Advice required - what would have you done?

Joined
Jun 26, 2016
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Age
40
I crashed into a tree yesterday. I am now wondering if I could have avoided it.

Safe scenario, large soccer playground sports empty area, surrounded by trees - reasonably far. Quite strong wind but UAV forecast says 22kmh so I decide to fly, keeping it very close to me. Altitude 10m only (30 feet). Some wobbling but hovering ok. GPS mode. I wanted to try follow-me mode, hence 10m.

I can configure the intelligent mode, plenty of time hovering in place. After playing around for a while with follow me, where it's all good, I notice drone is drifting away slightly, try to correct manually. I notice it's not enough, despite moving right stick as if in full speed ahead, still drifting slowly. Immediately start descent, down to 5 or 6m, but no speed decrease at all, rather acceleration. Trees are getting closer and closer. Crash is imminent, so I stop motors by pushing down left stick completely, hoping that will minimize damage. Drone hits ground from approx 4m height, I fail to catch it with one hand only, to not break my phone and remote as well.

Did descending contributed to the crash? As it lowers the rotors spinning speed, it's less powerful to fight the wind. Should I have tried to move sideways, or even increase altitude instead? Has anyone had experience on this?

PS: bird's got some serious scratches but seems to be working fine (cam, gimball, motors etc.) A miracle! Have not flown again yet, waiting for the wind to calm down.
 
You didn't specify, but did you exit F mode back to P mode? That should have been the first thing you did to get full control back, or worst case to ATTI.
 
Pushing down the left stick won't stop the motors in flight...it only stops them when the Phantom has stopped descending, i.e after it's landed.
 
What would I have done ?, I would have waited for a calmer day to fly but that's just me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jonimo
What would I have done ?, I would have waited for a calmer day to fly but that's just me.

And every mistake you ever made in your life could have been avoided in hindsight as well.

I would have toggled back to PMode first to see if it stopped the drifting and if that didn't work would have gone to AMode. A hard landing on grass is better than running headlong into a tree too.
 
Thanks for your comments. I just checked the flight log. I was embarrased to find out apparently I did not change back to PMode. Mistery solved.

It was probably not that windy that the drone could not compensate. As I was walking towards the tree I was actually pushing it to crash. What a shame.

Plus, the altitude was kept at 10m. Even if I can clearly see in the replay I was operating heavily the left stick to bring it down, the freaking minimum 10m required for follow me mode prevented it from descending. It did crash from a 10m altitude.

I did a mistake and there is no excuse for that. But I wonder if intelligent flight modes should be overriding pilot commands in this way.
 
Pushing down the left stick won't stop the motors in flight...it only stops them when the Phantom has stopped descending, i.e after it's landed.

Hi Rockydog. Can you please clarify this? I'm not sure I understand.

When I catch the drone "in-flight", that is, hovering slightly over my head, but not landed, I push the left stick and it stops the motors.
 
And every mistake you ever made in your life could have been avoided in hindsight as well.
Flying a drone is not a necessity but just a pleasure and pleasures can wait for the right time. In this case he didn't wait but risk his drone with the high winds. This is a very easy avoidable mistake. I myself never put my drone at risk in dangerous weather.
 
Hi Rockydog. Can you please clarify this? I'm not sure I understand.

When I catch the drone "in-flight", that is, hovering slightly over my head, but not landed, I push the left stick and it stops the motors.

When hand catching the Ac is held stationary making it think it has landed, allowing the left stick down shutoff. If it is hovering, even slightly above ground the left stick will only take it down until landed. Only way to shut down motors in flight is the CSC.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,354
Members
104,933
Latest member
mactechnic