I'm considering using mission planner at every flight since it tends to be more verbose with regard to displaying errors and problems before arming. Anyone use MP all the time? If I have a wifi connection open can I assume that I'll always be able to see telemetry info in mission planner even while solo is far away? I haven't tested this fully but I assume that the data would just flow over wifi?
I've noticed some Horizontal variance errors in mission planner and support said that these are all GPS related and had to do with signals bouncing around. I can't remember the last GPS error I encountered pre 2.4. I certainly never lost GPS midair like I did last week though I know it's certainly possible. Once it happens to you then you start to second guess autonomous missions. I typically always fly line of sight but on occasion I've had solo briefly go beyond los due to a random tree being in the way.
Was thinking that if I were to ever lose GPS during a tower mission where solo was far enough away where one would have trouble observing its orientation I think the likelihood of disaster is high. By the time the controller notifies you that solo has entered manual mode you might not have enough time to recover. You're usually panic stricken in this situation and that compounds the problem and reaction time. If solo had enough momentum when it loses GPS it could potentially be traveling at high speed in the direction it was heading when it changes to manual. This happened in the recent tower mission I flew where it appeared that solo shot up and appeared to be flying away. I still think it felt more than just a loss of GPS. All I did was lift off via tower and it went up and started flying away. I didn't even enter auto mode yet. The other day I took off in manual because of all the GPS issues I've hit in the past few weeks and solo became uncontrollable and I actually crashed it while trying to bring it down. This is weird. I have tons of flying experience and it seemed to have a mind of its own. I need to look at those logs. It was only about 15 feet in the air and there was barely any wind. I've flown solo in stabilize many times so I find it hard to believe that it was pilot error. But I guess you never know which is why my confidence with solo has diminished significantly since the upgrade.
Back to mission planner. The reason I bring this up is because mission planner would have warned me of potential issues with GPS and I wouldn't have even attempted to put solo in loiter mode yet alone consider a tower mission. I'm thinking that It's not always safe to fly even if the solo app and controller say it is. I always tend to look at hdop too as well as number of satellites. Like I said I've seen mission planner show obvious errors while the controller and app showed it safe to fly. I've also confirmed trouble free flights after ensuring MP is not reporting errors prior to arming. Why are my posts so damn long. Lol. Time to look at the log. I hope my new surface book gets here this week. This old laptop is not a good companion for solo.
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I've noticed some Horizontal variance errors in mission planner and support said that these are all GPS related and had to do with signals bouncing around. I can't remember the last GPS error I encountered pre 2.4. I certainly never lost GPS midair like I did last week though I know it's certainly possible. Once it happens to you then you start to second guess autonomous missions. I typically always fly line of sight but on occasion I've had solo briefly go beyond los due to a random tree being in the way.
Was thinking that if I were to ever lose GPS during a tower mission where solo was far enough away where one would have trouble observing its orientation I think the likelihood of disaster is high. By the time the controller notifies you that solo has entered manual mode you might not have enough time to recover. You're usually panic stricken in this situation and that compounds the problem and reaction time. If solo had enough momentum when it loses GPS it could potentially be traveling at high speed in the direction it was heading when it changes to manual. This happened in the recent tower mission I flew where it appeared that solo shot up and appeared to be flying away. I still think it felt more than just a loss of GPS. All I did was lift off via tower and it went up and started flying away. I didn't even enter auto mode yet. The other day I took off in manual because of all the GPS issues I've hit in the past few weeks and solo became uncontrollable and I actually crashed it while trying to bring it down. This is weird. I have tons of flying experience and it seemed to have a mind of its own. I need to look at those logs. It was only about 15 feet in the air and there was barely any wind. I've flown solo in stabilize many times so I find it hard to believe that it was pilot error. But I guess you never know which is why my confidence with solo has diminished significantly since the upgrade.
Back to mission planner. The reason I bring this up is because mission planner would have warned me of potential issues with GPS and I wouldn't have even attempted to put solo in loiter mode yet alone consider a tower mission. I'm thinking that It's not always safe to fly even if the solo app and controller say it is. I always tend to look at hdop too as well as number of satellites. Like I said I've seen mission planner show obvious errors while the controller and app showed it safe to fly. I've also confirmed trouble free flights after ensuring MP is not reporting errors prior to arming. Why are my posts so damn long. Lol. Time to look at the log. I hope my new surface book gets here this week. This old laptop is not a good companion for solo.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
