Curious Behavior 3DR Considers Normal

hmm. I don't know. I checked out the location, even did a 3D sweep and it looks to me like there are a lot of trees... and hilly terrain. Tall trees 35 feet away is not that far. Its nice 3DR is sending you free replacement props, but I think they have a valid point in their email.

GPS all depends where the satellites are in the sky (and how close to the horizon they are) and that can change from day to day - even from the beginning of a flight to the end. That being said, I take off from places like that all the time. On take off I pretty much rocket straight up to get some height and get a better GPS fix. On landing I'm ready to switch into manual, but try not to. Manual can be tricky if its windy, but personally I find it better than having no control (which is the case when GPS gets wonky). Remember, its pure GPS with no assist from cell towers or wifi base stations. So there is a pretty big margin for error, especially low to the ground.

I guess you'd have to be there this time of year to see how open the area is except due south. It is hilly terrain and it won't get much better than that anywhere I would be flying so I'm glad to get all the feedback and recommendations. Thankfully I don't have the woes of wifi congestion out here. I also have no wind at all on most days. I wonder if solar activity this far north interferes with GPS more. I'd love to video some northern lights but the best activity is Kp index 5 or greater and I have read that can affect GPS everywhere.

I was never sold on the marketing hype of a chimp flying this but sold on the capabilities so I'm fine with really learning how to fly Solo well. If you have ever flown a z231 powered gasser heli before electronic gyros and fancy controllers you definitely would appreciate how far the industry has come with Solo and how easy it is having the time to learn. It took several days just to feel comfortable hovering more than 2ft off the ground back then.

With 3DR's marketing I do worry about this coming Christmas. I think every purchase should have J R's recent post "Warning to potential new solo pilots! (Pre-Purchase)" attached to it and the post was a good reminder for me to take time learning and training on Solo instead of relying on all the systems to work together perfectly all the time.
 
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This happened to me and was my only crash to date. I hit pause on a RTL when Solo was maybe 8 feet off the ground and the trees affected GPS and it started to drift. I had PAUSE on the brain that day because the previous flight taught me to appreciate the PAUSE button. On that previous flight I hit RTL and it looked like Solo was going to overshoot its home location. Looking up at Solo when its 100 feet in the air always looks like its going to blow right past the home position. Anyway, I panicked and hit manual and Solo drifted over some trees due to the wind and I almost lost complete sight of it. I should have used Pause to get my bearings but instead I used manual. So next flight I used PAUSE like a fool and had a very minor incident. Nothing broke luckily.

I suppose I could think of a situation where you wouldn't want manual to kick in fast though it seems like it may have helped both of us. Lets say your near some tree tops or something. If Solo went into manual without warning then it could start drifting outside your line of sight and you'd be staring at an empty sky with a terrified look in your eyes :) I guess I would prefer a bit of wonkyness as an indicator that something is going wrong so I could intervene with Manual mode. Always pay attention to that HDOP value and number of satellites. I think they should make the font for those things much bigger and more prominent on the app and the controller.
Maybe screen customization would be a great feature in the next update. Enlarging the HDOP to fill the screen because when I need to know the HDOP I likely will need to be looking closely at Solo while flying.
 
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