I’ve been flying for 20 years but where I flew I usually just floated it down into a wheat corn next to the little dirt road I fly off of. Reason being it was a LOT easier than trying to land on the thin section of road that me and my truck were on too. And veering off at the last minute into the corn at low alt was bad. Mine as well be trees. In looking at the flight modes I’m wondering if one of the flbw modes could help me land on that road. Is it practical to land in flbwa or fbwb? Or even cruise? Seems like one of those could help keep deal with it. Thoughts?
I have a 1400mm fms cessna 182 with an apm in it and I fly pretty much in nothing but fbwa.
I have ground steer dialed in so when taking off it tracks straight and when coming in for landing it does the same from 20mtr up down to the ground. Combined with its auto levelling I can land her on a road around 5mtr wide with banks on either side that cause a nasty ground effect. Parked cars also narrow the runway a bit.
Last flight was probably saved by fbwa. While flying the wind went from 0 to a 17mph crosswind almost instantly, I was still able to put her down right where I wanter her. The other flyers there were impressed though I might have failed to mention having the apm in there lol.
I’ve just fitted an air speed sensor so will be trying out fbwb a little when the weather improves.
Landing in FBWA, is really fantastic, especially if you have THR_PASS_STAB" enabled so you get full throttle control.
I wouldn’t recommend trying to land in cruise because you have very little pitch control in that mode.
WOW that’s fantastic to hear I will for sure try that!!! Does your plane have ailerons? Mine only as rudder aka a 3 ch plane. A Sig Seniorita with a Saito 56 4 stroke. It’s a tri gear so it steers with the nose wheel that is also the same servo as the rudder. Will it steer on the ground okay with this set up you think or do people actually set up a separate servo just for the nose wheel? Guess I should check the wiki?
Okay I’ll pass on trying landing with cruise guess that could get ugly 
Thx
[quote=“MarkM”]IThe other flyers there were impressed though I might have failed to mention having the apm in there lol.
[/quote] 
My cessna is a 5 channel (flaps are on manual control only though) but it’s also a tri gear with the rudder servo also steering the nose gear. So long as you make sure fbwa is controlling the surfaces correctly it should be fine, not sure how well it will stabilise the plane without ailerons though. If you have quite a high dyhedral it should be fine.
The only real problem I’ve had is tip stalling because I’ve tried banking hard over with too little air speed. The apm (3.1 or 3.01 I cant remember) didnt know what to do so went full left aileron and full down elevator. First time was at around 10mtr up resulting in a crash. Next one I intentionally caused to test it, flicked to manual and pulled up while maxxing the throttle saved it easily as I was at nearer 100mtr.
Latest firmware has anti stall code so it shouldn’t happen again.
[quote=“MarkM”]My cessna is a 5 channel (flaps are on manual control only though) but it’s also a tri gear with the rudder servo also steering the nose gear. So long as you make sure fbwa is controlling the surfaces correctly it should be fine, not sure how well it will stabilise the plane without ailerons though. If you have quite a high dyhedral it should be fine.
The only real problem I’ve had is tip stalling because I’ve tried banking hard over with too little air speed. The apm (3.1 or 3.01 I cant remember) didnt know what to do so went full left aileron and full down elevator. First time was at around 10mtr up resulting in a crash. Next one I intentionally caused to test it, flicked to manual and pulled up while maxxing the throttle saved it easily as I was at nearer 100mtr.
Latest firmware has anti stall code so it shouldn’t happen again.[/quote]
Hey thanks thats great to know! Mine does fly just fine but no ailerons might be an issue with heading and that’s the biggest challenge is to keep the wings level AND heading straight down the road. But sound like FBWA might just help enough to make the difference. Last year I did land it and then turned it around and drove it right up to my self then took off again I was smiling! ha The things sounds killer with the little 4 stroke. 
Too bad it’s winter here in Michigan gonna be a long time before I’ll be trying g it out!
if you have FBWA setup properly - your min airspeed is just above stall and your bank angle is correct.
Then FBWA is a perfect mode to fly and land in, because it will keep the airframe within the desired load limits you gave it.
You do need to set it up properly though, take it up high and make sure you cant stall it in FBWA. stalls on landing approach are nasty and its very difficult to recover a stall whilst in FBWA.
Also you should always make sure that your manual mode is working properly thats your emergency plan 
The new anti stall code SHOULD make it hard if not impossible to stall when banking in fbwa (earlier versions, very easy if you try) but the airspeed is still pilot controlled, Fbwb will maintain a minimum airspeed if the airspeed sensor is installed so if its setup properly should never stall.
on FBWA the airpseed (when you have an airspeed sensor installed) is configured within a min, max range… so as long as you set it up correctly you are good.
plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/flying/ … IRE_A_FBWA
FBWA is manual throttle, min and max range are just a limiter to control the minimum and max throttle range.
[quote]THR_MAX : This is the maximum throttle % that can be used by the controller. For overpowered aircraft, this should be reduced to a value that provides sufficient thrust to climb at the maximum pitch angle PTCH_MAX.
THR_MIN : This is the minimum throttle % that can be used by the controller. For electric aircraft this will normally be set to zero, but can be set to a small non-zero value if a folding prop is fitted to prevent the prop from folding and unfolding repeatedly in-flight or to provide some aerodynamic drag from a turning prop to improve the descent rate.[/quote]
FBWA will try to keep the craft above the minimum airspeed detected by the airspeed sensor by pitching down NOT increasing throttle. If you have an airspeed sensor you should be in FBWB - plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/flying/ … IRE_B_FBWB - as it will control throttle automatically based on the AS sensor reading.