Today I tried for the first time COURSE LOCK on my new P3P. While the manual is not giving too many clues one has to try to succeed (or crash). It has been an overcast day today at the beach here in Ecuador and lucky enough the wind was down to about 3 to 4 kt, therefore almost ideal conditions to try this new (to me) fly mode.
Compass calibrated, IOC enabled, I used auto takeoff and took the bird up from there to a safe altitude.
Aligning the Phantom parallel to the beach and having it above and in front of me (looking at the back) I switched the left toggle on the remote from P to F and confirmed the upcoming message on my screen in regard to setting the new orientation. After that I had to touch outside the window to make the pop-up disappear.
The Phantom is stable but starts slightly drifting with the wind. There have been some mentioning in some posts suggesting Course Lock is GPS supported. I know now for sure (as I assumed before) with course lock we are flying without GPS stabilization/positioning.
As I was prepared for it the drifting with the wind it did not come as a surprise. Lining myself up behind the Phantom for first trials of course lock was a good idea and makes it easy to check out the movements of the drone following my stick movements. I made a couple runs back and forth on my set course and adjusted as needed to set the Phantom back to windward as it was drifting. Getting a good feel for it I reduced altitude and did some flyby's at roof level of my house. As I was able to estimate how much the wind will offset during one run I was able to place the Phantom at a safe distance to windward. Panning the camera while flying down the course is a lot of fun and allows me to focus more on the camera to keep the object in the frame after I checked my flight path before hand.
After 2 batteries were depleted to about 35% it was time for lunch. In the afternoon I put my new experience to work and did some video of my further testing. I might process the video a little and post it the next couple of days.
As I was a little nervous and uncertain as I believe the manual is really not sufficient to put a novice at ease, I must say, my Phantom 3 Pro came through and did not disappoint. Setting up the mode was pretty easy, toggling back and forth between P-mode and F-mode without hick-ups or unwanted reactions of the Phantom was very reassuring. I am on 1.1.9 FW have disabled the vision positioning,and using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.4 pro.
Compass calibrated, IOC enabled, I used auto takeoff and took the bird up from there to a safe altitude.
Aligning the Phantom parallel to the beach and having it above and in front of me (looking at the back) I switched the left toggle on the remote from P to F and confirmed the upcoming message on my screen in regard to setting the new orientation. After that I had to touch outside the window to make the pop-up disappear.
The Phantom is stable but starts slightly drifting with the wind. There have been some mentioning in some posts suggesting Course Lock is GPS supported. I know now for sure (as I assumed before) with course lock we are flying without GPS stabilization/positioning.
As I was prepared for it the drifting with the wind it did not come as a surprise. Lining myself up behind the Phantom for first trials of course lock was a good idea and makes it easy to check out the movements of the drone following my stick movements. I made a couple runs back and forth on my set course and adjusted as needed to set the Phantom back to windward as it was drifting. Getting a good feel for it I reduced altitude and did some flyby's at roof level of my house. As I was able to estimate how much the wind will offset during one run I was able to place the Phantom at a safe distance to windward. Panning the camera while flying down the course is a lot of fun and allows me to focus more on the camera to keep the object in the frame after I checked my flight path before hand.
After 2 batteries were depleted to about 35% it was time for lunch. In the afternoon I put my new experience to work and did some video of my further testing. I might process the video a little and post it the next couple of days.
As I was a little nervous and uncertain as I believe the manual is really not sufficient to put a novice at ease, I must say, my Phantom 3 Pro came through and did not disappoint. Setting up the mode was pretty easy, toggling back and forth between P-mode and F-mode without hick-ups or unwanted reactions of the Phantom was very reassuring. I am on 1.1.9 FW have disabled the vision positioning,and using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.4 pro.