Flying Indoors

[samuelalexmclean]

Hi guys,

I live in the middle of a large city and am just starting out with my Phantom 2. While I'm learning to control the thing, I want to stay away from people (this stems from my first introduction to DJI, where I subdued a rogue, pilot-less P2 at the cost of one of my fingernails and a very sore thumb).

I've managed to sneak away to a very empty park, where controlling the unit was incredibly easy - wind notwithstanding, you could let go of the controller and it would more or less maintain position. My two attempts to fly it indoors - once in my apartment, once deep underground in the parking garage - have been much more problematic; it has a real tendency to strafe or rapidly pitch forward / back at a pretty brisk pace. If you were very skilled you could probably correct for this, but it's orders of magnitude harder than flying in a field.

I suspect this is to do with the compass, which I have attempted to re-calibrate many times. I only got results in the park - it won't even enter calibration mode indoors (I think this is because it thinks its current calibration is fine). Is so much of the stability of a hover dependent on being in a large, open space with GPS support? Or is there some setting I can tweak / flight tip to get stable flight indoors? I've had much less sophisticated RC quads that performed okay indoors - I wonder if they were maintaining level flight with a mercury switch or something less prone to outside interference?

Appreciate any ideas / suggestions!

 

[noiseboy72]

This is down to no GPS indoors. You are basically flying in Atti mode, which means that the quad will stay level and try to hold a stable height, but will drift around.It may occasionally get a GPS lock, and this can cause unpredictable movement, so run in Atti mode to disable GPS altogether and see if this helps.

The P3 and Inspire have more sensors, which enable them to fly well indoors, but the P2 is designed for outdoor flying really.

Best bet would be to buy a $40 mini quad without GPS and use this to learn how to fly. The skills translate well to the P2 .

 

[IflyinWY]

Yep, what noiseboy72 said and:

Welcome to the forum.

First of all, your compass calibrations should be done only in the park, away from any source of interference. That "more or less" thing you are referring to may indicate that an Advanced IMU Calibration is in order. Good luck staying away from interference for that one, but do your best to try. Click the link in my signature for more info.

Secondly, don't fly over water or people till you get the bugs worked out and DO take video so we can watch your adventures into the sky.

Mercury switch, we hope not.

Here's a good way to search within our forum:
https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=014775389315664725445:ejku2ysgyhi

Enjoy

 

[landmannnn]

The phantom isn't really an indoors machine. If you think about it, the phantom will fly at 25mph in any direction (except down) so unless your rooms are huge you will meet the walls or ceilings very quickly.
It is much easier to fly and far more fun if you can find some open space.

 

[Mako79]

The phantom isn't really an indoors machine. If you think about it, the phantom will fly at 25mph in any direction (except down) so unless your rooms are huge you will meet the walls or ceilings very quickly.
It is much easier to fly and far more fun if you can find some open space.

+1
Understand what vortex does to a rotor before flying indoors. If you fly near ceilings, the phantom can suck up into the ceiling. If flying near walls, the vortex can cause the rotors near the wall to dip and result in a crash real quick. And finally, turn off height RTH and make sure you always leave it in ATTI mode. If you for some reason lose transmission, the RTH failsafe will kick in and it will fly up the default 20m and home if you have any props left.