I have now equipped 3 of my TRex helis with Arducopter, and one of my clubmates is asking if I could do it for his Goblin 390. My flight style is only ‘scale’ or ‘right way up’ but he’s interested in going inverted, though he hasn’t progressed far enough yet to even attempt it.
Anyway, I’ve been reading the wiki to see if I’ll be able to satisfy his wish, and am confused about the bit that seems to say that some controls will be 180 degrees off when inverted, and/or the transmitter controls should be reversed. Can someone explain please?
@abenn1 can you provide a link to the section of the wiki where you read this.
Does he want to use ardupilot as a rescue feature so if he gets in trouble it will save the aircraft or does he want to use the inverted feature of ardupilot that lets you fly inverted but the controls stay earth referenced, meaning pushing up on the collective still makes the aircraft move away from the ground.
The inverted feature is currently disabled for heli’s and I haven’t had a chance to fix it yet.
Thanks Bill. Here’s the page where I read it. From you subsequent paragraph here I now realise that it talking about the controls being ‘earth referenced’.
I’m pretty sure that what he would want is to fly inverted normally (i.e. hold some ‘down’ stick to maintain a hover or to climb while inverted) and only use Ardupilot as a rescue feature. Presumably ANGLE_MAX is set to 180 to permit inverted, or simply not use Stabilize mode?
Yes this is the inverted feature and is only fully implemented in plane. Like I said in my previous post, it has been disabled for heli because the transition to inverted flight could cause a crash as it doesn’t compensate for altitude loss in the flip.
You don’t want to change ANGLE_MAX as you stated above. That is a bad idea. the pilot should fly the acrobatics in Acro flight mode and use stabilize as the rescue flight mode. But it wouldn’t compensate for altitude loss. So be sure to conduct the acrobatics pretty high so as to allow time to recover. @Ferrosan might have some better advice.
Thanks Bill, that’s all I need to know for now. I fully understand the bit about needing plenty of height if one is to expect Arducopter to recover the heli. If my friend wants to cut the grass, he’s on his own
Yep, don’t modify ANGLE_MAX param. Also, make sure ACRO_TRAINER is set to 0 (this means pure rate control with no assistance in self leveling or angle limiting).
Also set ACRO_BAL_PITCH and ACRO_BAL_ROLL to 0, this disables the virtual flybar feature.
