If no manual ATTI mode, then returning Mavic

[BerndM]

Can anyone tell me what those initials stand for? Seems MAN for manual would be more understandable. Aircraft Telemetry Timeout Innitiated???

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

 

[Vasco]

Today evening I complete a 5 minute test ATTI mode flight , and although it was blowing 15 to 20 knots of breeze craft was flying perfectly and under control except of drifting due to wind condition .

 

[simcab]

Can't you just hit pause to stop a flyaway?

I'm afraid that when you hit pause the mavic attempts to hover in place, but if the (two) compass(es) are both wrong by more than 90... and you are in gps mode.... you have a fly away IN PAUSE!

 

[simcab]

Can ATTI mode be forced by blocking the GPS signal with foil?

The main purpose of manual atti is to recover a fly away...

 

[Nomand Eloc]

I can show you a guaranteed way to put the Mavic in ATTI mode at least for a few feet. All you need to do is fly low over some train tracks. I first did this by accident and had my Mavic drift off over the ocean, scary but still easy to control if you just stay calm.

 

[ZenQuest]

It is possible and quite easy to put the Mavic in ATTI mode and you can find videos on line showing people doing flips and things (that I think would be bad for the Mavic gimbal). But can't post the info here... Just search around if you need to do this...

 

[Randy]

Ugh! I can't believe I didn't scope this out prior to buying my mavic. I've just learned there's no way to switch to ATTI mode manually. This is totally unacceptable. I've had 3 fly aways with my P3P where immediately switching to ATTI mode saved my aircraft. Having 200+ hours on manual quads, I'm very comfortable removing the nannies and flying manually.

I understand that it will switch to ATTI mode in the event of a detected compass or GPS error, but I've had fly aways start where I switched to ATTI mode and saved the aircraft from hitting something *before* the aircraft realized that there was an error.

Did DJI improve something about the Mavic that makes it much faster to detect compass or GPS errors? I see the forum is still filled with the occasional fly away sad stories just like the phantom sections.


My guess is that DJI did this to prevent inexeperienced pilots from losing control of their aircraft and that they did this believing they'd prevent more crashes by inexeperienced owners than the crashes that experienced owners ould prevent by having instance access to full manual control.

Is there any work around for this? I saw that some had programmed the sport mode button to switch to ATTI mode but that is now been prevented in the latest firmware update.

Anytime mine has gone into ATTI mode, switching immediately into SPORT mode has allowed me to put it wherever I want it, may not have GPS but I still have real time video on my phone and am able to bring it right back.

 

[Ponchota]

I've been building and flying helis and quads for about 10yrs now and I'm glad I did. I've learned a respect for what it takes to build one of these and make it fly right as well as know how everything works. This is the first DJI product I've owned and I bought it specifically for what it's meant for. It's nice to fly and let it do it's thing. Having atti on it would be a nice feature but I think it would wreak havoc for a lot of owner. Too many people buy these without a clue or respect for the hobby, I could see someone saying "oooh attitude mode let's try It" and lose control. I'm betting a lot of people don't even know about learning orientations, imagine how that would work out in atti. Gotta remember atti will hold it moderately level but it still requires pilot inputs to keep it from drifting in all directions.

 

[Robbo man]

I too have 30 years in the rc industry flying rc planes heli's and racing rc cars right up to competing at world championships but non of that has anything to do with a Mavic pro. The Mavic is an amazing camera platform that's it! If you want to show off your amazing flying skill while filming buy something else like this:FPV Wings & Accessories : TBS Caipirinha FPV Wing . Why in the world would DJI put ATTI mod on the mavic? for someone soooo experienced you didn't research the product very well or is this just to get people to rub your ego?

 

[Ponchota]

Couldn't agree more. Bought mine soley for AP and video. I have "0" desire to fly it like one of my racing quads. Crashed my RotorX Atom into a tree at 50+ mph, only damage were a couple props. Mavic would be totaled. Just not meant for that.

 

[m0j0]

See my first post.

I did. I didn't read anything in that post that, in my experience flying the Mavic, would lead me to believe that not having ATTI mode creates a safety issue. I have two Mavics now and have never had an inflight issue where I would have swapped to ATTI mode. I did it once with a Phantom because it lost gps and drifted. TBH even that was my fault.. I flew too close to a huge metal tower. I'm sure it was interference from the tower that caused the Phantom to switch to ATTI. I got the "ATTI mode" audible notification and it started a pretty heavy drift. The wind was somewhere near 17 mph. I swapped to ATTI manually and flew it back. (The Phantom had already swapped to ATTI mode). So I'm not even certain manually switching actually accomplished anything.

 

[m0j0]

I refused to buy a P3 for years after watching video after video of flyaways. They were actually quite comical. .

I have had 3 different versions and a total of 5 P3s. In about 500 miles of flights I have never had a flyaway. I had one compass error and it was the location I was flying. I got the compass error warning about 2000 feet out. I didn't even slow down just kept flying it back toward me. The Phantom didn't so much is move an inch from the flight path so I just brought it in and landed it. I moved to another location and flew it again without issue. I knew I had a good compass calibration so I didn't calibrate after the error. Still flying today.

If you don't know what you are doing you can have problems but if you are reasonably competent you should have incredible results with the Phantoms. Both my Phantom series and Mavics have been flawless.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

I did. I didn't read anything in that post that, in my experience flying the Mavic, would lead me to believe that not having ATTI mode creates a safety issue. I have two Mavics now and have never had an inflight issue where I would have swapped to ATTI mode. I did it once with a Phantom because it lost gps and drifted. TBH even that was my fault.. I flew too close to a huge metal tower. I'm sure it was interference from the tower that caused the Phantom to switch to ATTI. I got the "ATTI mode" audible notification and it started a pretty heavy drift. The wind was somewhere near 17 mph. I swapped to ATTI manually and flew it back. (The Phantom had already swapped to ATTI mode). So I'm not even certain manually switching actually accomplished anything.

Agreed. This whole whine is just yet another example of group think around here.

 

[FenTiger]

I gus

 

[FenTiger]

Oops. I hope I'm better at flying my MP than using this forum

 

[ZeroG]

Ugh! I can't believe I didn't scope this out prior to buying my mavic. I've just learned there's no way to switch to ATTI mode manually. This is totally unacceptable. I've had 3 fly aways with my P3P where immediately switching to ATTI mode saved my aircraft. Having 200+ hours on manual quads, I'm very comfortable removing the nannies and flying manually.

I understand that it will switch to ATTI mode in the event of a detected compass or GPS error, but I've had fly aways start where I switched to ATTI mode and saved the aircraft from hitting something *before* the aircraft realized that there was an error.

Did DJI improve something about the Mavic that makes it much faster to detect compass or GPS errors? I see the forum is still filled with the occasional fly away sad stories just like the phantom sections.


My guess is that DJI did this to prevent inexeperienced pilots from losing control of their aircraft and that they did this believing they'd prevent more crashes by inexeperienced owners than the crashes that experienced owners ould prevent by having instance access to full manual control.

Is there any work around for this? I saw that some had programmed the sport mode button to switch to ATTI mode but that is now been prevented in the latest firmware update.

I totally agree with you! I'm an experienced collective pitch heli pilot, aerial quad pilot, and racing drone pilot. I have 2 inspire 1's with pure atti mode, and I assumed the Mavic would have it as well. I was VERY disappointed to learn that the Mavic doesn't, but not enough to return it, as it brings me a lot of portable joy! The only work-around I've seen is wrapping the body in tinfoil:-( Good Luck!

 

[randy53]

If someone is new to drones and the Mavic is their first I think the manual should at least give a definition of what ATTI means. The first mention of ATTI in the manual says " The aircraft will automatically switch to ATTI mode when the GPS signal is weak". It seems to me they are assuming everyone knows what ATTI means.

 

[CyberNate]

I totally agree with you! I'm an experienced collective pitch heli pilot, aerial quad pilot, and racing drone pilot. I have 2 inspire 1's with pure atti mode, and I assumed the Mavic would have it as well. I was VERY disappointed to learn that the Mavic doesn't, but not enough to return it, as it brings me a lot of portable joy! The only work-around I've seen is wrapping the body in tinfoil:-( Good Luck!

The only solution? You need to check around. ATTI mode can be enabled and even set on the fly if sport mode switch is reconfigured.

 

[Phlier]

IMO, DJI over did it with the Nanny modes. Not allowing you to take over full manual control of your drone anytime you want is a safety issue.

I'm an airline pilot. Modern cockpits (actually, the more politically correct "flight deck" is the current term) are very much automated. But there are times when the automation fails. Being able to take over manually is, as you can imagine, a no-brainer for safety. This same logic applies to any object capable of causing harm. Many times, no matter how good the automation is, there is no computer substitute for the capabilities of a human at the controls.

Having read a few of the "my Mavic flew away" threads, I'm left with the opinion that being able to immediately switch to Atti mode would have saved the day. Luckily, none of the fly away threads that I've read resulted in someone getting whacked by an out of control drone. Regardless of why the drone flew away (human error, computer error, whatever), being able to switch into manual control would have helped immensely.

I understand why some of you guys are of a differing opinion, but after working with automation for 20+ years in high speed transportation, you're never going to convince me that not being able to take manual control of your drone anytime you want is a good idea.

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.

 

[airview2]

i also like flying in atti mode. i solved this issue by linking the sport switch to atti mode with the well known parameter tweaks. i never use the cinematic mode so i tuned the cinematic parameters to the advanced sport settings...

works on .700, for me, stick handling is even better than in original sport...