Struggling to be Confident with my Inspire

Simon Torkington · Mar 10, 2015

Hi all,

I'm not a newbie to this. I have more than 100 flights in all, first with my original Phantom 1 then a massive upgrade to an Aeronavics Skyjib heavy lift Octo. The Skyjib is a joy to fly.

I have now done 10 flights with the Inspire and I'm struggling to gain confidence to really cut loose with it. The main reason is that it keeps doing that thing where it flips into atti mode without warning. I can fly in atti mode and often prefer to. I just don't like it when the flight characteristics suddenly change without any input from me. It happened this morning when I was doing a close pass with some trees. It was a bit of a moment. There was no impact but it was a close call.

Next week I am planning a tour of Britain to shoot my demo reel. I'm thinking lighthouses, dramatic coastlines, surfers, wind farms and a couple of flights under high bridges.

I'm not sure I'm going to hold my nerve if I can't be close to 100% sure this thing is going to go where I tell it to.

Anyone else turning into a bag of nerves flying the Inspire?

pops52 · Mar 10, 2015

I'm patiently waiting for the FW update that hopefully will correct the bailout to ATTI. Thankfully (for me) as a newbie, I don't have any pressing matters. So I sit and get some stick time on the simulator. I have empathy for those that have priorities that force them to fly with this bug.

turbodronepilot · Mar 10, 2015

Simon Torkington said:
Hi all,

I'm not a newbie to this. I have more than 100 flights in all, first with my original Phantom 1 then a massive upgrade to an Aeronavics Skyjib heavy lift Octo. The Skyjib is a joy to fly.

I have now done 10 flights with the Inspire and I'm struggling to gain confidence to really cut loose with it. The main reason is that it keeps doing that thing where it flips into atti mode without warning. I can fly in atti mode and often prefer to. I just don't like it when the flight characteristics suddenly change without any input from me. It happened this morning when I was doing a close pass with some trees. It was a bit of a moment. There was no impact but it was a close call.

Next week I am planning a tour of Britain to shoot my demo reel. I'm thinking lighthouses, dramatic coastlines, surfers, wind farms and a couple of flights under high bridges.

I'm not sure I'm going to hold my nerve if I can't be close to 100% sure this thing is going to go where I tell it to.

Anyone else turning into a bag of nerves flying the Inspire?

Hi Simon..
Id say as long as you don't go too close to an object while you're in gps mode you will be all good..
give yourself a margin for error. .
don't put yourself in a position where if you do have the jump from gps to atti that it causes you to crash. .
Seems like you have the experience to fly in atti mode ,but I don't know what your photo shoot requirements are ..
I think its easier to fly in gps mode especially if that's how you learned. .
Good luck on your shoot..
turbo. .

andisblue · Mar 10, 2015

Was teaching my daughter how to fly and it did this . "Where is it going?" It just blows away. How could something like that get overlooked?

Mazz · Mar 10, 2015

I think my first 5-10 flights were pretty nerve racking. After hearing all of the horror stories and watching all of the videos I actually parked mine for a few days. Once I got my wits about me I just started putting hours on it. After a few more batteries I started feeling pretty good and now I fly it like I did my phantoms.

andisblue said:
Was teaching my daughter how to fly and it did this . "Where is it going?" It just blows away. How could something like that get overlooked?

Did you experience a fly away? Is it gone?

flyingclint · Mar 10, 2015

Mazz said:
I think my first 5-10 flights were pretty nerve racking. After hearing all of the horror stories and watching all of the videos I actually parked mine for a few days. Once I got my wits about me I just started putting hours on it. After a few more batteries I started feeling pretty good and now I fly it like I did my phantoms.

Did you experience a fly away? Is it gone?

Yeah! What happened???

GenesisKnight · Mar 10, 2015

I've taken mine around warehouse yards, out over bodies of water, around big monolithic rocks, and around river basins...I've really put my craft through it's paces...even doing sudden turns at full speed...she handle's like a dream.
I did have a nerve racking experience when I had it inside the warehouse, in ATTI, and took it down an aisle maybe 5 feet wide...slow and steady with no issues.
Maybe I'm just among the lucky group that got a rock solid machine?

Simon Torkington · Mar 10, 2015

I did another flight at a wind farm this afternoon. After initial TBE it flew very steady. Then I got an MC data fault warning...just going to check what the hell that is!

Kilrah · Mar 10, 2015

It's been said on another forum that this meant the log recorder onboard the I1 is full. Power cycle and it will make room again. You can continue flying, only downside is if you have an issue until the next landing there won't be any logs to analyze.

Mazz · Mar 10, 2015

Kilrah said:
It's been said on another forum that this meant the log recorder onboard the I1 is full. Power cycle and it will make room again. You can continue flying, only downside is if you have an issue until the next landing there won't be any logs to analyze.

What!?! This is a real thing? That is crazy programming if it does not go back and write over the oldest logs.

Kilrah · Mar 10, 2015

That's exactly what I said in answer to that info. Apparently it only makes room at power up, they didn't want to erase anything during flight. And as it never knows how long it will be powered on for, it sometimes doesn't make enough room for the session that it's going to have.
I suggested a change to a real circular buffer that deletes the oldest file anytime it is needed.

InspiredOne · Mar 10, 2015

Kilrah, can the Inspire be connected to one's computer and the past logs cleared to make room for new info?

Kilrah · Mar 10, 2015

I highly doubt you're supposed to mess with that. Best to let the thing do its thing the way it wants to even if it's not optimal.

You can connect to the PC and see/copy the files, I didn't try to delete one to see if the drive appeared as read-only or not.

Simon Torkington · Mar 10, 2015

Thanks for all your help and comments. I really do like the Inspire 1. It will be a great tool when all these bugs are sorted.

andisblue · Mar 15, 2015

Mazz said:
I think my first 5-10 flights were pretty nerve racking. After hearing all of the horror stories and watching all of the videos I actually parked mine for a few days. Once I got my wits about me I just started putting hours on it. After a few more batteries I started feeling pretty good and now I fly it like I did my phantoms.

Did you experience a fly away? Is it gone?

No, it was fully controllable. It switched in to ATTI unexpectedly, like many have posted before. Because of the wind, it appears to just float away (which is scary when there's hazard around). I have also seen the toilet bowl effect, which is just weird. Once I have seen the harmonic oscillation problem, but giving it a quick burst of thrust fixes it.