Hi everyone,
I want to fly my fixed-wing plane in the following sequence:
Manual Takeoff
Switch to Autonomous Mission to fly the waypoints
Switch back to Manual Mode to land
When I create a mission in QGroundControl, it seems to force me to add a “Takeoff” and a “Land” item to the plan.
How can I create a mission that is only the waypoint part, so I can handle the takeoff and landing manually myself?
Check this prameter
Set this zero to disable land and takeoff requirement.
Thank you so much for the great answer, that was really helpful!
That brings me to a follow-up question. I’m now looking into setting up a fully autonomous landing for a fixed-wing plane.
Have you had much success with this yourself? I’m curious to know if you have any recommended resources like a good guide, video, or forum thread that you could point me to. I’m trying to learn the best way to do it
All the logic implemented explained here. You can understand phases of the autonomous landing with official document. Using lidar improving landing I think. But parameters for succesful landing for each plane is changing. So try to land if something goes wrong be ready to take control. After a few iterations you will understand the best parameters for your aircraft. For a safe start point keep glide slope low as much as possible(like 3 deg). This will cause a longer pattern but if the flight area is suitable this is most important setting I think. Also TECS parameters effecting landing performance. FW_AIRSPD_MIN FW_AIRSPD_STALL are important. Keep this values close real values as much as possible. If landing area is clear and wide enough you can be sure that plane will land 
These settings important to land to right point. If you’re not sure about your stall speed keep it a little bit higher to stay safe. If you’re not using a lidar do not forget disable terrain estimate parameter FW_LND_USETER to 0. Because if there is no terrain data while you’re waiting for touch down plane aborting landing and going to loiter. There are other parameters some of them important please read the document carefully. To sum up successful landing is related with enough trying I think.
And last keep throttle level about “trim throttle” while plane landing if you decide to abort landing and switch to manual/stabilize mode keeping throttle 0 at this time can cause stall.
Thank you again for ur perfect contrbution! For airspeed sensing on a fixed-wing, is an external sensor like a pitot tube required, or is the Cube Orange sufficient on its own? Also, have you used a Lidar with PX4 and do you have any recommendations for a model that integrates well?
Airspeed sensor is almost absolutely required for all autonomous flight phases you can use most basic pitot tubes which are ms4525 sensor. Basic tfmini lidars like 12m version is enough. As I said lidar improving landing performance I think. But still you can land without lidar after a few iteration.
Please accept my apologies. I see many ms4525 with different brands. So which one is better for my cube orange?
If you can find matek is high quality. Bu actually it doesn’t make much difference for standard planes.