Carefree system.

I find if your comfortable with orientation its best to keep the leash on it on not drag out so far. I find that I usually don't like to go too far or too high unless I have a real compelling reason to do so. I find a good technique to turning copter is to keep forward momentum on the copter I find that it is easier to tell what it is doing as the copter is continuously moving. But really the best way to be safe at long distances is nose in a fixed orientation and a cam op on the 3 axis gimbal, that way there is no question unless you had commanded yaw movement of where you stick axis.

Shaun

 

Thanks Andy: after a year I kinda got a hold on it. I often leave AH and PH on, and they give me a chance to reorient. One of the reasons the 2.0 update messed me up, the PH wasn't as good. Hopefully it will get better. The Pirate Eye glasses sit just below my right eye, so I can glance down to get a view and OSD info.

http://www.mikrokopter.us/shop/pe-hobby-pirateeye-hobby

 

carefree will destroy your copter dont even have it on your radio!
If you turn and forget to reset you will crash if you arent fast enough to recover, my 2 cents

 

Sort of. In regular carefree the the front is always compass heading you started with when you activated CF. If you disengage it, then reengage it and the front is at new heading the new heading is now your front, no matter where the copter is in relation to your home position. This where you can get into trouble. If you flew far enough where you can no longer tell where the real front boom, accidentally turn carefree off then turn it back on you may no longer have any idea of the orientation now.

If you have teachable carefree, must be done in kopter tools by checking the box in software. Teachable CF acts the same as CF as long as copter is inside 20m from the home position when activated. If activated outside 20m the copter now has imaginary string tied to it from the home position as long as there is a good satellite fix and the home was properly recorded. If you lose satellites it will revert back to normal carefree and now you are in trouble if the copter is too far away. All you can hope the sat fix back in.

You are best to fly close to reasonable comfort level if you are only a one man crew. Otherwise you should have a spotter in a radio to give you the orientation if you lose video. Taking note of the compass is good. As long as you have situation awareness of the compass heading you should never need carefree, this is where telemetry or an onscreen display come in handy.

I found that the best way to practice orientation was at night for myself. Go out to a remote area and fly with the lights on at with calm winds and practice moving the copters nose around and get used to different orientations. What I try to do is always imagine I am staring at the copter from the rear. The simulator is good in getting the mechanical muscle memory down of moving the copter in different orientations. The sim you set winds up and get used to moving it around with winds. In the sim I tray to put 25km winds and practice keeping it in one spot as close as possible while rotating 360 degrees to get used to the counter pitch and roll. required in different axis's.