Reverse joystick up/down control behavior

[Sprinter]

A few members have been talking about moving joystick functions from left to right or from right to left. My probelm is with one and only one joystick behavior: up and down. I had been flying airplanes for more than 45 years when I received my Parrot Anafi drone and the most annoying feature with it is that the up/down control on the joystick is opposite to all that is being done in aviation. On an airplane, when you want to go down, you push the stick forward or you pull backward to go up. The drone is exactly the opposite and no matter how many hours I have spent to train myself, the old reflex coms back all the time and denies me a natural flying experience. Anafi told me that they would pass the infor to engeneers... but I have'nt seen any firmaware changs that would allow to modify this. has anyone played with rewiring the controller? Or any other solution? Thanks

 

[Rocky the FS]

If you flew helicopters it would seem normal: Pull collective up, go up, push collective down, go down. Think of it this way: In an airplane, if you want to go up pull back, if you want to go down, pull back harder.

Of course one needs to hold the controller vertical for the helicopter analogy to work. (it might help you too.) It took me a long time to get good at flying the Anafi because it was so different from flying a plane. I found that it helped to think of it not as any sort of flying machine I had ever experienced, but more like a flying saucer: totally alien control behavior.

The other thing that helped was to look very intently at the drone while doing maneuvering exercises at slow speed nearby and not looking at the controller at all. I got it in the early spring and for several hours I never let it get more than 20 feet away. because of the deep snow. Actually, the hardest thing for me to learn was turning correctly when it was pointed at me. I made all sorts of courses out of flags and Dixie cups and practiced a lot. Going up or down was not part of those exercises until much later.

 

[Gipsz Jakab]

A few members have been talking about moving joystick functions from left to right or from right to left. My probelm is with one and only one joystick behavior: up and down. I had been flying airplanes for more than 45 years when I received my Parrot Anafi drone and the most annoying feature with it is that the up/down control on the joystick is opposite to all that is being done in aviation. On an airplane, when you want to go down, you push the stick forward or you pull backward to go up. The drone is exactly the opposite and no matter how many hours I have spent to train myself, the old reflex coms back all the time and denies me a natural flying experience. Anafi told me that they would pass the infor to engeneers... but I have'nt seen any firmaware changs that would allow to modify this. has anyone played with rewiring the controller? Or any other solution? Thanks

Here is the solution:

control stick in arcade mode

hi there, i am just new with the anafi and all is going well, except the arcade mode. i use rc-models to fly, do hanggliding and other flyght simulators. now normaly when you pusch the controlstick forward, the plane goes DOWN. not so an arcade mode, when i push forward (left controlstick) the...

parrotpilots.com

 

[Sprinter]

If you flew helicopters it would seem normal: Pull collective up, go up, push collective down, go down. Think of it this way: In an airplane, if you want to go up pull back, if you want to go down, pull back harder.

Of course one needs to hold the controller vertical for the helicopter analogy to work. (it might help you too.) It took me a long time to get good at flying the Anafi because it was so different from flying a plane. I found that it helped to think of it not as any sort of flying machine I had ever experienced, but more like a flying saucer: totally alien control behavior.

The other thing that helped was to look very intently at the drone while doing maneuvering exercises at slow speed nearby and not looking at the controller at all. I got it in the early spring and for several hours I never let it get more than 20 feet away. because of the deep snow. Actually, the hardest thing for me to learn was turning correctly when it was pointed at me. I made all sorts of courses out of flags and Dixie cups and practiced a lot. Going up or down was not part of those exercises until much later.

Thanks for your answer Rocky. I agree that the collective has a more "understandable behavior" for the up/down movement but it is also a "horizontal" mechanism. The cyclic stick on the other hand retains the very same characteristics of the regular fixed wings a/c counterpart. Holding the controller vertical is a solution I have tried but... So, my end solution (short of selling the drone) is to carefuly bring it to the position I want by looking at it carefully (as you suggest) and from there, take pictures or fly horizontally while filming. It kills quite a bit the feeling of low passes I had with an airplane... All this annoyance could be avoided by a simple firmaware update, no?

 

[Rocky the FS]

Don't hold your breath for Parrot. Practice, practice, and more practice. After two years I got to the point of zooming around any which way I thought of. But then I retired from flying 10 years ago so that muscle memory has faded quite a bit.