What if??

[Fourblade]

Hypothetical question...

Just say, I sent the bird on a Waypoint "mission" and during that time it went from having say, 8 or more satellites to say, 5 or 6.

Obviously it wouldn't be able to complete its "mission" but what would it do?

Would it:-

1. Return home once it regained enough satellites?
2. Carry on with "the mission" if it regained sats?
3. Sit in the air where it happened to be when it lost sats (but drifting as no GPS)?
4. Self destruct in 5 seconds?

 

[gilmbento]

5.Return to China and then #4.

It's a good question! Don't know either

 

[Delgado]

I've asked this question too, but nobody seems willing to risk their $1500 investment to find out "what if".....

 

[DBS]

Somebody will find out eventually whether they like it or not I suppose... and you can't test it even if you're willing... making a satellite count drop on purpose while in the middle of a waypoint flight isn't something you can test intentionally so it will have to be up to somebody who has it happen to them by chance... :ugeek:

 

[CarlJ]

I've asked this question too, but nobody seems willing to risk their $1500 investment to find out "what if".....

:shock:

 

[ryanhoelzer]

Hmm, you could have it fly into a building as one of the waypoints..

 

[Beaugolfs]

This past weekend I was flying at a time of day where the sat coverage was minimal, in my area. It took about 2 min for it to lock on to 6 Sats. It was pretty windy. We had sustained 15-20 mph winds. So I take off with 6 sats and hover about 30 ft up. Checking the stability of the bird, and getting ready to do my normal preflight HL check. All of a sudden it starts drifting off pretty quickly with the wind. I look down on my app and see I now only have 5 Sats, which was why it started drifting. Then all of a sudden it picks up 6 Sats again, within a matter of seconds, then slowly drifts back to where it was last hovering.

So, my big takeaway is not to venture too far away when you have sketchy sat coverage. Can you imagine what would happen if you were 2000 ft down range (out of sight) at 300 ft alt., and loose sat coverage. That would be bad. You would have to rely on the radar and orientation to get back, via ATTI. I am also pretty sure that if you are flying a GC mission, it would be interupted and drift off. When, and if, it picked up 6 sats again, it might fly back to its last known spot and hover, or even fly home. The good news is since GC has a limited range, you should be able to keep an eye on things and take control, if sats fail.