Flight time display

Ground Control Software QGroundControl
1

Hi,

I noticed that the flight time value in the widget is not reliable (to me).
In QGC 3.5.3 for Android the flight time is lost if we disconnect / reconnect the telemetry link.
It seems that the value is extrapolated from the last TAKEOFF or ARM event seen by QGC, not from the Ardupilot.

I’ve seen that there is a mavlink packet where we can request the takeoff timestamp from the autopilot but it is not recommended for use in stable releases :
https://mavlink.io/en/messages/common.html#FLIGHT_INFORMATION

Is there another way to have more reliable flight time ?

Thanks

2

As far as I know there isn’t a way to get flight time from the vehicle itself. QGC creates a filght time all on the ground station side. Which in turn means it’s going to be somewhat flaky as you’ve discovered.

3

Thanks for the answer
I guess the FLIGHT_INFORMATION packet might be used in a near future to retrieve the real flight time