Units inconsistent within Mission Planner

Ground Control Software Mission Planner
1

I am using Mission Planner 1.3.56 build 1.3.6672.30243. I am getting started with aerial missions.

At the Flight Plan screen, I create a polygon, then right click the polygon and select Auto WP>Survey (Grid). The Survey (Grid) dialog box appears, with lots of settings pertaining to the mission. Amongst these settings, under the Simple tab, I see settings for “Altitude (ft)” and “Flying speed (est) (mph)”. Units seem to be in English system.

On a recent mission, I set the altitude at 140 (feet). I clicked “Accept” at the lower right of the Survey (Grid) dialog box, and the waypoints and various commands are written in the lower part of the main Flight Plan screen. Nowhere on the waypoint list are the units expressed. The values from the Survey (Grid) dialog box were used to populate the waypoint list, and it shows “140” as the waypoint altitude.

I flew the mission this evening. I was quite surprised by the height of the flight. It seemed to be MUCH higher than 140 feet, and I’d say by eye that it flew at an altitude of 140 meters, not feet. I searched for whether Mission Planner supports English system of units, and found varying results, some indicating that English units are not support, others saying that it would be supported, etc.

Can someone sort me out on this? I consider this to be a somewhat dangerous situation, and one which could use improvement.

Al

2

I think I just answered my own question. At Config/Tuning>Planner, I found the relevant settings as:

Dist Units: Feet
Speed Units: mph
Alt Units: Meters

I believe that by changing the Alt Units to Feet, it should correct the problem.

Still, as a safety measure, I think it would be good to have the units displayed within the Waypoint list at the bottom of the Flight Plan.

And, after making this change, I’m still not sure I can trust it. I guess I can fly it with the new mission, and hope, but would appreciate if someone could confirm my hypothesis.

Al

3

The best safety measure would be to get rid of this imperial garbage and use only Si. There were satellites and planetary probes that lost due this kind of mixup.