hello, my spark went in Atti mode and I managed to get it back, lucky I guess. Are there any tips an tricks how to handle when it happens again? Couldn’t find it in this forum.

What do you mean ?  Do you mean how to not go into Atti mode OR do you mean how do you learn to fly ?

Cookster670 Posted at 2018-1-2 14:09
What do you mean ?  Do you mean how to not go into Atti mode OR do you mean how do you learn to fly ?

I mean, how to handle if the spark is switching to Atti mode.

Sorry..still not sure what you mean.

Are you asking how you should learn to fly or are you asking what actions should you take once in Atti mode to get back into GPS mode ?

From what I've read so far, once you are in Atti mode, something has gone wrong and there is nothing you can do other than hope for the best to get back into GPS mode.

This leaves you only with flying it out of trouble (assuming you have line of sight and control of the unit)

So in my opinion you would need to keep the device always within reasonable sight and practice flying the drone.  ie hovering/controlling in all orientations, then be comfortable flying circuits and figure 8's.   That's how you learn to fly a RC Helicopter, which uses the same stick controls.

If there is something you can do on top of this, I'd love to hear what it is

Unfortunately you can’t select atti mode on the spark but....
If you really want to test atti fly indoors to loose gps, turn off obstacle avoidance and opti sensors (I don’t know what go4 offers in this area but litchi will let you shut the sensors off, along with the annoying front led’s).
You are now in atti but and I’ll stress this, be sure you have a clear area to test. You will not have any braking which means if you move in any direction and center the stick it will keep moving in that direction.
You will need to counter the movements. If you’re not ready your corrections can escalate quickly so be sure and baby steps if you choose to try.
Or as suggested by others by a cheap drone and practice with that. Better to loose 50 than 500.
I neither recommend or endorse but you asked.

You may have the most experience with ATTI on here.  I have not flow my Spark in ATTI.  But I have flown unstabilized helicopters that you had to work to keep up right.  Buy a cheap toy drone and learn to fly it.  They are difficult to fly as they don't have stabilization.  They also really enforce distance limits in that you can't fly a toy that you can't see.

One thing I keep meaning to ask is if the Spark will keep sending video when in Atti mode assuming it happens when you're still within range of the RC? I assume it would, so could you not fly the Spark back to you FPV style with the video feed on your phone/tablet? I'm guessing this would be easier than flying it back VLOS at least until you're able to clearly see the aircraft's orientation. I wish you could adjust the brightness of the motor LED's as they're actually not very visible on a bright sunny day; would be nice to make them super bright during the day and dimmer in the evening.

First unless you are in VLOS Atti can be extremely tough no impossible.

In VLOS .
If you can land your spark safely this is and should always be your first option. Always figure out at least 2 safe locations for landing in emergency before your flight mission .

If your not able to land safely, raise your Aircraft clear of obstacles keeping VLOS 1/ the higher up you go better chance of regaining gps, unless you are having compass problems. 2/ chances of crashing at safe high altitude are very small, and remember once your aircraft reaches 10% it will force land.

Your spark will move freely in direction of wind, you must counteract this unless it is flying towards homepoint (another good reason to always start your mission into wind)

If wind is taking your spark away from you, you must use stick movements always at 100% to counteract this movement . Tippy tapping on controls won’t help in Atti mode ALWAYS 100% on the sticks.

Always be on the lookout for nearest place to land safely, your Aircraft will respond to your stick movements, once you let up from sticks wind plus propulsion will push your Aircraft downwind very quickly. So be ready to keep pushing on sticks to counteract Atti movements.

A lot of people think it’s impossible but that’s just not true, many just let go of sticks and give up, when what they should be doing is constantly pushing on sticks watching how Aircraft reacts and trying not to panic.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is atti mode can’t be practiced outside in an open area.
The Spark really needs an operator selectable atti mode.

Hi DirkGerrit, first of all, there are few 'Flight Modes' for your Spark, which are: Standard, Sport, & ATTI (Attitude)

ATTI Mode is short for Attitude Mode (without GPS, i.e.: for indoor flight), where the drone will maintain a specific altitude but not position (as the position won´t be stabilised using GPS). That means the drone will remain at the same height but drift around in the wind. It also means that there is no auto-braking when you are flying, so the drone will continue moving in the direction you are flying until you push the stick in the opposite direction to brake.

From my experience, there are few scenarios that your Spark may suddenly switch to ATTI in the mid-flight:

• When you are indoor (obviously)
• If you do not wait for the GPS to be fully active (ie. not enough satellites found)
• Your drone entered to a place with magnetic interference
  

In my own opinion (if I'm wrong pls correct me), always 'playsafe' and do these before flying...

• Always calibrate your compass before flying at a new location
• Always wait for GPS to be fully active and detect as many satelites as possible (when it says "Ready to Go GPS")
• Always wait for Spark to save its 'home' position before start flying around, and use the 'RTH (Return to Home)' button to double check it able to initiate RTH correctly / automatically when it is out of control.
• Always slowly flying near you to check if there's any magnetic interference nearby before flying farther / higher
  

Anyway, I'm just a beginner in using my Spark, hopefully some other more experience users will add more input here. Thanks and have a fun flight

Add on... (What if your Spark changed to ATTI and you lost control to it?)

Previously I saw what "Mark The Droner" has explained in another thread, here's what he said about RTH when you lost control and your're in ATTI mode:
"We assume you have previously chosen RTH as fail safe.  

If you're in ATTI mode because you chose it, you STILL HAVE GPS.  But your AC (drone) will ignore it unless it needs to RTH.  If you lose control, it will happily fly home even while your controller is in ATTI.  If you regain the control signal, it will still continue home even if you're in ATTI.  You'd have to cancel RTH to make it stop coming home.  

If you're in ATTI mode because you lost your compass, you STILL HAVE GPS, but unfortunately, if you lose control signal, the AC doesn't know which direction to fly home even though it knows where it is and it knows where home is.  For example, it may know home is south, but it doesn't know where south is.  It may try to fly home though.  But it may fly in the wrong direction.  

If you're in ATTI mode because you lost GPS, you have no GPS.  No RTH."


So, if you still have control over your drone and it is in ATTI mode, you can try manually control it to a safe place and land it.

Hi, Dirk. I would recommend you fly your spark in a safe place as soon as possible. Please avoid fly in a place with weak GPS signal. If you fly indoor, please mount props guard. Here is some info in our manual for your reference.

A barn or warehouse would work. Something with a roof thick enough to block GPS signal. But then you don't get any wind to deal with. If you wanted outside conditions with wind to fight agaist then maybe between to large buildings would block enough GPS signal to fly in Atti mode.

Buy a Hubsan X4 mini quadcopter RTF - 2.4Ghz - V2 for practice (40 euro, 48 dollar)

JM-Drone Posted at 2018-1-2 18:26
Hi DirkGerrit, first of all, there are few 'Flight Modes' for your Spark, which are: Standard, Sport, & ATTI (Attitude)

ATTI Mode is short for Attitude Mode (without GPS, i.e.: for indoor flight), where the drone will maintain a specific altitude but not position (as the position won´t be stabilised using GPS). That means the drone will remain at the same height but drift around in the wind. It also means that there is no auto-braking when you are flying, so the drone will continue moving in the direction you are flying until you push the stick in the opposite direction to brake.

While I agree with most of what you say and it all makes perfect sense. Calibrating your compass is no necessary every time you move location. And your manual clearly tells you Not to calibrate unless you are prompted to do so and even then you should move Aircraft first.
I have just spent Xmas holidays 1500 miles from where I normally fly and I had no need to calibrate.

Calibration gives the compass the information it needs to determine which magnetic influences are part of the Spark and what is the earth's normal magnetic field.
The compass doesn't lose calibration and doesn't ever need re-calibration unless you add or remove equipment to/from the Spark

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-1-2 17:11
First unless you are in VLOS Atti can be extremely tough no impossible.

In VLOS .

This really answers my question, My first reaction in my case was to fly it as low as possible in stead of flying higher. I have a cheap drone so I will practice  with it  outside on a safe spot. I am not very experienced so what is Vlos?

Thank you all for the replies

DirkGerrit Posted at 2018-1-3 07:31
This really answers my question, My first reaction in my case was to fly it as low as possible in stead of flying higher. I have a cheap drone so I will practice  with it  outside on a safe spot. I am not very experienced so what is Vlos?

Thank you all for the replies

Guessing VLOS = Visual Line Of Sight.

BSIBrian Posted at 2018-1-3 08:54
Guessing VLOS = Visual Line Of Sight.

http://www.acuo.org.au/industry- ... how-do-we-see-them/

BSIBrian Posted at 2018-1-3 08:54
Guessing VLOS = Visual Line Of Sight.

Yep, LOS line of sight VLOS vision BVLOS beyond vision.

I have flown rc helicopters for 30 years and as large as they are  it's easy to get disoriented when you look away for a split second or get distracted and with the small size of the Spark it does not have to be to far from you before (if you are forced to fly it manually) you won't be able to see it well enough to tell what direction ti is going or if it is nose in to you reversing the controls. It doesn't take much distance for it to become a black silhouette This will usually end up in a crash with a helicopter. I'm new to drones but with my limited stick time with them I see how easy it could happen

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-1-3 06:32
While I agree with most of what you say and it all makes perfect sense. Calibrating your compass is no necessary every time you move location. And your manual clearly tells you Not to calibrate unless you are prompted to do so and even then you should move Aircraft first.
I have just spent Xmas holidays 1500 miles from where I normally fly and I had no need to calibrate.

Disagree.

This will depend on where you are in relation to magnetic North. In some places there are only small changes in declination over large distances. For example, if you went from your home in Ireland to say somewhere warmer like Spain or Italy for the holidays, you will have only a 4 or 5 degree difference in magnetic declination on your compass, which is negligible and likely wouldn't affect your flights.

However, if you go from where I live in BC Canada to say, Toronto or Ottawa, ON you could have up to a 30 degree difference in declination which would definitely affect your flights! In fact, my compass was off in the yellow out of the box ALWAYS no matter where I powered up the aircraft, but for some reason I was never prompted to calibrate the compass, and my aircraft would not fly straight as a result. I then calibrated anyway after realizing the consistency of the problem and the aircraft now behaves as it should, flying straight and true, with compass interference registering as a tiny sliver of green in the readout.

So I think there are instances where you should calibrate even if not asked. I will definitely be calibrating again when I go from my home at 16deg East declination to Hokkaido, Japan at 9-10deg West declination, (~25deg difference) and then again when I return home.

Declination map if you're curious:
https://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/historical_declination/

I have spent some time researching this also and watching quite a few videos. All it can do in ATTI mode according to the manual is "only use its barometer for positioning to control altitude" - Atti mode does not initialise landing or RTH. But in ATTI you still have control, but now the drone can not hover in place or stabilise itself on the horizontal plane without input.
Usually, in P-Mode, the drone hovers in place without any input from the controller, it manages this by utilising GPS positioning and it "controls itself" - it is constantly adjusting the motors etc to just keep in one place. In ATTI mode you would need to make these subtle inputs yourself to just keep it in one place. Outside factors, the wind being the major one, are constantly trying to move the drone from its position - so constant input is required to keep it just sitting in one place.
Now when you remove the GPS and it enters ATTI mode, if no input is applied from the controller it will maintain its height but move on the wind very easily. So ATTI mode on a windy day makes the situation worse. So in your scenario it stayed at what height you had it and moved with the wind, unless you controlled it otherwise, and it would have done so until low battery kicked in and caused to auto land, or until it hit something that brought it down.

Auto Land is not activated in ATTI because you could be over water or something else you don't want to land in or on. RTH is not activated because it cannot know where home is.
And the drone is controllable in ATTI mode, it is not a complete runaway. It just means when you release the controls to a neutral position it will not hover in place like it does in P-Mode, in ATTI it will require your complete attention to keep it under control.
Worst case senario is loss of GPS and controller at the same time. Now its just going to maintain its height and go wherever the wind blows it and nothing you can do. From what I have read most people panic and point the antenna at the drone trying to re-establish connection. Wrong move. Antenna need to be perpendicular to the drone. And then try and get a clear line of sight to drone without any power lines or metal based structures inbetween.
I just ordered one of these to help if the same happens to me:
Loc8tor

ATTI mode isn't as bad as some folks make it out to be. I bought my Spark specifically to fly indoors when the weather is bad or I just don't feel like going outside. I'd guess 95% of the flights with my Spark are indoors, mostly in ATTI mode. Just fly low and slow and don't freak out. When you panic, you're prone to make stupid mistakes.

Firehawk989 Posted at 2018-1-3 10:04
Disagree.

This will depend on where you are in relation to magnetic North. In some places there are only small changes in declination over large distances. For example, if you went from your home in Ireland to say somewhere warmer like Spain or Italy for the holidays, you will have only a 4 or 5 degree difference in magnetic declination on your compass, which is negligible and likely wouldn't affect your flights.

I fully understand declination and your compass will or should give you warning , you should always be aware or the positioning of your compass,
One thing keeps coming up here in most crashes is the amount of people calibrating compass just before crashing.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-1-3 10:17
I fully understand declination and your compass will or should give you warning , you should always be aware or the positioning of your compass,
One thing keeps coming up here in most crashes is the amount of people calibrating compass just before crashing.

Yep, agree it's critical to do the calibration in an interference-free area if you're going to do it.

People do need to think about why they might be getting the prompt to calibrate when/if they do, as a lot of the time it could be caused by local interference which would then produce the "fly away/crash" scenarios we see so much of here.

The big problem is that most people aren't aware of these factors I suppose.