FPV Manual Mode -- Third Flight

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

Complete and Total Victory!

OK, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not a lot. I got in a solid five minutes of Manual mode time. It would have been a little longer if I hadn’t hit the Brake to get into Normal mode, when a fixed-wing was approaching, because I wanted to be able to descend to my lowest safe altitude without worrying about control issues. When the plane had passed, I went back into Manual mode.

I decided early on that I was going to consider Manual mode to be a completely different aircraft, that just happens to inhabit the same body as N/S mode. Schizophrenia? Demonic possession? Something in that direction, but that approach helps.

I found an altitude control technique which really seems to work for me. Of course, YMMV. I’ve re-programmed my internal processing to using the left stick to control rate of climb, either positive or negative. You get a constant read-out of that…your vertical speed…displayed in the goggles just above the “Height” indication. I don’t even think of the left stick as the “throttle” anymore; it’s my mechanism for controlling my rate of climb. As a side benefit, this approach makes landing in Normal mode, with the friction lock in effect, trivially easy.

One dimension down, two to go…

There’s something about the lateral…forward/back, and side-to-side…control mechanism that I’m just not seeing yet. But I may have just now seen part of it! In a regular airplane, bank provides most of the real force needed for turning. You only make “pure rudder” turns when you don’t want to turn very much. In N/S mode, moving the right stick right or left, moves the drone right or left. In Manual mode, it doesn’t do that. It just inputs the roll motion.

It is very weird to be flying along with the drone banked 30º - 45º to the horizon, and yet moving mostly in the direction that I want. I’ve got some good footage to show that now, which I’ll edit hopefully soon. Weirder still is that I usually correct for aesthetic reasons, rather than for explicit control reasons.

I’m very seriously considering stiffening up the right control stick a bit as well. As it is, the pitch angle seems to naturally fall into a slight upward tilt, which produces a slight backwards motion, if I don’t monitor it closely. That’s the key control failure on my part that caused yesterday’s crash. Perhaps stiffening the right stick a bit will help with that.

I also got a sharp insight into a seriously WTF triggering condition, that I saw on the second flight, but didn’t have time to understand. Any non-trivial change in either pitch or power makes the view from the camera go whacko. This can be seriously disconcerting. So, I’ve started to pay more attention to active gimbal trim at all times. I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m way better at it than I was an hour ago!

It's sort of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head and scratching your butt, all at the same time…

When the low battery warning came on, I cancelled it and flew a little more in Manual, and then switched to Normal for the landing. Which, with my new and improved understanding of what vertical movement of the left stick actually does, was essentially a spot landing, within 6” of my take-off point.

I really wanted to do some Sim time before going to Manual, but I don’t think the lack of it has really hampered me much. If I had been flying in a level, wide-open field, my crash yesterday wouldn’t have happened. YMMV. If you commit to having a quick trigger finger on the Brake button, and commit to actually using it within the first few seconds of your first few flights, you might be fine, as I was. If you have convenient access to a Sim, use it a bit before going to Manual. If you don’t have convenient access to a Sim, as I don’t being a Droid, make you’re first flight nothing more than “Brake Button Training”. Go through the sequence to get into Manual with the expectation and commitment that you will hit the Brake button a few seconds into flying in Manual. If you’re comfortable with that, just increase your Manual time gradually. If it freaks you out, then find/acquire a Sim to use even if it isn’t convenient.

So my open question now is…how much is having just two batteries going to hamper my flight time? After I got the Fly More Kit, and I had three batterie, it was never an issue. Now, with just two…we’ll see how the day goes!

 

[Kilrah]

I don’t even think of the left stick as the “throttle” anymore; it’s my mechanism for controlling my rate of climb. As a side benefit, this approach makes landing in Normal mode, with the friction lock in effect, trivially easy.

In N/S the throttle stick IS a "rate of climb" control, but in M it really is throttle and you need to consider it as that since when you change attitude you need to adjust throttle to match the change in thrust vector. It is the "quantity of energy you add to the system".

I’m very seriously considering stiffening up the right control stick a bit as well. As it is, the pitch angle seems to naturally fall into a slight upward tilt, which produces a slight backwards motion, if I don’t monitor it closely.

That's a camera angle problem. Normally when you fly manual you set that and mostly don't change it. Given that you're basing yourself off the camera view, offseting that essentially becomes a "speed control" as in increasing angle will result in a higher speed with a "centered" image.
Set it to something like 10° up and get used to flying around like that, once you grasp the whole thing you can go about changing it but doing that too early is just likely to make the learning more difficult.

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

In N/S the throttle stick IS a "rate of climb" control, but in M it really is throttle and you need to consider it as that since when you change attitude you need to adjust throttle to match the change in thrust vector. It is the "quantity of energy you add to the system".

Technically, perhaps.

Experientially, no.

Particularly at this early stage, having a simple, single control that means "up or down" is extremely helpful. Sure, on the edges it isn't that, and on some edges it doesn't work, but for the most part it works great. It's sort of like the fact that Newtonian mechanics doesn't actually describe the way the world works, but for the vast majority of day-to-day applications, its way good enough!

That's a camera angle problem. Normally when you fly manual you set that and mostly don't change it. Given that you're basing yourself off the camera view, offseting that essentially becomes a "speed control" as in increasing angle will result in a higher speed with a "centered" image.

I think our perceptions of causality may be inverted...

What specific control stick and gimbal wheel motions are you suggesting in response to the whacko video image?

I can guarantee you that the video image weirdness freaks out a lot of low-time FPV Manual mode users. I just noted it as weird, and something to be dealt with, but I've flown full sized airplanes in spins and upside down...on purpose...and most people don't have the advantage of that experience.

Set it to something like 10° up and get used to flying around like that, once you grasp the whole thing you can go about changing it but doing that too early is just likely to make the learning more difficult.

Dunno about that.

I've found that setting it closer to 20º down works better for me. Having a video image that's mostly sky provides no useful control decision information. That can happen with pointing down, but less often.

I think, perhaps, that there's a point that you're trying to make, than I'm not yet seeing.

Thx.

 

[rktman]

I'll have to be blunt here, and no insult or mocking meant at all, my friend, but you don't get it, and are quite lost.

Flying the way you are will result in a lot more crashing when you get close to the ground, trees, or other objects.

The camera's "going whacky" because put simply you're flying wrong.

What should be happening is you set the camera pitch angle, positive, the greater the angle the faster you will be flying forward the entire flight.

Then switch to M, and immediately pitch forward enough to level the horizon. You will start flying forward, maybe really fast if you set it to something like 50deg. For a beginner 10deg is fast enough.

From here on your control job boils down to two activities: Keep the camera pointed straight where you want to go, and manage your elevation.

Doing so is a combination of all 4 control inputs continuously for virtually every change in attitude.

There is no holding of pitch/roll/yaw angles when either of the other two are changed. For example, pitch forward 10 degrees, then yaw left 30deg, and your forward pitch is no longer 10deg, but has decreased. Your roll angle, which was flat before, has rolled right. The view through your camera is wacky.

So you have to compensate with opposite pitch and roll while applying the yaw. And, don't forget to boost power.

You really need to be doing this in a sim, around objects, going through gates, etc. etc. etc., and crashing, at first, a million times.

Here's the thrill of FPV flying when you learn the right skills. The way your doing it now you will never be able to get near anything with predictable success.

 

[rktman]

The reason all this happens is because the yaw/pitch/roll control axes are relative to the drone, so when you rotate around one axis you rotate the other two axes relative to level, which messes up attitude, altitude, and camera view.

 

[Kilrah]

Technically, perhaps.

Experientially, no.

Set your "up or down" lever where you go up a bit, pitch down - you're going down now. How's that for an "up or down" control? It's just like your full scale aircraft, more power tends to get you going up but not necessarily, it depends on what you're doing with the rest of the controls.

What specific control stick and gimbal wheel motions are you suggesting in response to the whacko video image?

You didn't post video examples so it's not clear what you call "whacko image", but what's sure is that changing the camera angle will change the kind of "whacko" and the responses needed from you, so best not to touch it for now until you understand that and are comfortable flying at a fixed angle. Remember 99% of FPV multicopters do not even have an in-flight adjustable camera angle.

I've found that setting it closer to 20º down works better for me. Having a video image that's mostly sky provides no useful control decision information. That can happen with pointing down, but less often.

You indeed need to see the horizon and ground to know what you're doing, and you need your image to be able to give you feedback about what you're doing with your sticks, With the camera loking down keeping an image that is useful for flying is likely to cause you to end up flying backwards, which you mentioned was a problem you had. With +10° when you switch to manual yes the camera will show mostly sky - but then you pitch down to get going and your view is centered again. You're not flying FPV in manual to stay in place.

Flying forward with some speed is the easiest, just like with a full scale helicopter - and you don't see sky with a positive camera angle then. Going slow/hovering is more difficult and requires way more precise control, so start with the former. It seems you might be trying to do the latter to try and match N/S behavior.

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

I'll have to be blunt here, and no insult or mocking meant at all, my friend, but you don't get it, and are quite lost.

You can't be lost, if you don't care where you're going...

;-)

Flying the way you are will result in a lot more crashing when you get close to the ground, trees, or other objects.

It's not obvious to me why I'd want to do that. If I want to get close to something, I'll use the Mini-2.

The only reason I want to fly in Manual mode at all is for the increased speed it provides.

The camera's "going whacky" because put simply you're flying wrong.

This assumes a shared definition of what's "right", which there's no obvious reason to believe we have. Flying "right" to me means not crashing, and getting the drone to go where I want it to go. Both of those improved with the adoption of this approach/interpretation.

In what way is what I'm doing "wrong"? Specifically.

What should be happening is you set the camera pitch angle, positive, the greater the angle the faster you will be flying forward the entire flight.

I have no reason to believe that's true. Why do you believe that?

Perhaps that's a method that worked well for you. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's the method that will work best for me.

Perhaps if my progress stalls, I'll give this a try, but so far, that hasn't happened.

Then switch to M, and immediately pitch forward enough to level the horizon. You will start flying forward, maybe really fast if you set it to something like 50deg. For a beginner 10deg is fast enough.

In my first test flight, the drone consistently drifted backward and downward when the shift to Manual mode was completed. Afterward, it occurred to me that if I added a bit of power, and tilted a bit forward, it would correct both of those drifts.

It did.

I'm not sure how that's materially different from what you're suggesting...

From here on your control job boils down to two activities: Keep the camera pointed straight where you want to go, and manage your elevation.

Doing so is a combination of all 4 control inputs continuously for virtually every change in attitude.

Rub your stomach, pat your head, and scratch your butt at the same time...yeah, I get that.

I said that.

You really need to be doing this in a sim, around objects, going through gates, etc. etc. etc., and crashing, at first, a million times.

Well, no I don't!

Not unless I intend to be zinging around objects and through gates in Manual mode, which at present, I have no interest in doing.

My current objective is just to go fast in a smooth and well controlled manner, well above any obstacles.

If you're going to say someone is "wrong" about something, it's useful to first check to see if their objectives are the same as yours...

Here's the thrill of FPV flying when you learn the right skills. The way your doing it now you will never be able to get near anything with predictable success.

I'll check it out, since I love drone vids! At the moment I have zero interest in getting near anything in Manual mode, except when landing, and I switch to Normal mode for that.

Perhaps, I have unintentionally triggered a religious debate!

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

I'll have to be blunt here, and no insult or mocking meant at all, my friend, but you don't get it, and are quite lost.

Flying the way you are will result in a lot more crashing when you get close to the ground, trees, or other objects.

The camera's "going whacky" because put simply you're flying wrong.

What should be happening is you set the camera pitch angle, positive, the greater the angle the faster you will be flying forward the entire flight.

Then switch to M, and immediately pitch forward enough to level the horizon. You will start flying forward, maybe really fast if you set it to something like 50deg. For a beginner 10deg is fast enough.

From here on your control job boils down to two activities: Keep the camera pointed straight where you want to go, and manage your elevation.

Doing so is a combination of all 4 control inputs continuously for virtually every change in attitude.

There is no holding of pitch/roll/yaw angles when either of the other two are changed. For example, pitch forward 10 degrees, then yaw left 30deg, and your forward pitch is no longer 10deg, but has decreased. Your roll angle, which was flat before, has rolled right. The view through your camera is wacky.

So you have to compensate with opposite pitch and roll while applying the yaw. And, don't forget to boost power.

You really need to be doing this in a sim, around objects, going through gates, etc. etc. etc., and crashing, at first, a million times.

Here's the thrill of FPV flying when you learn the right skills. The way your doing it now you will never be able to get near anything with predictable success.

OK, I watched the vid. Chasing the train might be fun. Landing on the moving train...dunno about that one.

But doing the loops and rolls? That's just not appealing to me.

All I want out of Manual mode is the speed. I look at having to fly it with no stabilization as a tax that I have to pay, to get the speed. It's not fun by itself.

Thx.

 

[rktman]

Nurk is not a FPV god, he is the FPV god

I'm not within a parsec of his skills, and never will be. But the video serves to show what is possible if you learn to fly it right.

What you're doing wrong is trying to fly it like N/S mode. Hovering doesn't work. In manual you are always moving forward, and pretty much at constant speed with about 20% variation.

If you do find the magic technique to effective, easy hovering in rate mode you can count on being an FPV community hero!

On your next flight, set the gimbal at +10, leave it there, and try to fly figure 8s with horizon level maintaining 300' altitude to be safe.

I know it's frustrating to have to get through all that first, but it's necessary to get the thrill of 90mph without exploding your FPV in 10,000 pieces.

As you're discovering, even the most skilled, experienced Normal mode pilot has to learn first to crawl again moving to Rate Mode control in Manual.

Hang in there, and don't give up! It's worth it. But also try hard to stick to the methods advised here, and watch a few instructional videos on YT. Then keep trying – and failing, but less and less each time.

 

[rktman]

All I want out of Manual mode is the speed. I look at having to fly it with no stabilization as a tax that I have to pay, to get the speed. It's not fun by itself.

It's not, and as we age past about 35, reflexes, reaction times, and learning new muscle memory gets worse and worse, as we both know

I want to encourage you with this, however: There is this kind of magical moment you reach, at some point, where the rest of your mind gets in that cockpit with your eyes and the movement of the sticks become automatic, like walking. Dozens of muscles are involved in walking and balance, but you don't consciously think about how to control each one while walking.

Right now, you're hyper-conscious about what your doing with the sticks, what you need to do to cause some change, and none of it feels right. Until you've trained yourself to react the right way within milliseconds to some needed change based on visual input, this ain't gonna be fun.

When I was learning a year ago, I took a lot of breaks to zoom around in Sport, for some of that fun I wasn't getting in Manual. M is now, of course more fun, but it took me MONTHS, and weeks on a sim before I ever switched live to M.

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

Nurk is not a FPV god, he is the FPV god

I never mess with another man's religion...

I'm not within a parsec of his skills, and never will be. But the video serves to show what is possible if you learn to fly it right.

"Right" assumes an agreed objective, which we don't have yet in this thread!

There are many things that I could learn to do, that I'm not interested in doing. So far, the loopy-rolly stuff falls into that category. That may change, but it hasn't yet.

I just wanna go fast...

What you're doing wrong is trying to fly it like N/S mode. Hovering doesn't work. In manual you are always moving forward, and pretty much at constant speed with about 20% variation.

I thought about that as a possible perspective, but so far, I don't buy it.

Assume, hypothetically, I tightened up the right control stick as well. In that case, in zero wind, there will be a position of the left stick and the right stick, that will produce a hover.

Right?

If you do find the magic technique to effective, easy hovering in rate mode you can count on being an FPV community hero!

I don't know that I'll find the technique, but I might well find a technique.

More likely now, since I'm being told it's impossible...

On your next flight, set the gimbal at +10, leave it there, and try to fly figure 8s with horizon level maintaining 300' altitude to be safe.

Perhaps eventually. For now, my skill level is improving reasonably quickly, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing unless that changes.

As the old mechanic's saying goes, don't fart with a working machine...

I know it's frustrating to have to get through all that first, but it's necessary to get the thrill of 90mph without exploding your FPV in 10,000 pieces.

I don't know if that's true. We'll see what happens with the next few flights.

At my elevation I'll be likely to top out around 80 mph...but that will be mostly straight with some minor S-turns, well above anything that I might hit.

As you're discovering, even the most skilled, experienced Normal mode pilot has to learn first to crawl again moving to Rate Mode control in Manual.

That's what my first Manual mode flight was for...

;-)

Hang in there, and don't give up!

Oh, you can count on that!

I'm not proficient at Manual mode yet, but I am comfortable with it, which I wasn't 3 days ago.

But also try hard to stick to the methods advised here,

We'll see...

and watch a few instructional videos on YT

So far I've watched every FPV vid that's been recommended to me, which I plan to keep doing, unless someone points me to a boring one, which hasn't happened yet!

Then keep trying – and failing, but less and less each time.

My only failure so far was failing to punch out when I should have on my second flight, and that resulted from better progress than I expected from my first to second flight, which produced overconfidence, which got corrected in my third flight. As long as I get better with each flight, I'll stick with the path that I'm on. I'm not in any hurry.

Updates as developments warrant, thanks!

 

[rktman]

Best of luck, and I hope you develop a skillset in M that meets your objectives!

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

I want to encourage you with this, however: There is this kind of magical moment you reach, at some point, where the rest of your mind gets in that cockpit with your eyes and the movement of the sticks become automatic, like walking.

That happened during my second FPV flight! In Normal mode.

That was what I'd been wanting from drones all along. I don't need an absence of automatic stabilization to do that.

I don't doubt that I'll get to that point with manual mode too, even on my current random walk path. When that happens, I'll decide whether or not there's sufficient extra enjoyment to doing that in Manual mode, to justify the extra work of doing it in Manual mode.

Maybe it will, and maybe it won't, but I'm not in any hurry. I'll get there when I get there.

Right now, you're hyper-conscious about what your doing with the sticks, what you need to do to cause some change, and none of it feels right.

It's not so much that it doesn't feel "right"; it just feels different. It's already starting to fall into place, and I'm sure it will continue to do that, the more I fly in Manual.

Sadly, it looks like I've missed my window for that today. I had some errands to do this morning, and now the wind has kicked back up again. Hopefully tomorrow AM!

Until you've trained yourself to react the right way within milliseconds to some needed change based on visual input, this ain't gonna be fun.

That will just happen in the normal course of events. It doesn't have to be work.

On my third flight I came very close to conducting the entire flight in Manual, with no need to punch out. The plane that flew overhead put a kink in that, but I fully expect that to be able to do that during my fourth flight.

Once that happens, I'll start doing my CanyonBall runs, first relatively high and slow, and then gradually lower and faster. The reactions and muscle memory that I need will develop from just doing it, with gradually increasing difficulty/complexity.

Once I can do the CanyonBall at 80 mph/max speed, at 100 ft ATL, and have it be comfortable, I'll decide if there's anything else I want to do, and decide if the extra work of flying in Manual is justified by the extra enjoyment. And that process, I'll enjoy! It doesn't need to be work!

When I was learning a year ago, I took a lot of breaks to zoom around in Sport, for some of that fun I wasn't getting in Manual. M is now, of course more fun, but it took me MONTHS, and weeks on a sim before I ever switched live to M.

Yesterday when it gave me the high wind warning, I decided to stay in Sport mode, and just buzzed around the canyon rim a bit. However, when the Mighty FPV was bouncing around trying to stay stable in the wind, I decided it was time to come home.

I spent a couple of hours in Normal mode before shifting to Sport, and more hours in Sport before shifting to Manual, which I did on schedule. My biggest hesitation was that I didn't have a clear image of the process for shifting from Normal to Manual while in flight. Now I do. I developed an explicit checklist for it, which I haven't looked at since the first time I used it. After the first time, there was no need.

I spent zero time in the sim (since I don't have one) before going to Manual live. I concluded that a simple but firm commitment to punching out with the Brake button, early and often, would be sufficient, and it was.

It's basically a question of opportunity cost. How many hours did you spend on the sim before going live? 10 hours? 20?

I'd rather spend 20 hours in the air putzing around with expanding my envelope slowly, than 20 hours in the sim. All I needed was confidence that I knew how to punch out of bad situations if needed, and I now have that. The Brake button is my new best friend! Even if it turns out that I don't need to play with him very often anymore...

 

[Kilrah]

Assume, hypothetically, I tightened up the right control stick as well. In that case, in zero wind, there will be a position of the left stick and the right stick, that will produce a hover.

The slight issue with that thinking is that yes there will be a position of the sticks that will produce a hover, but other than throttle that position will always be "centered". I.e. it's not the stick position that will give you a hover, it's the attitude, so what you did before letting go of it and that's why you need to learn the whole flight dynamics to be able to get there. It'll also always need correction because you're essentially balancing a ball at that point,

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

Best of luck, and I hope you develop a skillset in M that meets your objectives!

Thanks!

I will eventually. I just hope I don't lose one in the process.

I'm not really worried about dinging it up. If that happens, I'll pack it up and ship it off for repair, which will likely cost a couple hundred bucks, and I'm sure I'd learn a lot from the process.

It's the prospect of the financial loss from a flyaway, that concerns me more.

 

[rktman]

Assume, hypothetically, I tightened up the right control stick as well. In that case, in zero wind, there will be a position of the left stick and the right stick, that will produce a hover.

Right?

No, wrong.

Describe what behavior of the drone you expect in M mode with the right stick held by friction slightly off-center. How do you envision the attitude of the aircraft relative to horizontal?

 

[Chaosrider@brilliantfrogs]

The slight issue with that thinking is that yes there will be a position of the sticks that will produce a hover, but other than throttle that position will always be "centered". I.e. it's not the stick position that will give you a hover, it's the attitude, so what you did before letting go of it and that's why you need to learn the whole flight dynamics to be able to get there. It'll also always need correction because you're essentially balancing a ball at that point,

I understand the different concepts of positive, neutral, and negative stability reasonably well.

I've already figured out that you don't have positive stability in Manual mode. I didn't, and don't, expect that.

It appears that in Manual mode that you have neutral stability. It won't go whacko on it's own, but it will respond easily to small disturbances, and then diverge. That's why my hypothesis included the "zero wind" condition.

However, if you have the neutral stability point properly set with the sticks, and briefly hover, it should take relatively little control input to maintain that stability. Constant input, but small in magnitude.

You seem to be suggesting, with the notion of the hover being dependent on how you got there, some kind of "memory" of what you did. I'm willing to be enlightened, but I don't see how that makes sense. You seem to be suggesting that it's not possible to "stop", even if momentarily.

Is that what you're suggesting? If so, why would that be the case? A quick glance at the physics suggests that kind of thing might only happen in a condition of negative stability.

As a possibly interesting side note, there's always a trade-off between stability and maneuverability. Some of the more modern fighter aircraft are indeed designed with negative stability, to maximize maneuverability. Those aircraft can only be flown by a computer, because no human can react fast enough to control an aircraft with that design.

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise with data, but I think in Manual mode, the FPV has neutral stability, not negative stability.

Thx!

 

[Kilrah]

You seem to be suggesting that it's not possible to "stop", even if momentarily.

How often do you see a helicopter in flight that's absolutely still? Basically never.
Same here, assuming zero wind and turbulence (highly unlikely since the aircraft creates its own) then assuming you managed to get your thrust EXACTLY vertical and balanced it wouldn't move - but 1/100th of a dregree off that would already induce SOME unwanted movement, and between your own precision and the aircraft's performance at maintaining attitude like it's trying to it's essentially impossible. So you're constantly wandering around the neutral point, but never actually on it. It will "go whacko on its own" since nothing's perfect and even when commanding zero rate around an axis it'll always drift a little.
A quad in manual mode has no aerodynamic stability of its own, all it does is obey your power setting and the speed of rotation around each axis that your sticks are commanding.

 

[rktman]

Here's an example that illustrates the control difference between Angle (N/S) and Rate (M) modes:

Imagine no position hold in N mode (a.k.a. ATTI). You blip the right stick to the left, then let it return to center. The drone slides to the left, and keeps going because of momentum.

To stop it, you give a little blip to the right (enough) to stop it.

That all makes sense, right?

Now you switch to M. You want to perform exactly the same maneuver. Just the same, you give a little blip to the left; but then you must give a blip to the right to level the drone. To stop the momentum, you must do a double blip in reverse (right then left).

Is that how you think about the controls? Is it obvious now what a disaster a sticky right stick would be?

Forget hovering, I'm a little worried about your understanding of rate mode flight dynamics with the friction offset right stick thought experiment...

 

[rktman]

In defense of the quest to hover in place, it's important to keep in mind the FC does it, and quite well, so it's obviously not impossible.

However, like that fighter jet, only a computer can react fast enough to do it that well.

A sloppier performance can be achieved by a human being, staying within a 5m (very rough estimate) circle in windless conditions.

However, you must be able to twitch those sticks around in sub second intervals, and not make any mistakes based on Angle mode instincts, overshooting, etc.

It is the latter that results in finding oneself in a undesirable attitude, no experience to get out of it.

It's too bad there's no ATTI/Angle mode on the FPV. Angle mode is available on Betaflight (the FC software that runs on most fpv quads). That little bit of help from the FC simply keeping the drone level at neutral stick is a huge help in hovering.

It's also a severe limitation in having full control over the attitude of the aircraft.