If no manual ATTI mode, then returning Mavic

[Logger]

...Yes, I do enjoy flying my Mavic, but everytime I do, I keep my fingers crossed that the Nannies don't take a lunch break.

That sounds just like going flying an airbus to me. You know the one that does not provide a switch to remove the nanny flight control modes. Airbus must have provided the inspiration for DJI!
That said, not fussed about the lack of an atti switch. Toggling to sport and back meets my needs.

 

[Big Fil]

Beyond the safety issues with ATTI most people don't seem to understand that there are situations where you can get smoother shots with ATTI mode than you can in GPS mode. While I understand the argument that folks with no ATTI mode flying experience can get into trouble fast, the solution that I feel would be acceptable would be to only make ATTI mode accessible by hooking up to the Assistant to get to it along with warning dialogue boxes stating the risks. Back in the days of the original Phantom you had to hook up to the computer to enable the true MANUAL mode. There was a MANUAL position on the transmitter but unless you went into the software and enabled it it just acted no different than the ATTI switch position.

 

[Big Fil]

That said, not fussed about the lack of an atti switch. Toggling to sport and back meets my needs.

Unfortunately if you wanted to fly around something that is throwing off the compass or giving GPS signal reflections than toggling to sport won't help the flyaway situation. Only ATTI mode would help.

 

[Logger]

Unfortunately if you wanted to fly around something that is throwing off the compass or giving GPS signal reflections than toggling to sport won't help the flyaway situation. Only ATTI mode would help.

I dont have any need or intent to fly around large ferrous objects so I am happy without manual ATTI mode.

I had several toilet bowl events early on with my mavic (prior to DJI providing the front compass reversion switching). The compass had gone haywire due to the noisy rear cabling. Mavic was drifting downwind and out to sea during a WPT mission. On both occasions toggling to S and back to P allowed me to return to P mode and regain control. I was readily able to fly it home using the telemetry on the RC without the app. On one of the two occasions it popped a message "unable to RTH" after attempting same. But I was still readily able to prevent a supposed "fly away" and fly it home.

 

[Phlier]

That sounds just like going flying an airbus to me. You know the one that does not provide a switch to remove the nanny flight control modes. Airbus must have provided the inspiration for DJI!
That said, not fussed about the lack of an atti switch. Toggling to sport and back meets my needs.

Since that time, Airbus has revisited their "Nanny think" many times. Airbus still has their fair share of Nanny modes, but it is my understanding (I'm a Boeing guy, so I'm not absolutely sure) that modern Airbus aircraft all have the ability for a pilot to take control any time they want. You can't ever completely eliminate the Nanny's but you can reduce them to a bare minimum, which is fairly analogous to our drones, really. Even if a guy has full Atti mode, you're still relying on the Flight Controller computer to keep the motors spun correctly for the stick inputs you're commanding. It's when you start to layer the Nanny modes one on top of the other that things start to get dicey. The final underlying Nanny layer (the FC board that constantly changes the rpm on each of the four motors to keep the thing in the air in even the most basic way) MUST operate correctly, or else the thing won't fly *at all*. This is typically called the "Fly By Wire" layer, and if it doesn't work, you're not going flying today.

 

[Logger]

The Airbus means to take control is certainly not analogous to an Atti switch though. The way they do it is have you start failing systems manually by turning them off. Once you have failed enough inputs to the FCS you end up in a degraded mode that might allow you to recover the situation. Far from intuitive in the heat of the moment. Boeing approach is different. A single switch to get rid of the lot.
Either way not fussed with my Mavic. Earlier DJIs with an Atti switch are seemingly not immune from Flyaways. Will be interesting to see if the Mavic successor has an ATTI switch. I doubt it will.

 

[NinjaNut]

I have an early DJI quad copter called an F450 Flamewheel. It uses a flight controller called NAZA. It had no limitations put on it by over reaching control freak engineers like on the Mavic.
It had 3 flight modes very clearly labelled GPS......ATTI.....Manual
GPS is fully stabilized in flight, altitude and position holding and had RTH capability.
ATTI has the identical flight stability but no position hold. It would drift with the wind like a balloon but altitude and flight stability was maintained. There was no RTH in this mode.
MANUAL was exactly what it sounds like. Basically the GPS and flight controller was off line and YOU had FULL control over every aspect of flight. If you've ever flown a standard RC helicopter, you'll know what I'm talking about. All the aircraft wants to do is crash and YOU have to maintain control at all times. This mode also had no RTH.
I still have my F450 and it flies perfectly with no altitude or NFZ BS

Thanks BerndM, that definately clears it up. I have delved into collective pitch copters, so I know exactly what you're saying about MANUAL.