Settings when flying indoors & no GPS home-lock?

Frendel · Jul 15, 2014

Hey everyone!

If you want to fly indoors you'd probably not want the GPS to go crazy on you, right? So, I guess you'd just go into ATTI mode, right? But, does this disable the GPS "FS RTH" function or is it possible that it could still kick in and ram your P2 into the roof or straight through a window?

Another question about GPS situations... last week I went to our summer place and wanted to film a bit. This place is surrounded by tall trees, so I couldn't get a clear GPS lock-on, it went from green light to yellow lights every 10 (or so) seconds. So I didn't dare take off. In a situation like this, is it safe to just go into ATTI mode and be comfortable that the not-properly-locked-on GPS won't cause a fly away?

OT:
About a week ago I made my first little cinematographic aerial video, just waiting for the "Military Defence Forces" (is that the proper way to say it?) to examine and pass the video for public sharing (which is a must-do here in Sweden when starting out working with aerial media). Looking forward to showing it

SJBrit · Jul 15, 2014

Yes, ATTI mode for flying indoors. Also, go into the Assistant software and change the failsafe mode from "fly home and land" to just "land" - that's safe indoors.

Pull_Up · Jul 15, 2014

If the aircraft has no GPS reception at all then failsafe does not operate. However, you'd be surprised at the circumstances where you can pick up a GPS signal, in which case failsafe would work and if you lost signal for some reason or switched off the transmitter it would try and go up to 20 metres.

It is perfectly safe to fly in atti mode provided you are aware that you will have to correct for wind drift - if you are filming you will have to keep an eye on the aircraft much more than if in GPS mode. People have claimed "flyaway" when what actually happened is they went up to a couple of hundred feet without full satellite reception (so in atti mode) and then had the (much stronger) wind aloft blow the thing away before they could think to correct it (because they hadn't practiced flying in atti mode).

Some of us with Mark 1 Visions used to flip into atti mode a lot to give a level horizon and smoother video given the unstabilised camera on the original Vision (although I put a Rotorpixel gimbal on mine, so no need for that any more). It's perfectly "safe", you just need more situational awareness and to know the wind direction and account for it. Landings will be trickier as if the skids hit whilst the aircraft has some lateral motion the risk of tip-over in the downwind direction is much greater.