I was asked to demonstrate my P2V+ to a small group in my office parking lot today. I'm always leery about doing so because I feel rushed when setting up. Took my time though and had everything set and ready to go, but noticed I only had 6 sats. Figuring that would be fine for just a few passes across our parking lot, I took off and headed across the lot at a brisk pace at around 15 ft altitude. As I neared the end of the lot, I let the right stick center and figured it would stop pretty quickly in GPS mode. But because it was moving directly away from me, I couldn't tell until it was too late that it wasn't stopping. Before I could react, it hit some small tree branches, tumbled to the ground, and flipped onto the pavement with the props spinning. My guess now is the sats dropped from 6 to 5 during the flight across the lot, went into ATT mode, and momentum took over in that direction for it to have not stopped. No damage to the bird except two torn up props (I have several extras) and a great deal of embarrassment to myself. It was clearly pilot error on my part and a lesson learned. My gimbal was equipped with the original stick-on PhantomFix bracket (I hadn't changed it out to the new screw-on version yet) and I feel it definitely saved me an expensive repair - especially considering one of the two nylon zip-ties acting as a safety lines through the gimbal suspension broke. I know those small zip-ties are thin, but I didn't think one could actually break. Both breakaway pins are still okay though. They must have had more play in those stretchy rubber balls than the tie did. I've since tested everything and all seems fine. Have wifi signal and image, no camera dance, underside lever works the camera, and motor temps are fine. An embarrassing but lucky day for this Phantom owner. That's the last time I put any trust into 6 sats.
