TexasAerials
First Officer
Flight distance : 566952 ft
United States
Offline
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the compass heading and gps heading are two different calculations that the IMU uses to determine its position and direction of travel. because the GPS is electronic based and is not affected by magnetic interference, when the AC encounters a magnetic interference in flight, the compass can be pointing one way while the gps says the AC is pointing and traveling a different way. because the spark doesn't have redundant dual IMUs like the larger drones, it doesn't have a "fall back" for determining which is the correct data, and has to default to atti mode to prevent it crashing itself from using bad data to fly.
what makes things even more difficult, is that several of the fail safes you use to orient yourself and return the craft to you when you fly out of LOS are lost when the craft goes into atti mode. your location on the map is no longer being updated, and you lose your compass heading, so you can't determine where the drone is in relation to you unless you know the terrain and landmarks around where you're flying.
my best if you lose gps while flying where you can't see the aircraft (which you shouldn't be doing, but many do) is to immediately orient yourself with which direction is "home" and then point the camera at the ground so you can see which direction you're drifting, and start making tracks for home. some people have been able to chase their spark as its drifting on the wind long enough to regain p mode and get the spark back. it seems the mistake people make when losing p-mode is not flying the aircraft. i saw one youtube video where a guy lost p-mode mid flight and the only input the gives is to descend, even though the aircraft is obviously moving via the fpv video, he doesn't try to counteract the drifting. never stop flying the aircraft! |
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