Hi Everyone, I don't know if this is possible or if I saw it right.

I was watching a video on youtube and the pilot had his fatsharks proped on his head and was taking off from a balcony in LOS. The quad flew off frame but he then took his hands off the controlls and slipped the goggles on and flew it FPV.  How did he do this? Did the quad go into a hover standby mode and just sit there in the sky while he as putting the goggles on? Is there a switch that can be set to flip the quad into level mode and just kind of hover there and wait for the pilot?  Ive looked online but i cant seem to find the answer that I am looking for. 
I dont have fatshark goggles. I wear glasses and they are out of my price range. I'm using Quantum V2 goggles. They are working but are a little bulky and take two hands to position them just right on my face. Would love to start out in LOS mode and then have it hover in place for a moment while I adjust my goggles then fly around in FPV.

Is this possible?


I have what I consider a beginners quadcopter

Current setup:
ZMR 250 Clone
MT2204 2300KV Brushless motor
Emax BLHeli 12A ESC
5040 King Kong props
CC3D
Flysky fs-t6 Controller
openpilot GCS

It is entirely possible. How long were his hands off the controls....5 seconds or so? It may have been that his machine was just really well balanced and trimmed and it was able to hover unaided for a few seconds. He may have engaged altitude hold. If it had GPS he may have engaged position hold. There may be other methods for accomplishing the same thing, but regardless, it is defiantly possible.

I do this sometimes and its quite easy once you get the hang of it, just make sure you arm with a switch and keep the motor running when armed. Hold the copter in the opposite hand of your throttle, give a little bit of throttle until it starts ascending. Now, as long as there is nothing in the way over you, you have a lot of time to put on your goggles, the copter will just keep on ascending or keep its altitude, all depending on your throttle.
You can also land in your hand. You just lower the throttle untill the copter starts descending slowly, let go of the throttle and use the roll/pitch stick to steer it right over the left hand and then disarm with the switch. My disarm switch is right over the roll/pitch stick (mode 2)

Use a switch that moves you between Acro (none selected) and Horizon mode. Take off in Horizon mode, put your throttle up enough to hover then move our hand off the throttle to put the goggles on. If you have airmode on you should have plenty of time to get your goggles on before it hits the ground. Not infinite time, but time.

From my experience the quad is much more predictable in acro than horizon when doing this maneuver. I don't think airmode on or off will affect this maneuver very much

3 options i can see as quite easy:
1. gps + angle mode => gps hold. <= requires gps receiver
2. angle mode without any input beside throttle should hover quite nicely <= requires additonal modes under switch (angle/rate), after putting your googles on you flip the switch.
3. rate skills - you just start and put your quad to almost hover and put your googles on... <- requires a bit of training and getting use to rate.

Thanks for all the tips and advice everyone.  I will have to give some of them a try after I fix my Quad.
Landing in my hand would be very cool and scare the crap out of my wife.
I've already sliced my finders pretty bad one time when throttle got pushed and I forgot to disarm it.
I was trying to do my first roll and flip this weekend. Really wanted to make a freestyle video for the contest. 
Unfortunately I failed miserably.  I could not get the quad to roll past 90 degrees and then I tried a back flip.  Well it flipped over and then came right down to earth upside down.  Fell about 50 feet to the grass.  The video looked cool, but now it has issues. It was having trouble arming and was flying crummy for one more pack.   Took it home, watched a video on what to adjust on GCS to make rolls and flips easier. Something about rattitude.  I made the changes on the software, now the quad wont arm at all.  The only way i can get it to fly is if I set it to Always Arm. (sounds like a bad Idea to me). 
Any thoughts to why it wont arm anymore?
It is flying OK for the moment, although the controls are a bit more sensitive now.

(15-Aug-2016, 05:56 PM)NimhBot Wrote: Thanks for all the tips and advice everyone.  I will have to give some of them a try after I fix my Quad.
Landing in my hand would be very cool and scare the crap out of my wife.
I've already sliced my finders pretty bad one time when throttle got pushed and I forgot to disarm it.
I was trying to do my first roll and flip this weekend. Really wanted to make a freestyle video for the contest. 
Unfortunately I failed miserably.  I could not get the quad to roll past 90 degrees and then I tried a back flip.  Well it flipped over and then came right down to earth upside down.  Fell about 50 feet to the grass.  The video looked cool, but now it has issues. It was having trouble arming and was flying crummy for one more pack.   Took it home, watched a video on what to adjust on GCS to make rolls and flips easier. Something about rattitude.  I made the changes on the software, now the quad wont arm at all.  The only way i can get it to fly is if I set it to Always Arm. (sounds like a bad Idea to me). 
Any thoughts to why it wont arm anymore?
It is flying OK for the moment, although the controls are a bit more sensitive now.

Hey Nimhbot. 
I would try and avoid Rattitude if I were you, while on paper it sounds all so cool, it can catch you unawares very quickly. Rattitude is a combination of Attitude and Rate rolled into one, which when broken down is Attitude (self level) mode around centre sticks and as you reach around half stick it switches to rate mode, this can catch many a pilot out when it hits rate mode.

It has been a while since I used GCS, but can easily plug one of my CC3D's or Nano in and walk you through some steps to help improve your flying experience.

(15-Aug-2016, 09:36 PM)BigglesFPV Wrote: Hey Nimhbot. 
I would try and avoid Rattitude if I were you, while on paper it sounds all so cool, it can catch you unawares very quickly. Rattitude is a combination of Attitude and Rate rolled into one, which when broken down is Attitude (self level) mode around centre sticks and as you reach around half stick it switches to rate mode, this can catch many a pilot out when it hits rate mode.

It has been a while since I used GCS, but can easily plug one of my CC3D's or Nano in and walk you through some steps to help improve your flying experience.

Thanks for the info BigglesFPV.
I would love some help on the software configuration.
I don't know anyone IRL that flys quads so INTOFPV and google are how I am learning.

This is the video I watched on how to adjst for better rolls and flips with GCS.



Do you think it gave me crummy advice to switch to rattitude?
The quad feels very sketchy and like if I make one slight left or right movement with the sticks it will fly off and hit a wall

Also don't know if the changes I made following this video are the reason it wont arm anymore.
Ive heard of flashing Cleanflight to the CC3d. Is this recommended?

Sorry its taken me a few days to reply, My wife is having our first baby anyday now and I have ben a bit distracted from flying. Her due date is tomorrow.

I would really appreciate any help you can give me. This forum is my group of "friends" Ive never met to who love to talk about quads.

Thanks for all the help and inspiration.

Hey NimhBot, congrats on the new addition to the family when he/she comes along.

I will have a good look at this and get back to you later today (well, my day at least), when I am off work.

Rattitude has it place, but honestly, not great advice for a new pilot as it will make you come unstuck very quick.

I will reply in detail later.

(17-Aug-2016, 02:23 AM)BigglesFPV Wrote: Hey NimhBot, congrats on the new addition to the family when he/she comes along.

I will have a good look at this and get back to you later today (well, my day at least), when I am off work.

Rattitude has it place, but honestly, not great advice for a new pilot as it will make you come unstuck very quick.

I will reply in detail later.

You rock dude. Thank you.

And its a Girl. 

Congrats NimhBot on the birth of your daughter.


Ok, to work we go.

I am running Open Pilot GCS 15.02.02 for this guide. and a CC3D FC

First up I would update your firmware on the FC, do a upgrade and erase.

Then run the Vehicle setup wizard, followed by the Radio wizard setup.

Once you have done that and confirmed the board will arm by whatever means you set it to (yaw left, yaw rights etc) and all flight control inputs and switched are good to go, If you have a 3 position switch on the radio you can set that up or just stick a 2 position switch, wont make any difference for what we do here.

Once done that we can move on and setp the modes

Go to the radio tab (Input) and select Flight Mode Switch Settings. set it up like this.




If you are running a 3 position switch just assign the same as bank 2 (for now).

Flip across one tab Arming Settings and double check how you plan to arm it.





Ok, oh and make sure you hit save before exiting and moving to next page.


Go to Stabilization Tab and click on Advanced and select Use Advanced configuration and add the numbers from this screenshot




and hit save.

Those settings will make your quad snappy all round and remember you cannot do rolls and flips in Attitude mode, You need Rate mode for that. If you really want to do rolls and flips early on before learning to fly properly (I am only assuming you are new at this, apologises if you aren't), Then Rattitude maybe the way to go for you, But as I said, it will lull you into a false sense of security, You will be flying happily in what is Attitude mode from middle stick to about half way then BOOM, it goes to Rate mode.

My advice, if you are starting off, Is try Attitude mode to get a feel of how the quad flys and then move to Rate mode (Switch position 2) and try again.  You can always switch back to Attitude mode if you come unstuck in rate mode by a flick of your position switch.

But, the best advice I can give is dump the OP hardware and software and go Cleanflight/Betaflight.

Honestly, the software is so much better and the hardware in terms of Flight Controllers is staggering with the amount of choices.

Probably not the advice you would want to hear, but perhaps worth thinking about.

and Yes, you can flash cleanflight or betaflight to a CC3D, and does work pretty good, but you miss out on a lot of cool stuff the dedicated CF/BF FC's can provide.

Anyways, before I get flamed by others, this is only my view and not to be taken as gospel.  Each to their own I say.

Few cents from my experience, i've started with CC3D and GCS/open pilot... i'd advise to switch to betaflight even if you are a begginer, not that hard gazilion of tutorials on internet/youtube... i've managed to do this you can also, and as Konrad says "i can break everything" - which i typically do

as for flying started with angle (get basics of flying)... started being cocky... switched to "horizon" which is equivalent of the rattitude... bam, crash crash etc..
for me it was strange that if i was gently touching the sticks it hovered nicley and after point X boom... hitting the ground... why - because i couldn't fly (not that i can now but now i can hover in a majestical way). at that time Konrad already was doing flips and rolls in Rate mode... and nagged me... switch switch switch...
Eventualy i did - and it was the WORST decision ever... for first 10 flights i was in panick mode all the time... but after 11th or 12th ... it became quite natural.

now i don't have angle mode on my quad flying only rate... (i will add it 450 which im going to build someday)

major question is are you fpv or los... rate in FPV is easier - but you need to fly it los also as sometimes you will lose the video feed...

so advise from my end (learned the hard way) go for the rate as soon as you can fly... start Losing and FPV in rate... slowly...

Thanks so much Bigggles.
I've been away from my quad for a week or so due to the new addition to my family.
The tutorial looks great. I really appreciate the effort that you put in to get me back into the sky and flying right.
Unfortunately I think my flight controller is broken or just crap. I cannot get past the enter boot loader section and it fails each time I try to upgrade and erase the board. So as it stands I am grounded and the quad is kinda useless. I think I'll take this as an opportunity to get a FC that can run cleanflight or betaflight. Do you have a suggestion on which one to get? I looked around a bit and found this one on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01BPT3BT...OWTP8E47U9
I'm totally open to suggestions if this is not a great one to get.
I was really impressed that you took the time to wright me the cc3d tutorial and was anxious to put your advice to work but alas I've tried many times to get my cc3d up and running and I'm out of ideas.
Thanks again for all your help and I'm hoping the linked flight controller in Amazon will be better.
You rock man. Thank you

Hey NimhBot,

Personally I would avoid the Naze 32 Rev6, just google it and you will see all sorts of issues with "noise" about it.

It is also an older generation board (F1) .

Consider a F3 board, like a Cyclone, SPRacing F3, Xracer F303 V3.1 and the like. Even a few F4 boards out now that are nice.

The majority of my quads run Xracer F303's and SPRacing F3's.

You will love Cleanflight / Betaflight, and it is pretty easy to get your head around.