Hello.
In the ArduPlane documention on Failsafe options, for the long failsafe, one of the possible actions listed is GLIDE. Searching this forum documentation on what that action actually does, it seems it sets the flight mode to FBWA. Can anyone provide any other details? IE: Do the motors stop and the plane just maintains level flight until it contacts the ground? Will it try to maintain AIRSPEED_MIN (using elevator)? Would there be a way to deploy flaps on a long failsafe as well?
Thanks for any info you can provide.
Just doing some testing on the ground, it appears what I guessed above is at least partially correct. I also figured out a lua script to drop the flaps in FS. Just need to do a little flight testing to determine the optimum flap setting for a power-off glide and to see whether a nice shallow descent is maintained by FBWA or not.
For what it’s worth, my Nano Goblin running ArduPilot will maintain a nice power-off glide in FBWA, including doing turning maneuvers, without an airspeed sensor.
So if you’ve got an airspeed sensor and TECS configured it should be able to give an even better power-off glide.
Thanks for the reply Chris.
I did some flight testing on the weekend and all worked as planned. I do use an airspeed sensor. I found that approx. 1/2 flaps gave the lowest vertical descent speed while FBWA kept the attitude stable and TECS kept the airspeed right around AIRSPEED_MIN with a fairly steady descent rate…even in some gusting wind. I’ll probably do a little more testing to see if I can further optimize the glide when it’s calm outside.