I wouldn't call it cheating. It's the only way to achieve that kind of movement. Also, it isn't exactly easy to do some of the tricks at the speed some people are doing them. As well, your PID's have a big roll in it. If you have poorly tuned PID's the quad won't roll or pitch really fast so you get slow flips and rolls ect. If you go back about 3 years and watch some of the free style guys on youtube, like Charpu or Mr Steel you will see their rolls and flips are slower. That is because even 2-3 years ago the PID controllers weren't as good as they are now. As well the tuning of PID's was not as well defined as they are now. Also you will notice that their vid seems a bit jerky compared to more recent vids.
Perfect explaination! I was personally tired explaining the difference between idle up and saying that people are throwing away some throttle and still have scenarios where you lose some authority.
Excellent explanation of _how_ AirMode does what it does! Also appreciate the bit about jumping on landings. I noticed this, but wasn't sure why it was happening. Thank you!
I love that these old videos are still so educational. I had it in my head from years of other people saying that airmode was just that the PID controller stays active when the throttle is cut. Which isn't quite what happens. This video brought it back! Thanks JB!
I have watched a lot of your videos now and you are a genius. you must spend hundreds of hours on this stuff. im completely new to the technology. I am an old time flyer that learned you could fly a brick with a big enough motor. I love this stuff and I will continue to watch
Regarding a flying brick, sure you are referring to this Flite Test video: ruclips.net/video/bns5x4pvl5Y/видео.html If you haven't seen that, then you're in for a treat.
This was very helpful. When airmode first exploded into the world there was a ton of hype around what it did. Also, as it developed, I know that the definition has evolved. It's been a confusing topic in my circles. I always just stood by my idle up function and was rather agnostic about whether airmode was really doing much; at least for me and my flying. Very recently, I've felt a handling difference with airmode on. I think that started with 2.2 but haven't taken the time to understand why. ---- TLDR ---- Makes a lot of sense now. thanks.
+12gaugeAngel If you use idle up, you will feel less difference from air mode. The real advantage of air mode is that the "set point" can go down when the sticks are centered, giving increased hang time inverted compared to idle up.
excellent explanation. Thanks for making this (nearly a year ago haha) You spoke primarily about error induced by input (stick movement) and only touched on outide inducers of error. Air mode effectively improves the I term at low throttle as well. Effectively you can reduce the I gain an have very stable low throttle angle hold with Air Mode. Especially now that flight controllers have 2DOF, theres even more that can be said about this. I'd love to hear all your thoughts on this as well as the improvements that have been made to air mode (such as preventing "freakouts" on landing) Thanks again Joshua for always informative videos
You don't fully understand a topic until you can explain it to someone else. As far as I can tell, you are the only person in the youtube/drone world that understands Air Mode! Now why I didn't just google "bardwell air mode" sooner, that's on me!
mike phillips He is a teacher. It's just that his classroom is a RUclips channel. I've actually spent more time actively listening to and learning from him than than just about any of the formal classroom instructors I've ever had. With around fifty thousand people following him that's a big class. But if your point was just that he's got a knack for explaining things in a way people can understand, I totally agree. Screw formal academics though. We non-nerd/aspiring drone hobbyists need him!
+Thieu S We make a good team, Boris and me. Every so often, he comes up with something brilliant, and then I understand it well enough to explain it to the masses. I guess that makes him Wozniak and me Jobs?
I know this video was posted almost 1 1/2 years ago; but I am just getting started in multi-rotors and have a lot to learn. The tricky part is that I do not know anyone that can help me understand all of the programming/setup aspects. You did a great job of explaining it on paper and making it very simple. Thanks!
Just wanted to thank Joshua from the bottom of my heart for being the man he seems to be and shows that he is on his channel. He is the first RUclips personally that actually took the time to truly help me figure out what I was doing wrong without referring me to some obscure video or site. You have earned a true fan and soon to be patron. Keep up the good work sir!
Now I understand why guys (today... 3 years later) are setting airmode to a switch so that they can turn it off before attempting a wall bump, rail slide, or ground skid. Great explanation!
+Michael Steele DEFINITELY. Raising min_throttle will increase how fast the motors are spinning when you are at idle, but here's the thing... it WON'T increase the authority between the down-spinning and up-spinning motors.
This makes so much sense, beginner pilot here, I was really confused as to why my quad was bouncing like a basketball when I try to land even though my landing wasn't as bad in simulation. This makes total sense. I'll probably stick to air mode off for indoor flying. I did watch your landing in airmode video too and I'll practice that outdoors too. Thanks for the detailed explanation. 😁
Really good and simple explanation, made perfect sense to me! Also Air Mode is available in Cleanflight as of v1.12.0 (20th Feb) for those not using Betaflight. I need to start remembering to disable it before I land though, but not had any mishaps yet.
A fellow lefty! An ah ha moment to be sure. Just had this happen to me. I will never take off in idle up mode again. A gentle breeze cost me a cracked camera casing. Still works but now I know why. Your the guru of guru's.
Hi Joshua, really nice explanation. I really like all this stuff since I'm a coder and are really into all this RC-Stuff I love how all this comes together and let these little thingys fly so well!
Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense! I stopped using airmode not long after trying it and reverted to just idle up - this vid has made me want to try it again. If fact, I think I'll configure it now!!
+Joshua Bardwell After re-trying airmode, I totally agree! The difference in authority at low throttle was really noticeable. Thanks for making me try it again. Now I'm thinking I should try playing with roll_yaw_cam_mix_degrees 😃
You also forgot.... That before air mode, if you throttled all the way down, your props went into a set idle mode, with no pitch, yaw or roll controll, and bypassed the PID controller. Which also meant that if you throttled all the way down, you start to drop out of the sky.
cool explanation. now I think I understand it better. Not having problems with landings - but I use a throttle to 0 switch and I also disarm the motors instantly on ground contact.
+RCSchim Same here. There is still a small bit of surging on landings, but nothing like the crazy flyaway behavior that used to be the case when air mode first was released. I think Boris has done some cleanup on the feature.
Thanks Josh for such a fantastic and intuitive explanation! Would be great if you could do some uploads giving the same treatment to some of the other features of Cleanflight/Betaflight, such as the various rates and expo's that users can set.
Hello Joshua, Thanks for all your good video's. I have a question. Is it okay to have two modes going at once like air mode and horizon mode? Is that advisable?
I just wanted to say thanks for all the knowledge I just got in to quads adout five months ago and I have spent countless hours on youtube. you and a small handful of guys and gals really no what your talking about! "Hold fast"
Why I've never had problems like unexpected flip etc. while landing in airmode? To tell the truth - your videos is the first place I've heard about this trouble. Full season in airmode with betaflight and nothing like this.
Thanks! Best explanation I've seen. I do have questions ;) 1) Does airmode give the same behavior near max_throttle? If you hit full aileron at full throttle will the throttle automatically be lowered to give max roll authority? 2) Was it tried to give max unbalanced authority when throttle set-point is low? That is don't "throw away" the excess rpm increase just because the decrease was not available on the low end? It would give an off-center cyclic thrust but might not be significant?
+gmceo100 Examination of the code shows that yes, the same behavior occurs at both ends of the throttle range. For point two, you would have to turn to Boris.
Do most flyers that do stunts turn on "air mode" permanently or do they put it on a switch? As you can tell I haven't been doing this very long. Looking forward to doing my first roll. TY
Maybe you can help with an Airmode problem I've got with a Babyhawk R 3" quad. Airmode works fine at times but at other times the quad will rise uncontrollably when airmode is on. For example the quad will lift off fine and when it gets 2-3 feet in the air it takes off at a high rate of speed straight up in the air. By the time I disarm its 20-30 feet high and drops to the ground. When it does occur it might be connected to a bent or damaged prop but I can't be sure. At this point I don't feel comfortable turning on Airmode on for fear of what is going to happen after I take off. This behavior has occurred under both BF 3.2.2 and BF 4.0 Performance Edition. As a note I've running on a 4s battery with my throttle scaled to 30%. Is it possible that the throttle scaling is not working with Airmode such that Airmode is not limited when upping the setpoint? Any other ideas what would cause this behavior? Thanks for your help!
Lesson learned. Do not land in Airmode. I have linked my Airmode to Acro and switch into hover right before touchdown. If your copter is acro only with everything else disabled than you should have airmode disabled before landing with a switch. The Airmode idea is brilliant, once again I am really proud of my fellow countryman Boris for Betaflight development.
Okay, okay... I was being a little glib. I think the fuss is from people who stick arm, who can't input the disarm command as sharply as if you switch arm. If you switch arm, it is zero problem to flip the switch at the same time as when you zero the throttle. If you stick arm, you have to zero the throttle and then yaw left, and it may take a fraction of a second to register the command. If you have a spare Aux channel, and most of us do these days, I think you should convert to switch arming. Stick arming is an artifact of the days when we had four-channel radios. Overloading the control in that way for a function as important as arm/disarm is bad UI design. (IMO of course)
Hi. Thanks for the video!, But I think I got lost somewhere. Could we say, that Airmode could be as to have a "sonar" in order to provide more stability to motors, ESCs, and of course to all the Quad? This was my first question. The second one, is how does it work with all the Flight Modes? I mean, do I include it as a complete "flight mode" covering the min_Throttle to max_throttle range, living together with Angle, Horizon and also Acro? Thank you in advanced. Regards.
Well done sir :) You are quickly becoming my favorite drone RUclipsr. I didn't like you at first because you came across as arrogant but the more I watch, the more you grow on me.
+ricksternz Same as always. Just have to be smoother about it to keep it from hopping about. The days when it would absolutely flip out and go crazy if you had air mode on are gone. Air mode has been tamed a bit. Get close to the ground, lower throttle gradually. Cut throttle and disarm when you nudge the ground or when you feel that you are close to the ground. Stick arming makes this a lot harder though since it is not instantaneous. I highly recommend switch arming.
awesome , looking forward to upgrading my CC3D board to Beta flight with Air mode. Now I understand how those guys on youtube can pull off those float stunts. very cool. Thanks . Now a Subscriber.
Great video, I kinda knew what it did, just not how it did it, now it makes sense in my tiny mind. Acro+ on the other hand I have not a single clue what that is, if you ever feel like shedding light on that it would be appreciated.
+LeakyMeat Acro+ disconnects the PID controller from the mixer, and basically puts the stick inputs directly through to the mixer with reduced stabilization. As a result, you get much faster flips and rolls because the PID controller is not trying to manage the exact angular rate of the roll.
I don't get it. Why can't you just raise the throttle on the "right side" and leave the left side at 0? You can't go lower than 0, why do you artificially raise the throttle to go back down to 0 anyway? This whole concept doesn't make sense to me
Thank you again bardwell. Just downloaded betaflight 4.4 and air mode was one of the mode set ups and I'm used to just removing angle on all my quads so I don't accidentally enable it. And I thought what the hell is air mode get that out of here lol. Well needles to say my quad was swaying everywhere and could not figure out why until I watched this. Just clicked permanently enable air mode so going to try it out now fingers crossed it fixed my issue. Almost 100 percent sure it did
joshua, thanks a lot for another great valuable video. i really like your channel and learned a lot from you even though I am in FPV for a while. i have one question concerning air mode: I do not understand, why a copter on the ground either with props on and holding it or without props just sitting on my table shows same behavior: with airmode activated and giving a quick throttle punch, the motors are spinning pretty fast but do not calm down anymore. doing the same without airmode motor speed is going down immediatly again after the throttle punch. how come? thanks a lot and best regards from vienna, austria! christian
I get the same issue. Fairly new Wizard x220. Without props it's just scary. You raise and hold the throttle just a little and 2 of my motors, 2 & 3 I believe, just slowly increase in speed. Or when I move the pitch/roll/yaw around it goes all nuts and stays crazy, which that's probably due to the PIDs wanting to go to the virtual position that it thinks it should be in even though it's just sitting on the table. I had it go nuts while it the air the first 10 seconds and smacked the ground. Shorted an ESC. Just replaced it with a v2 racerstar. Updated and tuned it, seems okay now.The DRL Simulator is definitely different. Seems to hold throttle a lot better.
The gyros are sensing tiny vibrations in the quad, and when they try to compensate for them nothing happens because there are no props on. So the pid controller spins the motors faster and faster to compensate until they are at full throttle. The pid controller doesn't think that the quad is where it should be.
I'm having a problem on a new build. No matter what I do 1 motor just wants to keep spooling up to max, on the bench or in the field.. Running a Matek f405 fc, Any help would be appreciated
If it only does it with props off, no worries, just go fly. If it does it with props on, then check that your sticks are centered at 1500 us in the Receiver Tab. If you are in autolevel mode, possibly the acceleromter needs to be trimmed.
Hey Josh,I was having a discussion with a friend last night regarding how the accelerometer and interacts with the PID controller. We run the accelerometer disabled in betaflight to save on CPU headroom. Where does the PID controller get its input from so it knows how to respond to external forces with accelerometer disabled? My thinking is that the PID controller would not do anything, but that is obviously not the case. Actually, as I type this I believe I have answered my own question. It's the gyro, not the accelerometer.
+Paul Kendall Yes. But something must be different there, as I've never heard anybody complain about lack of authority at high throttle. Air mode has always been focused on fixing the low end.
One question. Last part when you talk about why drone flips on landing. Is that with air and angle, or just air ? Sounds to me that just air won't do that in acro ?
Yes. It works exactly the same as a feature vs. a mode, it's just that as a feature, it is always on with no aux channel configuration or anything like that.
hi Joshua, I enjoyed the video. It was very informative. Can you tell me if airmode will work if i fly in horizon mode.Also could you do a short video on setting it up?
Anyone else with OCD notice the line he drew for "midstick" wasn't actually centered? my eyes wont leave that spot now haha and my brain is burning knowing I cant fix it
Hey man great video, totally makes sense! I was wondering ive heard other FPV pilots who fly inside for cinematic video say its good to turn Airmode off for indoor flying, would you also recommend or advice this?
5 years later and youre still helping new guys! cant thank you enough josh!
in few words...with low throttle and sharp movements it increases throttle temporary to do the movement fast.... ;) thanks for your explanation...
Great way of putting it.
I never understood while watching stick movement videos how someone could roll the copter at zero throttle, so that is air mode its a cheating :)
I wouldn't call it cheating. It's the only way to achieve that kind of movement. Also, it isn't exactly easy to do some of the tricks at the speed some people are doing them. As well, your PID's have a big roll in it. If you have poorly tuned PID's the quad won't roll or pitch really fast so you get slow flips and rolls ect. If you go back about 3 years and watch some of the free style guys on youtube, like Charpu or Mr Steel you will see their rolls and flips are slower. That is because even 2-3 years ago the PID controllers weren't as good as they are now. As well the tuning of PID's was not as well defined as they are now. Also you will notice that their vid seems a bit jerky compared to more recent vids.
This video is 3yrs old and the best explanation of air mode I've encountered to date. Thanks Mr.B
In 2020, the situation hasn't changed. As the saying goes, All's well thats Bardwell.
@@YASYTU Watching in the future (2022) best explanation available still!
2023!!
2024 😎
EVERY TIME I search for anything drone related, here you are, Josh. I'd say it's getting annoying but you're always so dang informative and clear.
Perfect explaination!
I was personally tired explaining the difference between idle up and saying that people are throwing away some throttle and still have scenarios where you lose some authority.
+Boris B. Okay, with your blessing, then!
Possibly a candidate for post 1 of the betaflight thread?
Yes of course!
+Boris B. BorisB, still can't tell you enough, airmode has doubled my enjoyment of flying acro. Thankyou
+Perceivedshift Same with me, instantly fell in love with airmode. Boris rocks! :)
+Boris B. Thank you, Boris B! I love air mode on my QAV250 - it makes those long, high loops sooo much longer and smoother!
Excellent explanation of _how_ AirMode does what it does! Also appreciate the bit about jumping on landings. I noticed this, but wasn't sure why it was happening. Thank you!
+Brainstorm Very welcome.
I love that these old videos are still so educational. I had it in my head from years of other people saying that airmode was just that the PID controller stays active when the throttle is cut. Which isn't quite what happens. This video brought it back! Thanks JB!
I have watched a lot of your videos now and you are a genius. you must spend hundreds of hours on this stuff. im completely new to the technology. I am an old time flyer that learned you could fly a brick with a big enough motor. I love this stuff and I will continue to watch
Regarding a flying brick, sure you are referring to this Flite Test video: ruclips.net/video/bns5x4pvl5Y/видео.html
If you haven't seen that, then you're in for a treat.
This was very helpful. When airmode first exploded into the world there was a ton of hype around what it did. Also, as it developed, I know that the definition has evolved. It's been a confusing topic in my circles. I always just stood by my idle up function and was rather agnostic about whether airmode was really doing much; at least for me and my flying. Very recently, I've felt a handling difference with airmode on. I think that started with 2.2 but haven't taken the time to understand why. ---- TLDR ---- Makes a lot of sense now. thanks.
+12gaugeAngel If you use idle up, you will feel less difference from air mode. The real advantage of air mode is that the "set point" can go down when the sticks are centered, giving increased hang time inverted compared to idle up.
excellent explanation. Thanks for making this (nearly a year ago haha)
You spoke primarily about error induced by input (stick movement) and only touched on outide inducers of error. Air mode effectively improves the I term at low throttle as well. Effectively you can reduce the I gain an have very stable low throttle angle hold with Air Mode.
Especially now that flight controllers have 2DOF, theres even more that can be said about this.
I'd love to hear all your thoughts on this as well as the improvements that have been made to air mode (such as preventing "freakouts" on landing)
Thanks again Joshua for always informative videos
You don't fully understand a topic until you can explain it to someone else. As far as I can tell, you are the only person in the youtube/drone world that understands Air Mode! Now why I didn't just google "bardwell air mode" sooner, that's on me!
If you aren't a teacher or instructor you should be... great job!
mike phillips He is a teacher. It's just that his classroom is a RUclips channel. I've actually spent more time actively listening to and learning from him than than just about any of the formal classroom instructors I've ever had. With around fifty thousand people following him that's a big class. But if your point was just that he's got a knack for explaining things in a way people can understand, I totally agree. Screw formal academics though. We non-nerd/aspiring drone hobbyists need him!
He's not a teacher, but he plays one on the internet.
When someone starts his videos with "You're going to learn something today", his intention and odience is quite clear.
Very very VERY nice explaination! Big thanks to Boris for inventing this and thank you for explaining!
+Thieu S We make a good team, Boris and me. Every so often, he comes up with something brilliant, and then I understand it well enough to explain it to the masses. I guess that makes him Wozniak and me Jobs?
I know this video was posted almost 1 1/2 years ago; but I am just getting started in multi-rotors and have a lot to learn. The tricky part is that I do not know anyone that can help me understand all of the programming/setup aspects. You did a great job of explaining it on paper and making it very simple. Thanks!
Just wanted to thank Joshua from the bottom of my heart for being the man he seems to be and shows that he is on his channel. He is the first RUclips personally that actually took the time to truly help me figure out what I was doing wrong without referring me to some obscure video or site. You have earned a true fan and soon to be patron. Keep up the good work sir!
Now I understand why guys (today... 3 years later) are setting airmode to a switch so that they can turn it off before attempting a wall bump, rail slide, or ground skid. Great explanation!
Definitely the best and most explaining video on this subject.
Just a side note, manual focus is your friend.
Explained well! No wonder my minimum throttle doesn't control as well as I would like. Air mode is worth trying now!
+Michael Steele DEFINITELY. Raising min_throttle will increase how fast the motors are spinning when you are at idle, but here's the thing... it WON'T increase the authority between the down-spinning and up-spinning motors.
This makes so much sense, beginner pilot here, I was really confused as to why my quad was bouncing like a basketball when I try to land even though my landing wasn't as bad in simulation. This makes total sense. I'll probably stick to air mode off for indoor flying. I did watch your landing in airmode video too and I'll practice that outdoors too. Thanks for the detailed explanation. 😁
Really good and simple explanation, made perfect sense to me! Also Air Mode is available in Cleanflight as of v1.12.0 (20th Feb) for those not using Betaflight. I need to start remembering to disable it before I land though, but not had any mishaps yet.
+Sean Duffy Thanks for pointing out that it is also in Cleanflight. I wasn't sure, and didn't check.
A fellow lefty! An ah ha moment to be sure. Just had this happen to me. I will never take off in idle up mode again. A gentle breeze cost me a cracked camera casing. Still works but now I know why. Your the guru of guru's.
+Kyle Killorin Whatever works for you. I leave air mode on all the time, but I have stopped using idle up entirely since air mode came about.
really loving this channel. Your so good at explaining all of these things that would normally confuse most of us. Keep up the great work!
+MTL Racing Will do!
Very good job explaining air mode. I thought that I understood what it did but I was wrong and your video totally cleared it up. Thanks!
Hi Joshua, really nice explanation. I really like all this stuff since I'm a coder and are really into all this RC-Stuff I love how all this comes together and let these little thingys fly so well!
Great explanation! I knew what it was doing for me but never understood how, this is an awesome way of showing exactly what is happening; thank you.
OMG you are a excellent teacher, the FTV community is so lucky to have you. Thanks for the great videos.
Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense! I stopped using airmode not long after trying it and reverted to just idle up - this vid has made me want to try it again. If fact, I think I'll configure it now!!
+BigSam IMO, air mode is superior to idle up, but to each their own.
+Joshua Bardwell After re-trying airmode, I totally agree! The difference in authority at low throttle was really noticeable. Thanks for making me try it again. Now I'm thinking I should try playing with roll_yaw_cam_mix_degrees 😃
Joshua thanks for clearing that up
Air Mode it's not the same As idle up
Have a nice weekendt
+Mitz Pebre That's the gist of it!
As always in all your videos,your explination's are easy to understand.Thanks
You also forgot.... That before air mode, if you throttled all the way down, your props went into a set idle mode, with no pitch, yaw or roll controll, and bypassed the PID controller. Which also meant that if you throttled all the way down, you start to drop out of the sky.
Thanks so much for this Basically Airmode = Floating idle up!
huge fan of these educational vids, great job !
+michael lee Thanks much! Glad to be of service.
Yet another brilliant video and now I finally understand air mode! Many thanks good sir.
When Airmode is ON, the power consumption is a bit higher?
first time i'm having trouble following mr bardwell ... MOAR COFFEE!!!!
Great video. Really appreciate this kind of videos. You help the community keep up with all the new things : )
+sulan91 I do what I can. Glad it's useful.
After your explanation, it got really easy to understand this feature.
cool explanation. now I think I understand it better. Not having problems with landings - but I use a throttle to 0 switch and I also disarm the motors instantly on ground contact.
+RCSchim Same here. There is still a small bit of surging on landings, but nothing like the crazy flyaway behavior that used to be the case when air mode first was released. I think Boris has done some cleanup on the feature.
Thanks Josh for such a fantastic and intuitive explanation! Would be great if you could do some uploads giving the same treatment to some of the other features of Cleanflight/Betaflight, such as the various rates and expo's that users can set.
+Melvyn Bargh Will do, but only as I feel like I understand them well enough to break them down.
Hello Joshua,
Thanks for all your good video's. I have a question. Is it okay to have two modes going at once like air mode and horizon mode? Is that advisable?
Yes it's fine, but some modes are mutually exclusive. Like if you have Horizon and Angle on at the same time, I think Horizon will take precedence.
Incredibly helpful video! Thank you very much for creating this kind of quality content!
I just wanted to say thanks for all the knowledge I just got in to quads adout five months ago and I have spent countless hours on youtube. you and a small handful of guys and gals really no what your talking about! "Hold fast"
Wonderful explanation, thank you Joshua! Going to check out the rest of your channel now. :)
+More Luck Than Judgement Enjoy!
Very good explanation! Thank you!!
Why I've never had problems like unexpected flip etc. while landing in airmode? To tell the truth - your videos is the first place I've heard about this trouble. Full season in airmode with betaflight and nothing like this.
Yay, Joshua is the best at contribuating to fpv, hope his work pays off one Day when fpv gets as famous as Football or something like this
Always more information than we deserve. :-)
Thanks! Best explanation I've seen. I do have questions ;)
1) Does airmode give the same behavior near max_throttle? If you hit full aileron at full throttle will the throttle automatically be lowered to give max roll authority?
2) Was it tried to give max unbalanced authority when throttle set-point is low? That is don't "throw away" the excess rpm increase just because the decrease was not available on the low end? It would give an off-center cyclic thrust but might not be significant?
+gmceo100 Examination of the code shows that yes, the same behavior occurs at both ends of the throttle range. For point two, you would have to turn to Boris.
Airmode understood perfectly!! hm. Ah so 'Airmode' has no place in a single motor Fixed Wing??? Keep up the good work, thanks.
Do most flyers that do stunts turn on "air mode" permanently or do they put it on a switch? As you can tell I haven't been doing this very long. Looking forward to doing my first roll. TY
Awesome explanation! Might be a good thing to put on a switch where you can turn it off when coming in for a landing.
Great explanation. Very well done.
Maybe you can help with an Airmode problem I've got with a Babyhawk R 3" quad. Airmode works fine at times but at other times the quad will rise uncontrollably when airmode is on. For example the quad will lift off fine and when it gets 2-3 feet in the air it takes off at a high rate of speed straight up in the air. By the time I disarm its 20-30 feet high and drops to the ground. When it does occur it might be connected to a bent or damaged prop but I can't be sure. At this point I don't feel comfortable turning on Airmode on for fear of what is going to happen after I take off. This behavior has occurred under both BF 3.2.2 and BF 4.0 Performance Edition. As a note I've running on a 4s battery with my throttle scaled to 30%. Is it possible that the throttle scaling is not working with Airmode such that Airmode is not limited when upping the setpoint? Any other ideas what would cause this behavior? Thanks for your help!
Did you got an answer? Facing the same
Lesson learned. Do not land in Airmode. I have linked my Airmode to Acro and switch into hover right before touchdown. If your copter is acro only with everything else disabled than you should have airmode disabled before landing with a switch. The Airmode idea is brilliant, once again I am really proud of my fellow countryman Boris for Betaflight development.
+RC Pilot Multirotor I have air mode on all the time and have no trouble landing. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.
Okay, okay... I was being a little glib. I think the fuss is from people who stick arm, who can't input the disarm command as sharply as if you switch arm. If you switch arm, it is zero problem to flip the switch at the same time as when you zero the throttle. If you stick arm, you have to zero the throttle and then yaw left, and it may take a fraction of a second to register the command.
If you have a spare Aux channel, and most of us do these days, I think you should convert to switch arming. Stick arming is an artifact of the days when we had four-channel radios. Overloading the control in that way for a function as important as arm/disarm is bad UI design. (IMO of course)
Another great explanation video Josh!
+David Martin Glad you liked it!
Will point lots of people to it when they ask "how does Airmode work?"
Please do!
Hi. Thanks for the video!, But I think I got lost somewhere. Could we say, that Airmode could be as to have a "sonar" in order to provide more stability to motors, ESCs, and of course to all the Quad? This was my first question. The second one, is how does it work with all the Flight Modes? I mean, do I include it as a complete "flight mode" covering the min_Throttle to max_throttle range, living together with Angle, Horizon and also Acro? Thank you in advanced. Regards.
+Ignacio Olave it's not a flight mode. It's a change to the mixer logic. It works in all flight modes.
Well done sir :)
You are quickly becoming my favorite drone RUclipsr. I didn't like you at first because you came across as arrogant but the more I watch, the more you grow on me.
Ah, ok! So I van cover the complete range, allocating the flight modes. Great! Thanks!
+Ignacio Olave or just enable it as a feature in later Betaflight versions.
So do you switch to angle mode when landing ?
No.
No you just disarm the motors so the quad settles onto the ground.
Interesting as always, learned again from you, keep it up and happy flying!
Good explanation - thanks for the video! Looks like I need to start using Airmode.
completely makes sense. 1 question though, so how do you land the drone on airmode? thanks
+ricksternz Same as always. Just have to be smoother about it to keep it from hopping about. The days when it would absolutely flip out and go crazy if you had air mode on are gone. Air mode has been tamed a bit. Get close to the ground, lower throttle gradually. Cut throttle and disarm when you nudge the ground or when you feel that you are close to the ground.
Stick arming makes this a lot harder though since it is not instantaneous. I highly recommend switch arming.
Thank you very much for this detailed explanation! It was very helpful for a newbie like me. Best regards from Germany!! :-)
awesome , looking forward to upgrading my CC3D board to Beta flight with Air mode. Now I understand how those guys on youtube can pull off those float stunts. very cool. Thanks . Now a Subscriber.
Thanks for great explanation
Good teacher...Thanks a lot..!
amazing explanation! thanks a lot
Great video, I kinda knew what it did, just not how it did it, now it makes sense in my tiny mind.
Acro+ on the other hand I have not a single clue what that is, if you ever feel like shedding light on that it would be appreciated.
+LeakyMeat Acro+ disconnects the PID controller from the mixer, and basically puts the stick inputs directly through to the mixer with reduced stabilization. As a result, you get much faster flips and rolls because the PID controller is not trying to manage the exact angular rate of the roll.
+Joshua Bardwell Ah right, thanks for that explaination, sounds like its not for someone of my skill level.
I don't get it.
Why can't you just raise the throttle on the "right side" and leave the left side at 0? You can't go lower than 0, why do you artificially raise the throttle to go back down to 0 anyway? This whole concept doesn't make sense to me
Thank you again bardwell. Just downloaded betaflight 4.4 and air mode was one of the mode set ups and I'm used to just removing angle on all my quads so I don't accidentally enable it. And I thought what the hell is air mode get that out of here lol. Well needles to say my quad was swaying everywhere and could not figure out why until I watched this. Just clicked permanently enable air mode so going to try it out now fingers crossed it fixed my issue. Almost 100 percent sure it did
@8.33...I can hear the Princess Bride character trying to break through lol....."Inconceivable!".
Excellent explanation. Thank you for making this video!
Good explanation!! Thx again! Learned something new
All my questions leads to your answers - thanks
Great explanation, thanks mate :)
Glad it was helpful.
Very well explained! Thanks!
wow, this is an excellent lesson. thanks.
Well explained! Funny, my exact min throttle is 1024...
Great explanation. makes sense now.
Awesome thank you...... Knowledge is power 👊😎👍
+Dis Hayn Too true!
In a sum up. You recommend having Air mode on an aux that can be tuned off when landing? right?
No. Exactly the opposite.
ruclips.net/video/Y9FPOy8C6I4/видео.html
joshua, thanks a lot for another great valuable video. i really like your channel and learned a lot from you even though I am in FPV for a while.
i have one question concerning air mode: I do not understand, why a copter on the ground either with props on and holding it or without props just sitting on my table shows same behavior:
with airmode activated and giving a quick throttle punch, the motors are spinning pretty fast but do not calm down anymore.
doing the same without airmode motor speed is going down immediatly again after the throttle punch.
how come?
thanks a lot and best regards from vienna, austria!
christian
Really valuable video. And I met the same situations with yours...
I get the same issue. Fairly new Wizard x220. Without props it's just scary. You raise and hold the throttle just a little and 2 of my motors, 2 & 3 I believe, just slowly increase in speed. Or when I move the pitch/roll/yaw around it goes all nuts and stays crazy, which that's probably due to the PIDs wanting to go to the virtual position that it thinks it should be in even though it's just sitting on the table.
I had it go nuts while it the air the first 10 seconds and smacked the ground. Shorted an ESC. Just replaced it with a v2 racerstar. Updated and tuned it, seems okay now.The DRL Simulator is definitely different. Seems to hold throttle a lot better.
The gyros are sensing tiny vibrations in the quad, and when they try to compensate for them nothing happens because there are no props on. So the pid controller spins the motors faster and faster to compensate until they are at full throttle. The pid controller doesn't think that the quad is where it should be.
@@thomastommy9864 does the wizard 220 have an air mode?
to land cut direct the motos (arming switch down before touching the ground ;) very well explained ;) thank you ;)
I'm having a problem on a new build. No matter what I do 1 motor just wants to keep spooling up to max, on the bench or in the field.. Running a Matek f405 fc, Any help would be appreciated
If it only does it with props off, no worries, just go fly.
If it does it with props on, then check that your sticks are centered at 1500 us in the Receiver Tab.
If you are in autolevel mode, possibly the acceleromter needs to be trimmed.
Thank you so much, great instruction.
Hey Josh,I was having a discussion with a friend last night regarding how the accelerometer and interacts with the PID controller.
We run the accelerometer disabled in betaflight to save on CPU headroom.
Where does the PID controller get its input from so it knows how to respond to external forces with accelerometer disabled? My thinking is that the PID controller would not do anything, but that is obviously not the case.
Actually, as I type this I believe I have answered my own question. It's the gyro, not the accelerometer.
+Joshua Bardwell, I assume that the same thing occurs at the top end of the throttle range as at the bottom end like you show in the video.
+Paul Kendall Yes. But something must be different there, as I've never heard anybody complain about lack of authority at high throttle. Air mode has always been focused on fixing the low end.
One question. Last part when you talk about why drone flips on landing. Is that with air and angle, or just air ? Sounds to me that just air won't do that in acro ?
It may also do it in angle.
Dude, you're wrong handed👍
Brilliant explanation, thank you for sharing!
I'm not lost anymore. Thanks
Very welcome. Happy flying!
Thank you for all of your work! If I enable it as a feature in 3.0 do I still get 1000us to 1350us normal, and not need to put it on a switch?
Yes. It works exactly the same as a feature vs. a mode, it's just that as a feature, it is always on with no aux channel configuration or anything like that.
As soon as you go over 1350 the first time, it activates for the remainder of the flight. You can reconfigure that number if desired.
very clear description !! 👍👍
Excellent! Well explained, sir. :)
hi Joshua, I enjoyed the video. It was very informative. Can you tell me if airmode will work if i fly in horizon mode.Also could you do a short video on setting it up?
+fpv flyby Air Mode is enabled in the Modes tab, same as Horizon mode. You can have them active at the same time.
+Joshua Bardwell thanks a lot man keep up the good work.
Could you accomplish this with some mixing used on the radio allocated by a separate flight/rate mode?
Great explanation, thank you!
Anyone else with OCD notice the line he drew for "midstick" wasn't actually centered? my eyes wont leave that spot now haha and my brain is burning knowing I cant fix it
The line didnt supposed to be centered. Yoy can reach midle throtle before reachibg sticks centered position..
Very good explained :-)
Hey man great video, totally makes sense! I was wondering ive heard other FPV pilots who fly inside for cinematic video say its good to turn Airmode off for indoor flying, would you also recommend or advice this?