Another "dropping from the sky" event

[Silverminer]

Prop guards contribute to VRS.

And white drones are hard to see in the clouds...

 

[Silverminer]

Re: Another "dropping from the sky" event - FLYING AT HIGH E

UPDATE: I took the P2V+ back to the top of Pikes Peak, along with a temperature gun. I first flew at about 8,000 ft. Everything was great. Latest software update seems to make descending MUCH smoother. Then went to 14,000 ft. Hovered for about 30 seconds the started to move across the parking lot. Within about 50 ft. the P2V+ lost lift and crashed, tearing the camera off! First major damage it's sustained in probably 15 or so crashes. I set the camera aside, watched the gimbal flail back and forth like a deer with a broken leg, then flew off. Same thing - crashed within seconds. Seemed to hover fine but didn't much care for moving horizontally. This was even minus the camera which had to save at least a little weight!

Differences from last week: Cooler air (35 instead of 60) which should have helped. Newest software upgrade loaded.

Things on my to-do list:

Figure out how the camera attaches. I'm not sure if the camera (first gimbal that keeps things horizontal) is just held on with friction. I see no screws.
See if I'm able to buy just the output connection cable from the camera to the camera base (it tore.)
Determine if there's a ceiling at which it's unsafe to fly the P2V+ above? I'm thinking 10,000 ft. is about it and I've never had problems at that altitude.

 

[Silverminer]

DJI tells me it was likely magnetic interference from the rock. That sounds reasonable to me. Just around the corner from where I was flying is a place called "Devil's Playground." They call it that because during lightning storms the lighting dances all around the rock. Not a great place to be during a lightning storm. Sounds like they may fix it for free.

 

[mrh]

Yes, they are very impressive machines. I did a little calculating last night and got a sense for what affects air density more: temperature or elevation? I discovered that to get the same air density decrease as moving from 6,000 ft. to 14,000 ft., the temperature would have to increase from 50 F to 235 F! This alone seems to substantiate the theory that the motors were overheating as they were working extra hard to keep the P2V+ flying and there was less air available to cool the motors. I have a lot more high altitude flying in my future and I'll add to this post if I find anything of note to add. Thanks to everyone for the help!

I realize this thread is a little older but you made a great analysis. It's really not that there is less air, the air is less dense. Because it is less dense its cooling ability declines. This is one thing I'm worried about flying even at my home altitude of 5175. I have computed the air cooling efficiency drops by about 15% even at this altitude because of the humidity and other factors.

I have electronics that overheats quite regularly. In my home entertainment system I had to manually had heat sinks and fans to the amp because even during normal use it would overheat and go into thermal shutdown.

Thanks for your write up!