Range Questions

[Bskully]

For starters, I have a p2 with a h33d setup and the stock transmitter/receiver. I have a track of land to play on that’s essentially 500 yards long and have been too fearful to push it out that far and test the limits of the setup. So, my questions are how far can I reasonably and with out worry push the setup, how high (straight up) can I push the setup, and if I do push it beyond communication ability what will happen? In regards to the latter question, I haven’t updated any drivers. It’s running off of what ever info it had in its brain when I bought it like 3 weeks ago. Many thanks!

Cheers,
Bskully

 

[wkf94025]

As long as you have line of sight (LOS), and haven't mucked with the Rx antennae on your Phantom, you should have zero concerns about full flight controls 500 yards out. Many have gone 4x that distance or more with stock RC and Rx. Have fun!

Kelly

 

[dano7602]

The range of the P2 is approximately 3km. You can only expect to get this range when there are no trees are building or obstructions between you and the phantom. Trees and obstructions can greatly reduce your range. It is a good rule of thumb to have a clear line of site of the P2. If your phantom goes out of range of the transmitter it will go into fail safe mode and automatically go home and land where it took off from. If your phantom does go into fail safe mode you can take over control of it when it comes back into range by switching from gps mode to atti mode. As for straight up distance you will still get the same range of roughly 3km however it is very dangerous to go this high because the phantom descends very slowly and you will not have enough battery to descend from a 3km altitude. A guy on this forum had this problem where he went 3km straight up and his battery died before he could get the bird down and he ended up never finding it. Without an fpv system I would be careful of flying your P2 at long distances because you can lose site of the direction the phantom is flying which can be troublesome. You should have nothing to worry about flying out 500 yards as long as you have line of site. I would read through the Naza M V2 manual to become more familiar with your phantom it will help you gain confidence with flying.

 

[wkf94025]

There is also a good topic that was recently active about techniques for regaining control/orientation when you're flying VFR without FPV. Search for that and think about techniques for recovering from lost orientation.

Kelly