Calibration

[teelions]

How often does the compass need to be calibrated?

I'm a new pilot. I've flown my P4P only about four times. Flights have taken off in different locations around an area of about 10 square miles. But Go4 app has never requested a compass calibration; not even the first time.

I'm just scared that my bird won't find its way home some day.

 

[msinger]

It rarely needs to be calibrated. Check out the Phantom Compass Calibration Guide for more details.

 

[macoman]

I calibrated my Phantom standard almost a year ago and not need it anymore. Unless you traveled hundreds of miles away. The compass generally don't need to be calibrated again.

 

[RunningWithScissors]

To respectfully add to what msinger and macoman said above, as long as the compass is initially calibrated far enough away from any ferrous metallic objects/ sources so as to provide a proper calibration, you should not have to calibrate the compass again, unless circumstances change and you are then prompted to recalibrate. The wording in bold above is important to remember. There have been some incidents reported by ops where calibrating prior to every flight may have actually caused some flight issues.

 

[N017RW]

It seems many of the myths are dying out. However there is no correlation to distance. There is no specific distance known to trigger a recal.

Simply evaluate flight stability or follow app warnings.

 

[Meta4]

How often does the compass need to be calibrated?
I'm a new pilot. I've flown my P4P only about four times. Flights have taken off in different locations around an area of about 10 square miles. But Go4 app has never requested a compass calibration; not even the first time.
I'm just scared that my bird won't find its way home some day.

Under normal circumstances, there should never be any need to calibrate your Phantom's compass.
If it flies straight and hovers in place without slowly rotating, everything is fine and there's nothing to gain by recalibrating the compass.