Can Mavic Pro flip controls when flying towards you?

[Archerpilot]

It's been a while since I flew my Phantom 3's but they, or rather the Go App, has both Course Lock and Home Lock.
Thinking about it, Course Lock is probably "headless". With Home Lock I am beginning to remember the 'reverse' and 'forward' stick respectively bring the drone back towards the home point and send it away from the home point but might only have worked when the drone was more than a certain distance away. I can't remember what left and right did in Home Lock.

Thank you and I'll look into it. I'm leaning heavily towards practicing as is alot, will be safer and I think more fun once it clicks.

 

[Archerpilot]

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Hello from the Crossroads of America Archerpilot.


Nice to meet you Mark.

It's a learning curve that takes practice.

I usually fly backwards when returning to home and landing.

The use of different colored strobe lights on the arms will help in the orientation and muscle memory if flying towards you.

Keep practicing and welcome to the Forum.

.

Thanks! glad to be back.
Mark

 

[Cymruflyer]

The thing to try and do is to image you are sitting inside your drone and flying it. The more you can get that picture in your brain, the better off you will be in controlling it. Another tip to practice is to start flying it away from you but at a slight angle. So, fly away from where you are standing, then over to the left slightly and stop it, then gently turn it to the right and begin to fly the field from left to right, across your position in that field, if you can understand what I'm saying here.

Again, putting yourself inside that drone as you fly. Then do a 180 and fly it from right to left and again imagine that you are inside it. When you get comfortable doing that left to right and right to left, begin to turn a little closer to yourself, so now you are not going left and right as you watch the drone, but rather you are coming back towards yourself ever so slightly as you go left to right and right to left.

When you get more comfortable with this, then just increase that turn each time from one side to the other and start to fly even more towards yourself, almost a zig-zag course back to where you stand and always image yourself inside the drone. Before long you will be more comfortable with flying away, turning, going across and then turning back towards yourself, until flying back to your take off point will become second nature.

You can also image that you are sitting in the drone, as you watch it coming towards yourself and as you look at that drone, now think you are in the drone and the drone is now you, standing there. If you want to go left of your imagined self (the drone) you would push the stick left and if you want to go right, push the stick right. It's a little complicated to describe but if you sit down and close your eyes and image what you are doing, then you might come to understand how to visualize this when you are actually flying back to your position and get a better feel for what you need to do with the sticks.

 

[umanbean]

Sorry, about miss-post. I'm getting back into drone flight again and the community.
Thanks for letting me know.

But you still didn't say which drone you have?

 

[JC in New Hampshire]

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I usually fly backwards when returning to home and landing.

Ditto. I always orient the drone so the arrow in the compass rose points "up" when traveling and especially while landing. For photography, of course, the drone faces the subject but for the flight back home I reorient it for intuitive controls.

Eliminates another potential source for things to go wrong. (And they can in a hurry!)

 

[Archerpilot]

But you still didn't say which drone you have?

Mavic Pro 1st Gen.

 

[Archerpilot]

The thing to try and do is to image you are sitting inside your drone and flying it. The more you can get that picture in your brain, the better off you will be in controlling it. Another tip to practice is to start flying it away from you but at a slight angle. So, fly away from where you are standing, then over to the left slightly and stop it, then gently turn it to the right and begin to fly the field from left to right, across your position in that field, if you can understand what I'm saying here.

Again, putting yourself inside that drone as you fly. Then do a 180 and fly it from right to left and again imagine that you are inside it. When you get comfortable doing that left to right and right to left, begin to turn a little closer to yourself, so now you are not going left and right as you watch the drone, but rather you are coming back towards yourself ever so slightly as you go left to right and right to left.

When you get more comfortable with this, then just increase that turn each time from one side to the other and start to fly even more towards yourself, almost a zig-zag course back to where you stand and always image yourself inside the drone. Before long you will be more comfortable with flying away, turning, going across and then turning back towards yourself, until flying back to your take off point will become second nature.

You can also image that you are sitting in the drone, as you watch it coming towards yourself and as you look at that drone, now think you are in the drone and the drone is now you, standing there. If you want to go left of your imagined self (the drone) you would push the stick left and if you want to go right, push the stick right. It's a little complicated to describe but if you sit down and close your eyes and image what you are doing, then you might come to understand how to visualize this when you are actually flying back to your position and get a better feel for what you need to do with the sticks.

Thank you for suggestions. I will for sure try these out.
Mark

 

[Archerpilot]

Ditto. I always orient the drone so the arrow in the compass rose points "up" when traveling and especially while landing. For photography, of course, the drone faces the subject but for the flight back home I reorient it for intuitive controls.

Eliminates another potential source for things to go wrong. (And they can in a hurry!)

good idea! thanks
Mark

 

[Archerpilot]

Thank you I'll look to TelloFpv app. Great suggestion.

I'm looking into Ryze Tello drone as you suggested. Very very interesting. Thanks again for suggesting. What RC do you use for it so you can FPV?

 

[MS Coast]

When I started flying drones with a Snaptain S5C (no GPS, atti-mode only, twitchy) I put a bright yellow piece of tape on the back end of it to make it more apparent which way it was pointed. If I couldn't see the tape, it meant I had to "reverse" the controls. As @BigAl07 said, one day it just clicked.

The other thing that helped was flying lots of square patterns (15 - 20 feet on a side) about eye level and close in.

A friend said, "Just put your head in the drone."

 

[umanbean]

Mavic Pro 1st Gen.

Well congrats then. I fly an MPP, the best (most versatile) drone DJI ever made... The MP1 is a close second

What RC do you use for it so you can FPV?

If, by FPV, you mean goggles, I don't do that... tried it, don't like it. And for intuitive stick practice I prefer to keep my eyes on the Drone. That way I can circle table lamps, go under chairs, fly over the dining room table scattering papers while my wife is doing our taxes... you know, all the fun stuff!

Re an RC: At first, I bought a Gamesir T1s, high quality very versatile... and it works just fine but I don't like using it either. Too much hassle to get it up and running each time I want to fly, and it "don't do much for me" anyway. I prefer using the on-screen sticks, you get the same muscle-memory/brain-training. If I wanted to set up a phone/tablet on an RC and go through all that, I'd just as soon be flying one of my big drones.

Great thing about the Tello is any weather, any time, anywhere... all you need is your phone.

 

[Peterson]

I guess I was one of the lucky ones because it "clicked" for me from the first day. Never actually gave it much thought until today when it was brought up for discussion.

 

[hiflyer201]

It just takes practice....a lot of practice.
short continuous 30- or 40-degree arcs in keeping the drone directly facing you is a good drill.

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

One other way is to go by the video screen instead of staying fixed on the drone. Similar to FPV, watch the feed as it’s coming in toward you. Imaging you are in the drone looking out.

 

[RobW01]

I've been searching the web and this forum to help answer this. Thank you for any advice.

Can the Mavic Pro be configured to flip its Left/Right when the drone is flying towards you. So don't have to reverse the use of controls to fly left/right?
Thanks again for any pointers.

Mark

Some cheaper drones have a mode that allows this, but no DJI drones, as far as I am aware. I think it’s called Headless mode.

 

[Crouching Leopard]

Thanks, I didn't know it is less of a feature now. Explains why I didn't see it mentioned in almost all drones info I was looking at. I can't wait to get outside to practice more.

As a safety point, just in case you get things mixed up, always turn the drone away from you when landing etc, and keep

Practice, practice, practice.

IMO, much better to train your brain to flip, than to flip the function of the controls - which seems potentially dangerous to me... you may forget that it's flipped and fly into something. And during a typical flight you'd have to be flipping back and forth often - and easy to forget which 'mode' it's in.

Find yourself a wide open space - a public ballpark, a pasture, or similar - and practice flying Figure 8s and toward yourself... you'll get it before you know it and soon enough you'll be able to do it without thinking.

edited: The one thing that helped me the most to learn intuitive stick control was buying a Ryze Tello - the king of the 'toy' drones - and flying it inside in tight spaces. In a well-lit room Tello is very stable, very responsive, and mine has survived many many crashes... I even flew it into a ceiling fan once while circling the fan, which was on and turning... no damage whatsoever, didn't even lose a prop.

BTW, do not buy a Tello without also buying the TelloFpv app (~5 USD)... a very capable, full-featured app.

I still fly and love my Tello. Tuff little critter and so portable. With no GPS you have to learn that stick control.

 

[Crouching Leopard]

That's cool you can do that and I hope to get there soon, practice.
Thank you

As a safety thing, just remember to always point the drone away from you when coming in to land etc, just in case you get mixed up in forward backwards. Also, many drones will rotate away from you when coming into land as a safety feature. Happy flying.

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

A mental picture I found very helpful when practicing fixed-wing flying with Real Flight's RC simulator is that when the drone is flying away from me, I tilt the right joystick (aileron roll) towards the wing that I wish to lower, but when the drone is flying towards me, I tilt the right joystick towards the wing that I wish to raise.

Since the plane always banks and turns toward the lower wing, and away from the raised wing, this mental image proved intuitive for all my real-life drone flying.

 

[Rupuze]

I love the sling idea for compass calibration. Gonna make one today@

 

[BossBob]

I love the sling idea for compass calibration. Gonna make one today@

Are you sure you are posting in the correct thread? Not one mention of compass calibration until you came along.