Normal solo behavior?

[Stimmy]

Flying through a headwind, is it normal for the solo to lose altitude? It seems as if it prefers speed over altitude. This was all done in fly mode with a solid gps lock..

See video... Starting at around the 3 min mark i turn around into the wind.
Excuse the language at the end, scary moment for me.

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[pete]

I'm unable to load the video on youtube (probably still being processed).

loss of altitude in headwind was discussed on this forum :
Altitude loss after fast forward flight
Solo Submarine - Awaiting 3DR response.

 

[erikgraham]

Video not loading

 

[pete]

Video not loading

now it loads, youtube took long time to process it

 

[Marich]

Yep, a pretty stiff headwind - Solo is tilting forwards pretty aggressively to fight it. The props are visible at times.
That seems to happen frequently when going fast, which as far as Solo is concerned is exactly the same thing as a headwind (or vice versa).
So, dunno if it's normal behavior or not, but it's common!

 

[Gambledog]

A moving prop generates less thrust than a stationary one, so the max allowed pitch of 35 degrees (set in parameters) might be just fine for a "hole shot" without losing altitude, but combined with a headwind and some forward speed the vertical thrust vector is not enough to keep the drone in the air. The autopilot (as currently designed) is unable to help with this. As far as I can tell, the altitude PID only manages overall throttle (not pitch/roll) and if the problem can't be solved with more throttle the drone will fall.

There might be a way to alter the AP code such that the max allowed pitch decreases with increasing airspeed or the drone starts to level its self if continued altitude loss is detected with max throttle. I don't have enough programming experience to implement either of these ideas, but a strict "altitude priority" mode would be a nice option if someone could pull it off.

 

[Stimmy]

An altitude mode would be nice, but it seems unnecessary because the drone should always prefer altitude over speed no matter what!

I've been trying to find out if any other drones have this problem and haven't found any.. So if they can do it, why can't the solo?

The loss of altitude wasn't even full forward pitch in these instances. I was anticipating this and was feathering the right joystick.

Anyway.. Anyone else have this problem beside the 2 other examples?

 

[Jubalr]

Hi Stimmy, welcome to the forum. This has been discussed to death around here and the links Pete gave you above is a good start. I did a lot of testing on this about 6 months ago. Perhaps in the future, 3DR will offer a new mode that has altitude priority over speed. Until then, fly LOS and/or watch altitude displayed on both the controller and the app. If you are a fairly experienced pilot, you could also fly much faster and have more altitude control in Stabilize mode.

Fly safe..
Jubal