All these reported flyways are going to kill sales

[syotr]

I suspect the actual percentage of owners having flyaways is quite small.

There is a phantom flyaway poll at rcgroups.com
Of 566 responses, 170 owners have had a flyaway.
That's about 30%. About half of those were recovered.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1872000

What's lacking is the key detail:

How many Phantom have been sold?

Additionally, many folks claim "flyaway" when it is operator error.

Not every Phantom owner belongs to that forum or responds to a poll, but many do respond trying to defend DJI because they have not had a flyaway yet.

If you read the accounts of each "flyaway", many admit to some user error but many are experienced rc pilots that did everything right.
It's always "pilot error" until it happens to you.
These are very complex systems with lots of ways to fail besides pilot error.

 

[Ksc]

I agree. They are essentially computers and just like computers, they can crash. A computer normally doesn't crash unless the user does something wrong. Look at porn and get a virus or install bad software etc. The same with the phantom. I wouldn't be surprised if a vast majority of those who have a fly away and claim that it was totally DJIs fault also had a crash before. The crash could damage something which in turn causes a "my phantom is bad and I did everything right" fly away.

 

[shortyuk]

Suppose that operator error cuts it in half, or even just a quart.

Still too many, way too many.

And, even the possibility of operator error is an issue and should be addressed.

In another thread today we had someone who left his s1 switch in failsafe and as soon as he started his quad, it wanted to take off and do its RTH routine.

You could say this is operator error, but you can also say that DJI didn't bother to recognize certain situations and present a proper warning.

We have invented stall warnings and stick shakers in aircraft to warn pilots that something is about to go wrong. To warn intelligent and trained pilots.
yeah but i would definatly class that as operator error, where could it end if you would expect dji to think of every scenario,they arnt the most exciting thing to fly as it is ,to be honest i just see mine as a platform for a camera, and if it wasnt for that i think i would rather fly my acrowot foame, much more exciting, at the end of the day if you start a car when its in gear and it hits a wall its the drivers fault. I may end up eating my words, but up til now mine has been flawless, the only thing bad i could say about dji, is the crappy support

Operator error, RTFM? No a horn thats sounds.

----
If God wanted man to fly, He would have given us 4 arms to make soldering more easy.
----

 

[syotr]

They are essentially computers

Actually they are a lot more than just computers. There are also sensors such as accelerometers, barometers, magnemometers plus GPS, radio receiver, ESC's and motors. Any of these can fail completely or intermittently. All of these parts are made in China as cheaply as possible and soldered and assembled by the cheapest labor.

 

[Ton4]

yeah but i would definatly class that as operator error, where could it end if you would expect dji to think of every scenario,they arnt the most exciting thing to fly as it is ,to be honest i just see mine as a platform for a camera, and if it wasnt for that i think i would rather fly my acrowot foame, much more exciting, at the end of the day if you start a car when its in gear and it hits a wall its the drivers fault. I may end up eating my words, but up til now mine has been flawless, the only thing bad i could say about dji, is the crappy support.

I guess you have manual gear. Cars with a automatic gear don't allow you to start. Even my (matic) motorbike doesn't allow me to start when I don't hold the brake.

There are rc controllers that don't allow you to start if not all switches are in the correct position.

Yes DJI should think of every scenario where operators could make mistakes. To be able to cold start your Phantom in RTH mode where it takes off doing its own thing as soon as you give throttle should not be possible. (if it works like that, haven't tried myself, but I guess it does) How many times have you accidentally moved a switch?

Airline pilots are surrounded by fail safe equipment protecting them from making mistakes. Because they are human.

If they try to land with their gear up, they get a warning. You could also say uhhh, operator error when a Boeing slides down the runway leaving a trail of sparks, but hey, we invented the warning system.

This little red box (or any other color) in your copter should be error free, protecting operators from mistakes and not crash your copter when it fails for whatever reason. We, the users, should demand this, provide feedback to manufacturers and support each other in creating a safer and better aircraft.

It would not surprise me if quads are a dying breed. They fall out of the sky when a motor fails. Hex and Octa will be able to survive a motor failure.

 

[Ton4]

(double post)

 

[LeoS]

They are essentially computers

Actually they are a lot more than just computers. There are also sensors such as accelerometers, barometers, magnemometers plus GPS, radio receiver, ESC's and motors. Any of these can fail completely or intermittently. All of these parts are made in China as cheaply as possible and soldered and assembled by the cheapest labor.

Trust me, you can go much cheaper than the parts that DJI use in their products.

Yes DJI should think of every scenario where operators could make mistakes.

Not at this price point. You have to realise how relatively cheap and well made these things are....

It would not surprise me if quads are a dying breed. They fall out of the sky when a motor fails. Hex and Octa will be able to survive a motor failure.

...and why it's actually still BOOMING right now. I'd like to see DJI's sales numbers, I bet the graphs are pretty crazy...

 

[Ton4]

Safety concern is not an "end of the world" complex. As soon as "drones" become a part of everyday life, and they will, we will need to make them as safe as possible. 2 motors more is helping a forced landing to be a success

Don't worry Phantasmic, I have a buggy Phantom, and I love it

 

[Ton4]

...and why it's actually still BOOMING right now. I'd like to see DJI's sales numbers, I bet the graphs are pretty crazy...

And that's why a few extra lines of code should not reflect in the price we pay.

 

[LeoS]

...and why it's actually still BOOMING right now. I'd like to see DJI's sales numbers, I bet the graphs are pretty crazy...

And that's why a few extra lines of code should not reflect in the price we pay.

I bet the Phantom Vision is their product to address that concern.

No switches to mess around with? Simpler LED codes?

Vision vs 'Naza-like' mode, anyone?

 

[Ton4]

(deleted)

 

[LeoS]

Why Ton4, you're as good as those journalists heralding the coming of the Drone Era with those delivery drones!

I myself haven't participated in said poll, that would push the numbers of flyaways down to 20% I'd reckon?

 

[shortyuk]

actually ton4 you couldnt be more wrong, an airline pilot will be in the cockpit at least 45 mins before the passenger board, this time will be spent doing PRE FLIGHT CHECKS, the majority of which are checking systems are either switched on or off, and that involves checking that every switch is in the correct position before take off, ring any bells ????

 

[Big Ben]

For what it's worth... I spoke with a reseller on the phone and had a nice chat about the Phantoms. He told me that of the 1500 they had sold so far they knew of only three reported flyaways and of those two could later be attributed to user error.

If that's true and representative then things don't look too bad. The 'problem' with products of which a LOT are sold (1500 sold by just one shop!) is that as an inevitable result the absolute number of people with bad experiences will grow to serious proportions even when the relative number is well within acceptable limits. And since people are much more likely to report bad experiences this phenomenon is likely to give a overly negative image.

If you have two products with a 1% failure rate and have sold 1000 of one you'll have 10 customers with bad experiences that can be reported. If you have sold 100.000 of the other product there will be 1000 bad experiences to report. Both product are of equal quality but people will read so much more bad reports of the second product that its reputation will suffer. Even if the first product would have a failure rate of 2% based on the absolute number of bad reports people might still think it to be the better product when in fact it wouldn't be.

That's the difficulty with interpreting this kind of data.

 

[Visioneer]

That's the difficulty with interpreting this kind of data.

Reminds me of an old quote from my engineering days, "If tortured enough, the data will admit to anything".

 

[FlyingFanta]

That's the difficulty with interpreting this kind of data.

Reminds me of an old quote from my engineering days, "If tortured enough, the data will admit to anything".

I'm going to incorporate this phrase into every part of my professional life!

 

[Ton4]

While the Internets are not a direct source of the ultimate truth without further research, they give an idea of what people talk about.

Searching for Phantom Flyaway gives close to 2 million hits. Searching for dji phantom flyway 36.000 hits, naza flyaway 35.000

While I know this is not anything statistical significant and could be interpreted in any odd way, people say anything and the truth is yet to be found, I can, with some hesitation, conclude that flyaways are sort of an issue.

 

[ElGuano]

"APM flyaway" 35,500 hits
"Kk flyaway" 6 million hits (there's a song)
"Arducopter flyaway" 12,400 hits
350qx flyaway: 12,800 hits

 

[Ton4]

Airbus flyaway 3.8 million!

 

[ElGuano]

I would say this is more than just a Naza issue, clearly the entire Lenny Kravitz industry needs to reexamine their best practices.