P3 Pro Atti Mode

Gregg Smith · Jul 9, 2015

This is my first Quad and I've been enjoying the heck out of it. I had a 500 series Heli in the past and really enjoy the stability of the P3 in GPS mode. I haven't ventured into the other modes of the P3. Can anyone provide a sense of how stable the P3 is in other modes like ATTI mode? And are the benefits to using ATTI mode like extended battery life?

Does anyone have any good YouTube videos showing how the P3 acts in the different modes? If there isn't one, maybe that would be a good one to create.

Thanks for helping out a newbie to quads.

Jacob · Jul 9, 2015

Gregg,

I can't speak for the P3, but on the P2, the Atti. mode has 2 real advantages. Firstly, it uses no GPS, so when flying indoors, such as in a Gym, with no GPS reception, keeping it in GPS mode could cause the Phantom to drift more than in Atti. mode where you have all control. Secondly, in Atti. mode, the Phantom will fly about 10-15 mph faster.

I rarely use atti, but when i'm in the park flying, I will switch to it for a few minutes to remind myself how to fly with it incase I am ever in a situation where its needed.

Gregg Smith · Jul 9, 2015

Thanks. Doing a little more digging on the Internet I found that leveraging ATTI and the P3's optical flow sensor will help stabilize it when flying indoors. A good reminder that someone pointed out was to change the setting for it to Land instead of RTH if signal is lost so that it doesn't try to fly through the ceiling.

AHill · Jul 9, 2015

It is stable in ATTI mode but it will drift with the wind and if you let go of the stick when moving it will continue to coast in the direction it was moving until you stop it with the control.

Take off in GPS mode in an open area and when you have some altitude (20-30 ft.?) switch it to ATTI mode. Be ready to switch it back to GPS mode if you feel it getting away from you. It is not much harder than GPS mode and you will build your confidence in ATTI so if you have a problem in GPS mode you will have the ability to go to ATTI if needed.

No noticeable difference in battery life.

dlbyers · Jul 9, 2015

When in ATTI, how instantaneous is the switch back to GPS mode? Is it immediate or is there a delay before it begins to compensate for wind, etc?

wotblake · Jul 9, 2015

I've switched to ATTI mode use the flight simulator but not in real life yet. Does the simulator do a good job of simulating ATTI mode?

Seems like ATTI mode would be useful if you unexpectedly encounter high winds and need more power to fly it back.

F6Rider · Jul 9, 2015

It is pretty fast, couple of seconds, PLEASE practice flying in ATTI in an open field with light winds, you NEED this practice because the P3 will switch to ATTI automatically when GPS lock drops to less than 8 satellites. And if you haven't had any practice in this mode the chance of a crash is high, because it mostly happens when you are close to the ground with less time to react.

CallMeAlan · Jul 9, 2015

dlbyers said:
When in ATTI, how instantaneous is the switch back to GPS mode? Is it immediate or is there a delay before it begins to compensate for wind, etc?

Immediate. I was using ATTI a few days ago to try to break my max speed and flipped it back to GPS at the end of the run and it just stopped straight away.

dlbyers · Jul 9, 2015

F6Rider said:
It is pretty fast, couple of seconds, PLEASE practice flying in ATTI in an open field with light winds, you NEED this practice because the P3 will switch to ATTI automatically when GPS lock drops to less than 8 satellites. And if you haven't had any practice in this mode the chance of a crash is high, because it mostly happens when you are close to the ground with less time to react.

Thank you F6Rider. Hadn't thought about it that way but it makes a ton of sense to me. I've been regarding ATTI as 'experts only mode', but now I see that is the wrong way to look at it.

I'm only 1 week/12 flights in, and I've had it go into ATTI once just after take off--the sudden drifting freaked me out & I landed immediately. I am adding ATTI to my long list of things to practice.

snowghost · Jul 9, 2015

Jacob said:
Gregg,

I can't speak for the P3, but on the P2, the Atti. mode has 2 real advantages. Firstly, it uses no GPS, so when flying indoors, such as in a Gym, with no GPS reception, keeping it in GPS mode could cause the Phantom to drift more than in Atti. mode where you have all control. Secondly, in Atti. mode, the Phantom will fly about 10-15 mph faster.

I rarely use atti, but when i'm in the park flying, I will switch to it for a few minutes to remind myself how to fly with it incase I am ever in a situation where its needed.

Although the P3 manual says that VPS is turned off in Atti, Mode so you'd want to be in P Mode indoors.

Gregg Smith · Jul 9, 2015

snowghost said:
Although the P3 manual says that VPS is turned off in Atti, Mode so you'd want to be in P Mode indoors.

Thanks. I haven't gotten up the nerve or found a large enough space yet to try indoors. I saw a video of someone flying in their basement with no hands on the controller, but I haven't risked that as of yet.

Gregg Smith · Jul 9, 2015

Thanks for the advice and input. As dlbyers said, I'll be adding this to the list of things to practice so I don't find myself in trouble.

domdoha · Jul 9, 2015

Flying in Atti makes your video smooter especially if you are taking a moving object. And I think flying time may decrease by a few minutes.

snowghost · Jul 9, 2015

Gregg Smith said:
Thanks. I haven't gotten up the nerve or found a large enough space yet to try indoors. I saw a video of someone flying in their basement with no hands on the controller, but I haven't risked that as of yet.

I did it in my small living room and videoed the event for posterity. I shan't repeat that feat though. However I would trust a larger more open indoor area.

Gregg Smith · Jul 9, 2015

snowghost said:
I did it in my small living room and videoed the event for posterity. I shan't repeat that feat though. However I would trust a larger more open indoor area.

Well... now you have to share.

Was is it a safe flight or was there some carnage involved? Lamps broken, dog freaked out, curtains shredded....

snowghost · Jul 9, 2015

Gregg Smith said:
Well... now you have to share. Was is it a safe flight or was there some carnage involved? Lamps broken, dog freaked out, curtains shredded....

My little Border Collie doesn't like even the toy drones, so she was far from the event. It was rock stable, and I even used auto takeoff so as to not chance going too aggressively high and getting sucked to the ceiling.

Daniel Voyer · Jul 9, 2015

I'm a bit confused on how the manual explains the flight modes. F A P... Then, opti and atti in the P mode. Is there other switches I'm not aware of? Hope someone can explain well and clear.

Gregg Smith · Jul 10, 2015

Well I did it. Took off the training wheels and flipped the switch. As noted, no big deal. It behaved flawlessly and the only thing I found was that I had to apply a little more input due to GPS not holding it's course or position in a hover. Otherwise landing it wasn't a problem, taking it off in ATTI mode wasn't a problem either. I even got to try out IOC. Wow that rocked. I can see where that can be handy when filming something from the side and you don't want to worry about the controls.

If you haven't done it yet, go ahead and try it out in a large open area so that you can get the feel for it. Nothing to be scared about. It won't be unstable and completely up to you to fly it and maintain proper flight. It's very stable.

Daniel Voyer · Jul 10, 2015

Thanks a lot for the precious tip. Just to be sure... you flip the small toggle switch on the RC to A-mode... right? Oh, by the way... what's IOC?

Gregg Smith · Jul 10, 2015

Yes the toggle switch. IOC (Intelligent Orientation Control) is a Course lock mechanism. As an example if the P3 is facing away from me and I turn it to the right and flip the toggle to IOC mode. When I push the stick forward, instead of it flying off to the right because that's the way it's facing, it will fly away from me instead whilst maintaining the same orientation of facing to the right. This makes the quad operate relatively to the way it was facing when you turned it on. Here's a good tutorial on IOC. Older model but operates the same way.
#5 DJI Phantom Tutorial - IOC Course Lock (CL) explained and demonstrated