Cannot configure Flight Mode 6

ArduPlane Plane 3.7
1

Hi,

I have experience with ArduCopter and am now configuring airplane with ArduPlane. My setup includes the latest Emlid Pi/Navio2, ArduPlane 3.7.1 and Mission Planner 1.3.48.

In my Flight Modes setup page Flight Mode 6 is greyed out and not configurable.

flight-modes-5.JPG743×337 55.2 KB

Why is that?

Thanks,

Paul

2

I believe this is working as intended.
The idea is that you should have manual control if the autopilot gets confused for any reason.
You also need to fly in manual before you’ve been able to autotune or if autotune has failed to do the right thing (if it does, you’ll be very happy to have manual).
If I may, you don’t need circle if you have loiter, and I recommend you have FBWA in there, although maybe you’ll be happy enough with stabilize.
Also, you may end up preferring CRUISE to FBWB, read the docs to see whether that’s true for you, or not.

3

Thanks marcmerlin,

Ah, I understand now - the Manual mode remains hard-coded in the sixth slot to ensure that flyers have it available.

I only have a three-position switch available so I’ll just pick three modes like Manual, Stabilize and RTL until I get the machine tuned. It’s all on the bench right now.

Thanks for your tips on FBWA, Cruise and other flight modes, I’m reading up now.

Be well,

Paul

4

You can force flight mode 6 writing the wanted flight mode in the full parameters list but BEWARE , if you then change any other mode after, Mission Planner will set again flight mode 6 to “manual”, I crashed because of this.

5

@flyingw If you have a taranis, you can get a 6 position rotary switch just for ardupilot, it’s awesome :slight_smile:
If you don’t have a taranis, consider one next time, the basic one can be had for $200 or less, and the modules as well as the controller, are absolutely awesome and meant for ardupilot (you can even with a bit of hacking send mavlink data back and display it directly in the remote).
But for now, with switches, some remotes allow you to configure switches so that 2 switches together give you 6 positions.
You can also use a 3 position switch that gives 3 middle values, and have a 3 position switch (left in the middle) that can override the output value of that channel to MAX (manual) or MIN (RTL)
Good luck programming your remote, it’s a bit of a pain, but it’s worth it :slight_smile:

6

marcmelin - Thanks for the cool ideas regarding using two switches to get six states. There’s even a knob I may bring into play to help.

lucamax - Thanks for the tip about setting or should I say, not setting the flight mode in the parameters. list.

Paul