Auto flight Logic - Quick Zip Line Guide

Joined
May 9, 2013
Messages
451
Reaction score
152
Location
South West, England
This follows straight on from the quick orbit guide I posted yesterday at Autoflight Logic - Quick Orbit Guide | DJI Phantom Forum

It assumes you have the Phantom 3 in the air having previously calibrated your altitude and have just finished a computer controlled such as the orbit I did in the previous post. In fact I will continue the numbering from that post.

My flight mode switch on the RC is still over in F so AFL still has the ability to control the Phantom 3. I have it hovering at at some point on my original orbit circumference at about 100 feet. Its not going anywhere so...

12. I could swap modes using the mode selection menu on the top left but I didn't in this case, that was a relatively new feature so I selected Done at the top right as old habits die hard. This gets me back to what I call the flight planning screen. I select Zip Line from the menu on the left.

13. I leave it all in basic mode, but to spice things up I set the altitude of Point A to 26 feet and the altitude of Point B to 100 feet, set the speed to 7 mph, slow and smooth, less chance of props in the frame. Next comes setting the location of the two points on the map. The map is a bit fiddly, its a limitation of apple maps apparently which will be replaced in the future (I think). Point A and B are the blue pins on the map with the line between them. I single press on the first one, a label pops up above it to say Point A - POI or Point B - POI depending on which it is. Now that the label is showing press and hold the pin and it will lift up from the map and you can drag it across the map to the location you want, when there release. Repeat with the other pin. I put mine at roughly either end of a path.

I'm in basic mode and it will frame me in the shot and keep doing that as I walk along the path using my iPads GPS coordinates.

ZP (1 of 4).jpg


14. I'm happy with that so press Open Flight Dashboard down there at the bottom, and the business end opens up once more.

ZP (2 of 4).jpg


15. I press Start Engage Sequence and up comes the calibration screen, this is the important part again, pay attention to what it says and don't skip. If you calibrate fresh (using the Select Altitude Reference option) with the Phantom 3 already in the air at 100 feet you are in danger of having your altitude out by a 100 feet e.g. when you expect it to fly between 26 feet up to 100 feet it will actually fly from 126 to 200 feet. Because I had already flown and calibrated I use the Use Previous option which reminds you it was using Power On as its reference.

ZP (3 of 4).jpg


16. I always forget to screenshot the countdown, but once I select the previous calibration the 5 second countdown started which I pressed engage now and off it went, flying between the two points rotating the Phantom 3 and adjusting the gimbal to keep me in frame as I walked up and down the path.

ZP (4 of 4).jpg


17. When it arrives at the point it was heading towards it'll hover with a status message to say Point Reached. At that point you could proceed to the next step or, you could use the Fly to Point A or Fly to Point B options on the left of the screen to have the Phantom fly back down the line to the other point, when there you can use the option again or proceed to step 18.

18. When I was happy I pressed disengage and the Phantom 3 hovered in place where it was on the zip line.

19. I flicked the RC flight mode to P so that I could fly it back leaving the above screen on the iPad so I could view the feed, landed. Closed the app a happy camper.

One thing to note with zip line is the developers use some clever algorithm to smoothly transition and fly the Phantom 3 as a result it seems not to follow the line precisely, it can also be moved of course slightly with high winds at slow speeds. I flew with gusty winds of 10+ mph and the developers recommend to fly in less wind than that. So don't thread the needle with this thing on day 1, practise and get used to the mode and understand it how behaves before flying between buildings.

Finally, always remember to exit flight mode F on your RC if you want to gain full control of the craft again.

Hope the above helps.
 
Last edited:
Thanks very helpful.

One thing I noticed is that the use of Apple map makes it difficult to precisely place the blue pins (map is outdated). In this case I would appreciate having also the possibility to drop a blue pin at the exact position of the aircraft (like DJI GO for the orbit), which anyways would be a nice additional feature to add.
 

Recent Posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,357
Members
104,935
Latest member
Pauos31