical descent form say 20+m via LOS, I feel that either I'm not dropping at all, or I'll start dropping too fast and have to pick up the throttle again, which gets a little bumpy. I know fixed pitched models like this descend via gravity, not thrust, and it will never be as smooth something that can apply negative pitch, but....
Is there really just one sweet spot on the throttle stick that's going to give me my maximum descent? Are there values I should tune? Should just use alt hold for descending from way up high?
and....
Has anyone tried using the v-pitch motors with automatic mixing yet?
Replies
When you descend straight down you fly through your own downwash which causes things to get a little lumpy, if I need to descend from a height I normally fly forward while descending (a descending circle if from very high) so as not to hit my downwash and this keeps things a lot smoother. There's currently a request in the ArduCopter Issues list for a user settable max rate of descent.
Quite a few v-pitch quads exist, with inverted flying an option, I haven't seen one here myself but maybe there is, otherwise check RCGroups.com