As I get more and more comfortable with my Phantom 2 and flying it 700+ feet from me, I'm starting to rely on the round radar function on the flight app to check the bird's orientation in flight.  Yesterday I decided to try and fly it over some water and get some nice shots of the ice breaking up and I noticed in flight that the orientation icon (the red triangle) was off by about 45+ degrees.  It was also colder than I thought with no sun so I called it a day early and flew it back in and went home.  Would the strange orientation of the direction icon simply be from a bad compass calibration?  I went through the usual steps and everything seemed OK aside from the orientation being wrong on the app.

I'll be flying this weekend for sure, so I'll be sure to doublecheck and be certain it was a one-off.  Flying it like that is a surefire disaster in the making.

I had a similar issue last time I flew, what I did when I got home was to uninstall the vision app and re-install it, problem solved.

Okay, I just verified this outside.  When you first set up the Phantom and achieve compass cal and home lock all the good stuff and are standing there ready to take off, chances are you are behind the quad so the radar points ahead as it should.  If you do not take off and while standing there YOU rotate 90 degrees while watching the radar, you will see the arrow rotate as well.  If you go back to facing the same as your quad, it will be facing front again.  If you then pick up your quad and hold it facing front and again rotate 90 degrees, you will see the radar slightly move, but if you put your bird down, now it will be, you will be, and the radar will be 90 degrees from where you started, but all pointing forward.

Were you standing 'forward' in relation to the set home position when you checked?  I tend to move around when I fly and not always facing front in relation to the set home position.  If you want to know the true orientation of your bird by using the radar, YOU must be facing the FRONT in relation to the set home location.

Couple of things

on android download an app for calibrating internal compass

turn the quad off and the TX and the RE and then your phone, then turn it all back on again

It does actually clear, itself as i have found out once before

OK thanks guys, I'll play around with this on Saturday but it makes sense.

just as an example,
when i flew tonight, i raised my Phantom straight above me (or nearly straight above),
anyhow, as i set its orientation roughly to the north, i snapped a pic on my phone, then i physically turned 90 degrees to the east, snapped another pict, then 90 degrees to the south and snapped another pict,  again to the west, etc...see the picts attached, i did not touch the Phantoms orientation, just my physical movements!
what you will find is that if you change your physical orientation the screen/radar will change accordingly...ie. if the Phantom is heading straight towards you (arrow towards you) and you physically turn 180 degrees before it gets to you then it is still coming towards you but from behind you...instead of in front of you..and if it is coming towards you and you do not move and it passes you overhead it will then be going away from you/behind you and if your turn at that moment it will still be going away from you but in front of you....you really need to play with it to understand it better...I love the radar, it is how i fly most times when more than a few hundred feet away....

WOW!  way to confuse us!  Here I thought I knew how that radar pointer worked and find out I am all wet!  My next flights will be to study it and try to learn what has been taught here!  WOW!  THANKS!!!

Has it ever worked on your phone properly?
Im asking because I had this problem when I was trying to find a tablet to use with the app and it was the tablet.
you can read my post here.

SURE WOULD BE NICE IF DJI FIXED THIS FORUM SITE SO CHROME BROWSER WORKED!  CANT SIGN IN AND THEN POST! grrr!!!

I wanted to post a comment after trying this rotate your phone while not rotating drone since it seems so confusing:  I think the reason is that different apps make the radar screen operator totally differently!

On dji app, sure enough, I rotate myself and pointer keeps pointing to drone.

On Ultimate Flight, my daily app, it does not;  rather on UF it shows absolute "H" for home position and I can do anything I want, point any direction I want, and I still see on my display true north, drone, and home.  No ambiguity.  I like this MUCH better.  But that is just a personal opinion.

What I REALLY would like to know, is HOW does the dji app know MY orientation??  I ASSumed by phone's GPS, so turned it off;  same thing.  it knows how I am oriented!  I put RC controller on workbench and moved around, it STILL knew my orientation.  HOW?

Your phone will probably have its own compass.  Mine does.
And yes, dji need to fix the chrome issue, I can't login at work!

yorlik Posted at 2015-4-10 04:55
SURE WOULD BE NICE IF DJI FIXED THIS FORUM SITE SO CHROME BROWSER WORKED!  CANT SIGN IN AND THEN POS ...

Chrome works but seems the cookies get corrupted sometimes.  Goto chrome://settings/cookies search for  " Dji"  and remove all forum.dji.com related cookies and then try again.

still nfg  (:

yorlik Posted at 2015-4-9 15:16
still nfg  (:

Just installed UF update 3.01 yesterday, flew fine.
Today I tried flying the same place with the same waypoints.
It goes up to altitude, turns 90 degrees clockwise from the waypoint and takes goes that direction.
Calibrated the compass, tried again. Same Thing.
No matter what I try it goes the wrong heading.
Any ideas on what do?
The waypoint file has not changed.

jerryjonz Posted at 2016-4-3 17:46
Just installed UF update 3.01 yesterday, flew fine.
Today I tried flying the same place with the s ...

Forgot that after it failed I uninstalled UF and reinstalled it.

It seems that it does not go 90 degrees from original, it goes to 126 degree heading every time.
Last time I tested it it crashed into the garage and thrashed itself.
May not fly again for awhile.
Would still like to hear ideas on why it is doing this.

jerryjonz Posted at 2016-4-4 11:24
It seems that it does not go 90 degrees from original, it goes to 126 degree heading every time.
Las ...

I'm surprised no-one in the thread has suggested that your phone compass needs calibration.
Google will find instructions for you.

I agree fully with what labroides has said. Whenever I find that the radar icon is incorrect (this happens occasionally), I quit the Go App and recalibrate the tablet's compass. This has always worked for me.
Have fun & good flying!

Thanks all, I will give that a try.
Calibrated the Phantom 3 compass and thought that would do it.