Auto Take Off and Landing

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Is Auto Takeoff and Auto Landing used by many fliers or is it more of a gimmick? This is my first quad and I have found takeoffs very easy. On one of my first flights, I tried auto takeoff and it actually flipped over on it's side, righted itself, then took off! Because of that, I haven't tried the auto land. I have seen some YouTube vids where the auto landing looks a little rough.
 
Is Auto Takeoff and Auto Landing used by many fliers or is it more of a gimmick? This is my first quad and I have found takeoffs very easy. On one of my first flights, I tried auto takeoff and it actually flipped over on it's side, righted itself, then took off! Because of that, I haven't tried the auto land. I have seen some YouTube vids where the auto landing looks a little rough.
Take off and land manually and rely on automatic in the case of undefined emergencies. When you take off manually, you can input a tad of forward to move the P3 up and away from the starting point, since we all tend to arm the copter very close to our standing position. Take off this way--moving the copter away from your position-- go to about 10 ft. and let it hover about 30 seconds to check the GPS lock.
 
Auto landing is not so good as manual landing. Just use your left stick to up and down. Do not touch right stick at that moments untill you couple meters away.
 
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I like the auto take off.. Let it hover while I check it and the stats up before I fly away. I never use auto land.. I either catch it in air or Rth.. does the same thing only better.
 
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I auto-take off and land manually, usually catch it.

Same. It took me a few tries to get comfortable with hand-catching but I'm with it now.
 
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Auto takeoff is good if you want to start videoing immediately before starting the motors, as the camera doesn't jolt like when you perform a CSC to start it.

I tried RTH landing once on a road and the landing was rough as guts...bouncing a couple of times. Won't be doing that again anytime soon. I had VPS turned off so not sure if that would have made the landing smoother.

I'll always manual land or catch it where possible now.
 
From reading some of the other threads, it seems that the new firmware version broke the VPS, hence the rough RTH and some auto-land landings. Better to land manually, as these posts mention, until the next firmware version is shown to have fixed it.
 
auto anything is high risk, never do it, never hover near the ground, altitude it your friend, and NEVER land, hand catch 100%
 
auto anything is high risk, never do it, never hover near the ground, altitude it your friend, and NEVER land, hand catch 100%
Interesting perspective. I, personally, like the auto-takeoff feature, to let it get to three feet, then move it up to 20 (or so) for a few seconds to stabilize the GPS. And I've always had smooth landings. As I beginner, I'd bring the P3 down to 3 feet and auto-land it. Now I have lots of smoooooooth manual landings! :)
 
I always launch straight up to 10-15m, when your so close to the ground you do not have time to correct if an issue occurs, GPS is stable when its ready to fly
 
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I use auto takeoff a lot, with some assisted throttle to gain more height right away, the hover. I have used auto landing a couple of times, but I don't trust it. I've never had a problem, but I still don't trust it, especially in any kind of breeze (when I hand catch anyway). I do a lot of filming video at a few feet above the ground, tall grass, or water and have never had an issue. But I'm still running 1.1.9, and turn off VPS while over water.
 
In the past I would use auto take off / landing only during demos when friends wanted to check out the P3. Since the VPS issues were introduced with the last firmware update, the auto functions are not stable at all. Especially now that the auto landing descent is so fast all the way to the ground. Now I never use either, even when demonstrating. Once VPS is fixed and we can turn it on again, I may try the auto functions again to show people how they work. Many people seem afraid to land, so showing the previously super smooth auto landings was great when it worked.

Still, even with all of the well documented issues introduced by DJI in the FW or the app, people are normally amazed with the P3, and almost all say they want one.
 
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Be careful with auto landing.
I was hovering 3 feet over the beach where the waves crash and because of the ocean noise I could not hear that the pilot app was beeping that auto landing has initiated because my battery was at 10% and the phantom 3 auto landed in the water before I could react. So make sure you cancel any form of auto landing and rely on your reasoning.
 
Take off manually and hand catch. Sometimes try to land on small target such as bench for practice. Like auto take off/landing of real airplane, human operator does better in usual condition, and that's exercise for emergency situation.

BTW I was surprised so many guys does hand catch... I guess DJI investigated VPS for safe auto landing, but next model should have hand (human) sensor & handhold grips. :)
 

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