Awesome flight today - Also Disco flies much better with Flight Planner than with the SkyRemote 2 :) and Linear Landings are the best landing approach

[Jerry Normandin]

Hi,

I've been flying my Disco with Flight Plan and landings are much more predictable, actually all my linear landings with Flight Plan have been perfect.
Here's a video of the flight my Disco made today. You can see from my club's airfield windsock that the wind was blowing. The linear landing was on the money.

 

[IronSky1]

How accurate were you able to land relative to setup in FP? Did you have to adjust for wind direction shift before take off?

Nice area to fly

 

[Drone_guy]

I wish I had a nice place like that too fly from! We have trees EVERYWHERE!

 

[Jerry Normandin]

At the time of flight I check the air sock and optimize the landing approach in flight plan. During the flight, the wind direction can change. It's not uncommon where I fly for the wind to shift from S, SE, and then all of a sudden gust out of the east. I have videos of where you can see the Disco landing in a cross breeze because the wind direction abruptly changed. The flight controller handles it well. Just be sure you do a full calibration before flight.

Here's another flight where I shot video of the Disco Landing in a slight crosswind.

 

[Jerry Normandin]

Here's a Video of the latest flight of my Parrot Disco.

 

[Jerry Normandin]

I wish I had a nice place like that too fly from! We have trees EVERYWHERE!

Yes it's a great place to fly, I hope we don't loose the location.

 

[IronSky1]

Nice. So do you use FlightPlan for complete flight including landing? Looks like you are at 300-400 ft 40mph max is that correct.

Very nice thanks

 

[Jerry Normandin]

Yes. I used Flight Plan for the entire flight and landing. I was also connected with the SkyController 2 to take over the flight if there was a problem. According to the flight plan logs the flight altitude was 20m. , that's 393 ft. A top speed of 46mph was reached during the return flight, there was a strong tailwind. There was a strong headwind during the flight out, the flight speed was 33mph. Your estimate was pretty close!

Flight Plan records logs for every flight.

I prefer a linear landing approach. In flight plan I can specify where I want the Disco to touch down.
I just need to optimize the landing approach for the current wind conditions before the flight. If there's a slight crosswind when landing, the current firmware on C.H.U.C.K. seams to handle it extremely well.
I prefer to use Flight Plan with the Disco over controlling it with Sky Controller 2. Since I'm used to flying
r/c and fpv r/c model aircraft, the lag with Sky Controller initiated landings throws me off a bit.
Also if I use a circular landing approach I would not know where Disco would finally land. It's not predictable. Where I fly I have a grass airfield. If I land outside of the airfield I could land in a marsh, wetlands, smash into trees, or a cornfield. I prefer a nice predictable linear slope to the center of the airfield. So far Flight Plan worked perfectly for every flight.

 

[IronSky1]

Thanks I have been using flight plan since 2016 nice product, I have not flown mine yet was one the last ones made and came from Parrot France since the first one had bad servo on one side and there were none left last August. Have you added any payload to yours yet? I will be adding my bottom mounted camera rig.

see POST
Disco Bottom Camera Mount Initial Photos

 

[Jerry Normandin]

I also have one of the last Discos made. My first Disco had an issue after a firmware update. Parrot was great .. they read the flight logs and said the SONAR may have been defective. They sent me a replacement Disco.


I have been flying the replacement since March 2019. All flights have been with flight plan.

I wouldn't add a camera. The PIDS are optimized for the stock DISCO. I know of some people who modified the fueslage to carry a 5500ma battery..
Landings were not predictable. Someone added a downfacing Garmin Virb. Not sure how they made out.

 

[IronSky1]

That is what I was concerned about I will send up with adjustable dummy payload in my bottom mount ramping up after each flight. I want to put a FLIR on bottom mount after testing how much payload can be added. I have been able to add EVO SS gimbal with Hero 5 (400g) on my DJI Inspire ! V2 with no issues . I have sold about 30 mounts for that UAV no issues. Cannot find any specs on Disco payloads. It would be great with a FLIR or multi spectrum camera and flight plan.