Is This The Dumb Question Department?

[TR Ganey]

I want to know because I have a dumb question.

When in "Tripod" mode will the M2P use all available power to stabilize it's self in strong winds. When I say all available power I mean will it use the same amount of power in Tripod mode as it is capable of in Sport mode if that is what is necessary to stabilize it? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[G Lee]

Thats a great ??? Waiting also to know.

 

[Bigbird48]

short answer yes

 

[Former Member]

I want to know because I have a dumb question.

When in "Tripod" mode will the M2P use all available power to stabilize it's self in strong winds. When I say all available power I mean will it use the same amount of power in Tripod mode as it is capable of in Sport mode if that is what is necessary to stabilize it? Inquiring minds want to know!

It will do that in P or T mode.

T mode slows everything down, makes the controls slower, and activates the side sensors.

 

[brett8883]

As others have said tripod mode will use up to 60 degrees(the maximum) of tilt to keep the AC in place.

However, the pilot (you) are only able to control the tilt in tripod mode up to 28 degrees from level. So if the wind is forcing the flight controller to pitch the aircraft 28 degrees or more to keep it in place you won’t be able to fly into the wind at all. It will effectively be stuck so switch to a different flight mode. Sport is usually the best in that case

 

[Former Member]

As others have said tripod mode will use up to 60 degrees(the maximum) of tilt to keep the AC in place.

However, the pilot (you) are only able to control the tilt in tripod mode up to 28 degrees from level. So if the wind is forcing the flight controller to pitch the aircraft 28 degrees or more to keep it in place you won’t be able to fly into the wind at all. It will effectively be stuck so switchbto a differebt flught mode, sport usually the best in that case

This is true and it's a good point. Stability in the wind is one thing, and I guess any mode will do that. P or T mode will make it easier for you to handle the drone. But as @brett8883 said, if you want to try and get back home manually, sometimes sport mode is the quickest way to get back.

A question to you sport mode flyers... if you are in T or P mode, and you hit a substantial headwind on your return leg and want to come home, will RTH give you as much power as sport mode to fight the wind and get you back? Or do you have to enter sport mode to get the added pitch angle and power to do the job?

 

[brett8883]

This is true and it's a good point. Stability in the wind is one thing, and I guess any mode will do that. P or T mode will make it easier for you to handle the drone. But as @brett8883 said, if you want to try and get back home manually, sometimes sport mode is the quickest way to get back.

A question to you sport mode flyers... if you are in T or P mode, and you hit a substantial headwind on your return leg and want to come home, will RTH give you as much power as sport mode to fight the wind and get you back? Or do you have to enter sport mode to get the added pitch angle and power to do the job?

RTH is based on velocity (speed) and not tilt like other modes.

Where it gets complicated is when you have RTH obstacle check enabled. Since it can’t tilt more than a certain amount and still see obstacles I don’t know what the action would be if the RTH speed requires move tilt than is required to see obstacles. My guess is that it would have to hover instead of returning home since this is the default function if it encounters obstacles it can’t overcome in RTH but that’s just educated speculation.

This is why RTH speed is so slow.

 

[brett8883]

This is true and it's a good point. Stability in the wind is one thing, and I guess any mode will do that. P or T mode will make it easier for you to handle the drone. But as @brett8883 said, if you want to try and get back home manually, sometimes sport mode is the quickest way to get back.

A question to you sport mode flyers... if you are in T or P mode, and you hit a substantial headwind on your return leg and want to come home, will RTH give you as much power as sport mode to fight the wind and get you back? Or do you have to enter sport mode to get the added pitch angle and power to do the job?

What I meant to say was yes it has the power. I changed my RTH speed to 30 MPH but had to dial it down because one time it was coming home straight in a head wind and got up to 30 MPH(which I couldn’t do in sport mode btw) and was red lining at 100% power.

RTH is it’s own flight mode just like sport or p-mode and therefore makes no difference what mode you were in prior to entering RTH.

 

[FoxhallGH]

Another way to think about this is; that the Mavic is inherantly unstable, so it is continuously pushing feed-back inputs to the motors to position-keep in all 3 axis. That feed-back does not get sluggish or change, when the Mavic is in Tripod mode! GPS, Tripod and Sport mode will all have the same stability governed by the same motor control, acting at the same speed.

What reduces is the control input from the sticks which override the stable condition in one or more of the axis, making the Mavic move out of that 'stable' condition much more slowly. Engaging T mode sets a different EXP profile for the stick inputs ...

It is therefore very easy to get in a dangerous position where you are aiming the T-mode Mavic back at you and flying stick forward, but it is being blown away from you in the wind! But it will be very stable as it disappears over the horizon!

 

[brett8883]

Another way to think about this is; that the Mavic is inherantly unstable, so it is continuously pushing feed-back inputs to the motors to position-keep in all 3 axis. That feed-back does not get sluggish or change, when the Mavic is in Tripod mode! GPS, Tripod and Sport mode will all have the same stability governed by the same motor control, acting at the same speed.

What reduces is the control input from the sticks which override the stable condition in one or more of the axis, making the Mavic move out of that 'stable' condition much more slowly. Engaging T mode sets a different EXP profile for the stick inputs ...

It is therefore very easy to get in a dangerous position where you are aiming the T-mode Mavic back at you and flying stick forward, but it is being blown away from you in the wind! But it will be very stable as it disappears over the horizon!

I think your discription of the exp being different is a really good way to look at it. In tripod mode it basically cuts the top and bottom thirds of the expo graphs off.

I do however want to correct that in tripod mode the wind can’t blow the drone out of position any more than in any other mode. In fact the difference is worst case you may not be able to move it out of position at all. Just thought it was nessesary to point that out I don’t want anybody to think tripod mode is a more dangerous mode or more likely to cause fly always because it isn’t.

 

[FoxhallGH]

I think your discription of the exp being different is a really good way to look at it. In tripod mode it basically cuts the top and bottom thirds of the expo graphs off.

I do however want to correct that in tripod mode the wind can’t blow the drone out of position any more than in any other mode. In fact the difference is worst case you may not be able to move it out of position at all. Just thought it was nessesary to point that out I don’t want anybody to think tripod mode is a more dangerous mode or more likely to cause fly always because it isn’t.

Just a thought on that one though ... And I'm not 100% on this, but I think you are correct IF the Mavic were to be left to hover, but as soon as you override the stability of the hover and push forward, the Mavic would then be trying to move through the air at whatever speed - but - if the headwind is greater, then the result is going to be 'negative' direction. In other words, it might be that if you leave the Mavic alone it will stay [hover] where it is, but as soon as you try to fly it back to you it then becomes an aircraft fighting a headwind that the control inputs (in T mode) just can't overcome. As far as the Mavic is concerned - it's got positive airspeed ... even tho' it's moving backwards.
As always in this type of scenario, the advice should be to NOT engage RTH, but to reduce height to as low as possible to get out of wind-effect, and manually fly home in GPS or Sport mode.

 

[Former Member]

RTH is based on velocity (speed) and not tilt like other modes.

Where it gets complicated is when you have RTH obstacle check enabled. Since it can’t tilt more than a certain amount and still see obstacles I don’t know what the action would be if the RTH speed requires move tilt than is required to see obstacles. My guess is that it would have to hover instead of returning home since this is the default function if it encounters obstacles it can’t overcome in RTH but that’s just educated speculation.

This is why RTH speed is so slow.

Excellent information. Thank you.

 

[Former Member]

Just a thought on that one though ... And I'm not 100% on this, but I think you are correct IF the Mavic were to be left to hover, but as soon as you override the stability of the hover and push forward, the Mavic would then be trying to move through the air at whatever speed - but - if the headwind is greater, then the result is going to be 'negative' direction. In other words, it might be that if you leave the Mavic alone it will stay [hover] where it is, but as soon as you try to fly it back to you it then becomes an aircraft fighting a headwind that the control inputs (in T mode) just can't overcome. As far as the Mavic is concerned - it's got positive airspeed ... even tho' it's moving backwards.
As always in this type of scenario, the advice should be to NOT engage RTH, but to reduce height to as low as possible to get out of wind-effect, and manually fly home in GPS or Sport mode.

Thats another good question. Does the Mavic judge its speed as ground speed or true airspeed? I believe that the Mavic uses ground speed as its speedometer, because that will actually measure its RTH progress in position and distance instead of angle of attack. Also, by measuring RTH progress by distance traveled, it can more accurately measure if it will be able to make it back based on the amount of battery it has left. If it is only able to maintain position, even though the motors are spinning at max RPM to try and get it back, the RTH low battery indicator will tell you that it is RTH automatically, even though it will never make it back. It will simply stay in the position, fighting the wind, until it runs out of battery, gets to critical, and lands.

The Mavics internal flight computer is a very complex calculator, takes into account many variables, and can mostly be trusted. In heavy winds, it cant, and I never trust it to accurately measure how much battery I have left. I always lean towards conservatism, and try to land with 40% battery, just in case. Yes, thats a little extreme, but in thousands of flight, I have only had to force land a few times due to low battery, when the winds aloft were greater than expected during an oncoming storm.

 

[Former Member]

This brings up another good point. Some pilots like to push the limits of their Mavic, and fly at altitudes of 1,000' and higher AGL (not to mention taking off at high ASL altitudes). Since TAS is 2% higher than IAS per 1,000' in altitude, your Mavic could actually be further away and take more battery to get up and back than it would at 100'. The props will need to spin more just to attain the same ground speed as they would at a lower altitude. This will increase battery consumption by as much as 10% at 5,000' AGL. Going up is the easy part, coming back down might be a little more interesting, and it might fall way short of the home point.

I took some flying lessons years ago in the then named Jeffco airport, now Rocky Mtn, and it was unnerving how much was necessary to compensate for the density altitude on a hot summer day. Leaning upon takeoff was just counter intuitive and scary to me.

Is it possible for the Mavic to actually be applying full power to forward flight and still be flying backwards due to high density altitude?

 

[Idrach]

I don’t want anybody to think tripod mode is a more dangerous mode

I would note, having suffered it, that due to longer slowing down and stop times, more care is needed in tripod mode.

 

[sar104]

As others have said tripod mode will use up to 60 degrees(the maximum) of tilt to keep the AC in place.

However, the pilot (you) are only able to control the tilt in tripod mode up to 28 degrees from level. So if the wind is forcing the flight controller to pitch the aircraft 28 degrees or more to keep it in place you won’t be able to fly into the wind at all. It will effectively be stuck so switch to a different flight mode. Sport is usually the best in that case

I don't know where you got the 60° value from, but that's incorrect. The maximum tilt available with stick input is 25° in P-GPS and 35° in sport mode. The maximum tilt that it will use to hold position is 25°.

 

[TR Ganey]

I appreciate everyone's input. Hopefully others will appreciate the educating that you guys are doing as much as I do. The reason for my original question was to learn if I happened to be in close proximity to something (tree, building, pole, tower etc) in "Tripod" mode (which I use a lot) would the AC use all available power to maintain it's position if the wind got up. You guys answered my question and so much more. Great job and thank you!

 

[Former Member]

I don't know where you got the 60° value from, but that's incorrect. The maximum tilt available with stick input is 25° in P-GPS and 35° in sport mode. The maximum tilt that it will use to hold position is 25°.

Any idea what the max tilt to RTH would be with and without OA on?

 

[sar104]

Any idea what the max tilt to RTH would be with and without OA on?

I haven't seen that published. Regular RTH is around 20 mph, so that's only 15° or so. I don't know if it goes faster with OA off. Should be easy to test though.

 

[Former Member]

I haven't seen that published. Regular RTH is around 20 mph, so that's only 15° or so. I don't know if it goes faster with OA off. Should be easy to test though.

I wonder if sensors reduce the RTH speed, because 20 MPH is about max speed in P mode.