How I setup Betaflight's GPS Rescue for Long Range FPV 

Hey Mark, it seems you have misunderstood the correct situation to use the different settings. To start, I am referring to my own personal settings that I find best for my typical long range flight situation. I assume you are thinking that if I lose connection at the top of the mountain and the drone goes to whatever the max altitude was that it should get high enough to recover signal. In such a scenario that would be correct. But now with the same settings a different scenario, I'm on my way back down the mountain everything is going fine, I'm most of the way back now and decide to go and check out a waterfall that I pass near. But now I fly behind a ridge between myself and the drone, if I activate GPS rescue in max alt mode it will continue to gain altitude until I get signal back and turn rescue mode off myself. Again you're right for this scenario it works. But now lets stop thinking about only ourselves and dealing with an easily managed scenario. Drones are not 100% perfect they have bugs in firmware and the electronics are only consumer grade not aviation or military grade components. So say your goggle battery dies, or your FPV camera hits a branch and gets broken, or your crossfire antenna is damaged and you didn't notice. In all of these situations you will not be able to regain control of the drone and it will carry out the MAX ALTITUDE rescue mode. So I just flew up a 2.5km tall mountain and this happens close to home, so to start my drone will try to ascend 2.5km all at once, I fly with li-ion so it would never get up there it would kill the battery halfway up, die and drop. Say it has a half full lipo on board, ok so it doesn't drop it goes the whole 2.5km up but now its over top of me not the mountain so its literally 2.5km up in the air. That is absolutely not acceptable practice. This scenario would endanger full size aircraft and would be very irresponsible. Getting your drone back is not more important then making sure to stay out of the airspace of commercial aviation. Current altitude will work for most situations. It can be set to go to a certain number of meters above current altitude, 50 or 100 meters would be a good setting if you're really worried about it not going high enough. With proper route planning done pre flight you should never need to use max alt rescue setting. Its purpose is for people that are NOT flying up mountains, like following a river for 2km out and you lose signal, then max alt would be safe in all situations. That's why it's an option because no one setting is CORRECT for every situation. As well I am making a RU-vid video that will be watched by thousands of people. It would be irresponsible for me to just tell everyone to use a potentially dangerous GPS rescue setting. Commercial aviation safety MUST ALWAYS be the first thought in long range flights, nothing else is acceptable.

@@FalconRadFPV Boom...and that,s all she wrote! stick that in your pipe and smoke it mark crum..lol

@@FalconRadFPV haahahha the dude is still silent to this day :D

@@zeDoSauRus you can't necessarily know because youtube censors comments.

@@flat-earther lol yeah I'm sure he got censored 😂😂😂

That's a great idea. I am planning on doing more long range flights with in flight narration as I'm flying (another camera on me and my spotter). I have a couple of videos already made that will be getting posted soon that touch on this concept. I've been thinking about a pre flight planning video, actually even tried recording a couple of them. (I still have a video to do about losing a quad several months ago. I've been avoiding it because I feel a bit silly about how it happened. It was my first try at flying long range and talking to the camera at the same time. I got distracted by talking to the camera and my spotter got distracted by trying to think of helpful questions from a viewers perspective and we were both also distracted by what gopro shot to try getting next. In the end we both realized how low my battery was when it was too late! When I eventually get that video done it will have a few good lessons in it.)

You're welcome!

Thanks. That brings to mind a good video idea. I have a lot of footage where I go through temporary video loss. It often happens multiple times over a day of long range flights. I should do a compilation of short clips of losing video and how I handle it. It would be a good follow up video.

I’ll be waiting to see that! Sounds awesome!

Thanks for the comment. Yes exactly, it gives that extra peace of mind when maneuvering blind for a couple of seconds.

You just need to make sure with gps / angle that when your quad calibration takes place your quad is actually flat and reasonably level.

Can we make a switch in OpenTx which when hit - it automatically turns on Angle mode, rises throttle level a little bit higher than hovering level and adds a little bit yaw rotation?

@@edgafpv its the same setting as you have for sure for arm switch. just add in mixes next switch, go to betaflight, try if you get signal from your radio and add angle mode in bf.

@@edgafpv it may be possible watch one of the bard well videos regarding throttle curve altered by switch… I would suggest you just stick to using the throttle manually

Yes exactly, it's too bad we have to choose between good GPS function and good flight characteristics. But it's understandable, one firmware won't be great at everything. It's crazy how amazing the dev's get these things flying though.

@@FalconRadFPV ya, I always have to check myself before complaining about open source stuff if done nothing to contribute to. It's like complaining about trail conditions when you haven't lifted a finger to do any work.

You're very welcome!

Glad it helped!

You're welcome!

Thanks very much! You to my friend. 👋👍

You're welcome. I really struggle with this type of video but I'm getting more comfortable with it as I do more of them.

@@FalconRadFPV this format was awesome. I usually fly angle anyway because I’m not very good. Thus video takes the mystery out of your recoveries. There weren’t as many differences to my settings as I would have thought, but you have made me more curious about reading the betaflight wiki and educating myself

yes it sure was, my heart was beating like crazy!

Set up my Falcon7 just like this and it works.

Glad it helped

Oh thanks so much! I really appreciate you saying that!

Oh awesome! It's great to hear that it helped you out, that's one less lost quad!

Nice 👍

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks, will do!

wow, well I hope this was last thing you were waiting for to get it done!

My pleasure!

Glad it helped you out.

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks!

You're welcome!

I think it'll help, good luck with your testing!

​@@FalconRadFPV Im really happy with results. GPS Rescue works very well. I switched off my radio, done 3 failsafes and more. This thing for sure will rescue my quad. But im not sure about angle settings in bf. I used 35 and it work good. But in high mountains sometimes wind is 30-40km/h so maybe raise angle to 40?

Thank you too!

Nice, just take it slow and don't go too far right away. A couple tips: Get to know what mah count (OSD mAh used) you get with each battery. Go 1 km out and back a bunch of times, to get an idea of total distance and flight times. Then always turn around and come home when you are 40% of the way through the total mAh count you are expecting for that pack.

Thank you!

@@FalconRadFPV no thank you for sharing your knowledge so we can learn from you.

Thanks and welcome

Welcome 😊

You're welcome 😊

Thanks very much!

I don't get it? But thanks anyways!

Thanks!

Glad I could help!

Angle mode doesn't have to overlap gps rescue, but it's good to switch from rescue to angle mode then back to full control. It can help to avoid control issues as switching out of rescue mode.

@@FalconRadFPV yeah that makes sense :) thank you for the reply!

Thanks. Interesting about sharkbyte. I was thought it may not have the necessary output power. I remember seeing a thumbnail for a sharkbyte video you did, I'll have to check it out!

@@FalconRadFPV the necessary power for LR is exactly what I've been testing. So far have been out 2 miles and I think one can push it further. A newer higher powered vtx is rumored to be in development.

If you you flipped the switch and it just dropped then my guess would be that it failed the sanity checks. If you continue to have trouble with it you could try looking at what the blackbox says. Maybe there's a gps rescue status debug mode? Read the betaflight wiki, gps rescue section. There is a part on the sanity checks and what they are. You may want to set your sanity checks to failsafe only, just be careful when you use it and know what the different sanity check settings do. It's explained well in the wiki. There's a link in the video description to the GPS rescue page of the wiki.

@@FalconRadFPV I was thinking that was well and I thought it was possible I was too close. I changed the setting to 50 meters and it still responded oddly. I have to really look at it.

@@FalconRadFPV I turned off sanity checks because of that

yes under the modes tab you can put failsafe on a switch to test it, after you're comfortable remove it and switch it back to gps rescue, turning off the TX is really unsafe so this mode was designed to simulate that without having to turn off the TX

Yes that's a good point! That would be a good way to test it.

why would you keep your finger on the disarm switch the whole time while freestyling? never disarm! :D

I like to switch to angle mode and just throttle up to regain video rather than counting on GPS rescue. If that doesn't work I flick the switch alll the way to the end to engage GPS rescue. If your drone failsafes it is best to switch into GPS Rescue mode until your video returns and then switch back to acro and retake control. This is because in odd cases of failsafe the drone could regain connection to the TX and return control to you even though video is still out so you want to make sure it stays in GPS rescue mode until you are fully ready to retake control.

It's happened to me a few times, somehow it usually sorts it's self out if I fly over top of myself at the home point. That hasn't happened to me in months now though.

Sorry I don't use the DJI FPV system. I use analog which is much different.

The crossfire receiver should have the failsafe setting set to "cut". This will halt all signals in the event of a failsafe so the FC will realize it's a failsafe situation.

@@FalconRadFPV thanks..👍👍👍

@@FalconRadFPV Finally complete my AOS falcon 7 build..it flew exceptionally well with the stock pid and filter setting..Have question with the GPS rescue. I noticed the quad drop in altitude after the GPS rescue initiation before its picking up the altitude in the next seconds. Is that a normal behaviour? Settings are as per your recommendation in the video.

The setup should still be quite similar although 4.4 has a few more options than 4.2 did. As always, and especially with GPS rescue, stick to changing things that you understand the effect of and do more than one test of the setup before relying on it to save you.

Stage one is a hold time between losing signal and activating gps rescue. This is so that if signal is lost for less than 1/2 a second it won't activate rescue mode unnecessarily.

@@FalconRadFPV so the gps it's ok right. Idont have to change the failsafe switch to stage 2. What is the difference when I choose the stage 2. Not stage 1.

It could possibly be some sort of interference. Try moving the wires for the GPS away from other stuff like the VTX or receiver.

Thanks for the comment. That's a good point you make about the delay of guard time. I think it shouldn't be 0 though. You don't want it kicking in all of a sudden because of a micro failsafe. Which are more common at longer ranges I think. I can't have sanity checks off where I live, well in the summer time at least, the chance of a fire is too great. I turn sanity checks off for everything except failsafes.

@@FalconRadFPV the radio system itself normally has a guard time but this is something you can test on the bench. I would rather set current limit on esc's rather than sanity checks ever be enabled if your worried about starting fires.

If you are comfortable giving the stick inputs with no video then, yes! I actually do exactly that pull back on pitch and increase the throttle, I'll often do just that and skip activating GPS rescue.

Thanks! I don't have one installed. Mag also known as compass.

They are usually plagued with interference on quads. You might be able to place them somewhere on a fixed wing or very large quad where it has no interference from electrical components and wires, but usually it's better to use GPS for orientation. That requires flying away from the home point in a straight line for some distance (30-50 m should be fine) so Betaflight can get the direction right.

Happy to help!

Yes that's right. When near buildings, vehicles or random people walking around then it's best to set it to drop. I always fly long range 20 or 30 km from the nearest buildings with very few people around.

I just leave it on dynamic but I'm thinking about switching to locking it at 150 once I start doing more long range and less field testing in the spring. I use 500mW usually for power output.

@@FalconRadFPV thanks mate👍. If is just long range I’d definitely recommend locking it at 50hz, but more latency but heaps more penetration and range.

I left it set to off. I assume it tries to calculate vertical drop into the gps speed since gps speed.

I just like the way it tunes and flys with betaflight. I also don't feel the need for the automated stuff in INAV. That said, INAV has far superior GPS functions. The return to home works better, and it has stuff like hover in place and automated flight with way points and more. I just want to fly my quad up a mountain and keep it simple.

Thanks for the answer . Greetings from Hungary .

Ya betaflight GPS fuction is very limited compared to INav. I keep thinking about getting an FPV plane setup....

Not sure, as long as you set it for aux XX and then you can see aux XX move in the transmitter tab when you flick the switch, then it should work as long it passes the sanity checks.

@@FalconRadFPV awesome thanks!

Oscar Liang: "Activate Failsafe mode. Now the quad should enter GPS Rescue mode. You should also activate Rescue mode now, as I mentioned earlier. When you get out of Failsafe, you can manually disengage Rescue mode and that gives you enough time to take back control, otherwise it would just drop to the ground."

Sorry I don't understand the question. I find the 3 position switch setup that I cover in this video is the best way to do it. I think he is talking about when you turn rescue mode off you have to move the sticks enough to let the FC know that you have taken back control. Just use the 3 position switch setup, it should prevent a fall out of the sky scenario.

The though is that the FC is always in angle mode when changing between the two end positions. I've heard of instabilities when changing out of GPS rescue mode. It doesn't hurt having angle mode go all the way over. I believe that if it does not that the quad when gps rescue is turned off would leave angle mode (part of gps rescue) then switch back into angle mode again right afterwards. It just seems reasonable to have it stay in that mode rather than exit and reenter it right away. In blackbox logs you can see that this process is actually quite rough unless you have the settings toned down in which case the gps rescue response is slowed and increases the risk of gps rescue crashing your quad.

There is no issue that I know of to do with the XT60. I've built this quad with the xt60 coming out the side, front and back. I'm using all the original TPU parts with no issues at all.

@@FalconRadFPV ok. The xt60 fits into the rectangular cut out on the tpu just below the falcon head . I assumed the xt60 fit there. I'll gladly secure the xt60 leads out the side. Thank you. Love the frame

Great point to add! Yes the distance above current altitude is also a modifiable variable.

I would suggest trying to swap out the GPS for a different brand, or it could be the GPS settings. Have you tried GPS rescue with leaving all the settings on default, or as many settings on default as possible, but try to do it with everything on defaults. In very rare cases even a GPS setting can cause a hidden/unknown conflict or firmware issue. If it works fine on all defaults, then change each setting one at a time and test, until one of them causes the issue you described. But if you've tried two different stacks, I'd suggest trying a different GPS next.

@@FalconRadFPV thx for the reply.. Different stacks but same hglrc F722. One with Bmi270 a d and one with mpu6000. Still can try my mamba f405 stack. I've tried it all on defaults. I've also gone and changed one at a time... Results of my other quads and in the video also this 7 inch where you can see the issue : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gGBFUM1Q6bM.html

Maybe you have a magnetometer (compass) on the GPS module or in the FC. It's recommended to not use them unless you can keep it far away from any other wires and electronics (10 cm minimum, which is not possible on most quads). The compass might show into the wrong direction because of interference. Also the orientation might be set up incorrectly in Betaflight. You should check the manual of your FC and GPS to set their orientation accordingly. A magnetometer has a separate orientation setting. Also check that it's all installed with the arrow facing forward.

@@razorblade7108 thx for the reply. Swapping out the fc fixed all the issues. Seems the Zeus F722 stacks are just not that great.

It depends on what your doing. Sometimes it uses a SET command and sometimes it doesn't (like with resources I think). If you want you can email me at falconradfpv@gmail.com and I'll help you out with some screen grabs + instructions or something like that.

The GPS will estimate the altitude, but if you have a barometer you can enable it in the configuration tab of betaflight. A barometer will help the flight controller to more accurately estimate the current altitude. No CLI needed for any altitude or barometer settings. Just the checkbox for barometer along with magnetometer and accelerometer in the config tab.

@@FalconRadFPVhi, Thanks, I'm going to set up my drone that way,👍👍👍

@@FalconRadFPV hi,Thanks, I'm going to set up my drone that way

Moving the switch back to idle turns gps rescue mode back off and returns control to you.

@@FalconRadFPV thanks..

The main settings should work for both, although I do not have any experience with BF 4.3. I'm waiting for it to get the bugs fixed and the final release before I start using it. I have noticed that BF 4.1.7 has a much more responsive GPS rescue mode. I wish BF 4.2 GPS rescue worked as well, it starts off really slowly losing altitude before kicking in properly.

@@FalconRadFPV yes , i did some tests com my quds , 7inch 4.3.6 and 4.2.0 , th gps activates super fast , but it takes more time to start reacting comparad to your videos. but it works.

@@FalconRadFPV but i think its okay for now . iam goint nowehre far like you. ill be mostly at 1.5 mile away. i was flying withou GPS on DJI Radio for the last year and a half. Now iam on crossfire and with GPS , gonna risk a little more. thanks for sharing your experience

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question. You can change it as a setting, under "sanity checks" in the failsafe tab. WARNING turning sanity checks off can start fires!!! I've heard of quads hitting the ground and going full throttle with no sanity checks. I have sanity checks set to "failsafe only". So if I hit the switch to engage gps rescue mode it will bypass the sanity checks (risky know what you are doing!) but in the case of a failsafe it will still do sanity checks. READ THE BETAFLIGHT WIKI for gps rescue, read about the sanity checks.

@@FalconRadFPV no this is not atually, ı want when ı pull the resue swith, if drone is not resue capability drone keep going aro mode, not drop

that is for sure part of the sanity checks.

It auto returns. The flight controller will do its best to try and fly the quad back towards you automatically.

No the compass isn't necessary. I just used the one with the compass because some people that use INav need it.

@@FalconRadFPV the gps without a compass will not show the arrow of my initial location? or the arrow is shown on all gps?

It's referring to a magnetometer, which is a compass for a quad. I don't use it so I turn it off.

@@FalconRadFPV ijust set my yaw to 100 in cli, yes i experience quad drift a little bit when hit rth, thats scary, and i see you explain how to manage the quad when hit the rth, immediately fast yaw and push very quickly thats important ^_^ thanks

use "set gps_rescue_use_mag = off"

Yes I have, It's a common question in the comments. I'm comfortable with betaflight so I just stick to using it. It's probably time that I get an INAV quad setup though. I'm sure I could find some interesting uses for the extra features.

Raising yaw P will make the quad turn around more quickly. It will do that with any betaflight version.

@@FalconRadFPV yes i know that , But what command do you write into cli to set it?

Sorry about the late reply. Type set before the other stuff, so "set gps_rescue_yaw_p = 100"

I'm pretty sure when you activate GPS rescue it skips right to stage 2.

@@FalconRadFPV yess, nope 0.40 second stage 1 to hover and angle mode

awesome content - thx!

Thanks for the comment!

Hey buddy! 👋

You should be able to get in touch through my email falconradfpv@gmial.com I only used an stl modeler for the 3d files. I could also give you an obj file if that's any better. Best to get in touch over email and I'll make sure to get something sorted out for you.

I leave it on the defaults for those.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for future videos.

In the video I am using BF 4.1.7 GPS rescue is much faster and responsive in BF 4.1.7 I do fly BF 4.2 now but as you say the response in 4.2 is basically useless. I suggest practicing using the switch setup that I cover in the video so you can use auto level, throttle up, then engage rescue mode. I have thought several times about going back to BF 4.1.7 because of how bad BF 4.2 rescue mode is.

@@FalconRadFPV thank you so much, my biggest Problem is, firstly, BF 4.3 flys untuned soo freaking good and i cant tune my quads sadly, i dont get it to the point of a really good flying quad mostly. secondly only in BF 4.3 i can see RSSI / LQ in DJI Goggles, thats sooo stupid....so i have to choose between a good flying quad and RSSI/LQ displaying or BF 4.1.7 for a good GPS Rescue....thank you so much for your information, what i dont get is, why they made GPS Rescue worse in a newer firmware, cant imagine, that this is a typical "bug"...is it official information your just your personal experience?

Honestly I'm not keen on learning new firmware, so I just keep using betaflight instead of inav. Although I might have to get around to learning inav at least for the position hold and way points.

@FalconRadFPV position hold is nice. I didn't get way points working. Only tried once. Been meaning to try again. Also quad cruise mode

Yes that's right. Although, if you are near the ground and have trees to your left with open space on the right, then lose video. Do you engage angle mode, roll right a little and throttle up for a couple of seconds until you are clear of tree tops and then switch to gps rescue? OR just switch to gps rescue right away and cross you fingers and hope that it stays away from the trees? If you are new to long range then straight to gps rescue may be the right choice. If you are an experienced pilot with the right setup and you have practiced this method in can increase the chances of getting your quad and GoPro back safely. Also I've heard of people having control issues after switching out of gps rescue, it's always been fine for me, but going into angle mode on your way out of gps rescue should increase the chances of a smooth transition back to piloted flight.

@@FalconRadFPV I completely agree that the three position switch should have angle before the GPS rescue. It's a very logical step. And I'm doing that config on my LR quad. What I am wondering about is the third position where both angle and gps rescue are engaged. If sanity checks fail I think the quad will just do down and the angle will be bypassed. If the GPS rescue is toggled in the third position then the angle is again bypassed. So does enabling angle on the third position have any usefulness in any scenario? The second position angle mode is very useful. But is third position angle making any difference?

Not yet. I'll be running it on one of my new builds in a month or two. I'm about to order the frame for it. Also got a Maytek 743 FC and the new Maytek M9N-5883 gps to go with the build.

Li-ion batteries run at slightly different voltage levels than a lipo does. It'll hang out at 3.3 to 3.2 for the whole trip home.

@@FalconRadFPV thank you very much, have no experience with Li-Ions... you say at 1:29 that you test it regularly, do you test it with the Failsafe AUX Switch or with the GPS Rescue Switch? Joshuar Bardwell made a video where he says you should test it always with the failsafe switch is that right or how would you do that? I have already lost one quad + GoPro on the Arcores Dez 2021...so i am Building GPS Builds 5&7 inch just for cinematic Long range dives...hopefully with GPS and your tutorial i can avoid it if next failsafe will acure.....thank you so much

@@FalconRadFPV when do you know, that the Li-Ion is empty, if it holds Voltage for so long? I want to get into it, but scared as fuck to loose a quad because of empty liion for example...it would be great to get a Battery Guide from you as a Video. Also for how you know, how far you can go up, till you have to dive down, to dont loose the quad because of empty battery with Li-Ion and Lipos....do you have a paypal to sent some money?

I've lost two quads that were never recovered. Not a bad record though, I must have done hundreds of long range flights now. Also I kinda push the limit sometimes so I'm expecting to lose one every now and again.

@@FalconRadFPV Sad to hear this. I recently lost 5" acro quad on analog. The shame is I didn't fly that far as it wasn't long range so it dropped somewhere near me up to 500 yards but in such a difficult wild nature terrain with high weeds and river - I didn't manage to find it again. I couldn't believe to what happened. It is devastating feeling. This and experiences like yours makes me want to fly micro just near me or local park and no further away anymore up to 100m. Quads are to small and to difficult to find. In my case I had GPS unit and buzzer all configured and tested many times yet it all has failed to help save and recover my quad. I hope you will never loose any again.

It does kick in automatically, but only if the connection to the transmitter (joystick) is lost. The video connection is a completely separate thing. If my video connection goes down (can't see where the drone is going) then I will use the switch to activate gps rescue so that I don't have to fly the drone with no video (blind).

Gotta confess, it never crossed my mind, probably 'cause I've been rocking the DJI FPV setup, and that feature's not in the cards. Thanks for dropping that knowledge. I know I'm hitting you up with questions, but I'm gearing up to explore the long-range scene. I'm itching to pick up some insights, and this one's been elusive - how's the VIDEO signal rollin' with DJI Goggles 2 and DJI O3 Air Unit? Planning to soar with the iFlight Chimera Pro V2, RC Commando 8 (ELRS 918 MHz, 1W).@@FalconRadFPV