Best action to take in this situation?

[adelaar]

Hi.

I know there's tons of discussion about flyaways and how to avoid them.

I recently had one where the drone was to far to see what direction is the front and a flyaway occured ( might be due to the fact i was in an area with a lot of houses )
I got in panic and tried to switch to atti but it had already speed up to a very fast speed and it crashed hard.

Now i'm wondering what the best thing to do is? ( as a fast reaction when the drone is out of control )

Failsave? Or atti/manual mode and go up up up?

Thank you!

 

[Hughie]

You should read up about NAZA mode and Home Lock. If you enable this in the Assistant you can always (as long as you have GPS) bring the quad back regardless of which way it is pointing by selecting Home Lock on S2 and pulling back on the right stick.

Remember this though : If you are enabling NAZA mode make sure you set S1 ATTI2 (bottom switch position) to failsafe and NOT manual.

 

[adelaar]

You should read up about NAZA mode and Home Lock. If you enable this in the Assistant you can always (as long as you have GPS) bring the quad back regardless of which way it is pointing by selecting Home Lock on S2 and pulling back on the right stick.

Remember this though : If you are enabling NAZA mode make sure you set S1 ATTI2 (bottom switch position) to failsafe and NOT manual.

Thank you for your answer, I use the homelock function sometimes but i'm talking about an Flyaway modus here..
I lost all control of the drone.. Was flying in GPS mode. My question is what my best reaction would be? I'm guessing since the drone is freaking out in GPS mode the homelock function wouldn't work anymore..

So do i go into failsafe? Or try to take over with Atti? ( if that stops the flyaway in the first place? )

 

[Hughie]

You should read up about NAZA mode and Home Lock. If you enable this in the Assistant you can always (as long as you have GPS) bring the quad back regardless of which way it is pointing by selecting Home Lock on S2 and pulling back on the right stick.

Remember this though : If you are enabling NAZA mode make sure you set S1 ATTI2 (bottom switch position) to failsafe and NOT manual.

Thank you for your answer, I use the homelock function sometimes but i'm talking about an Flyaway modus here..
I lost all control of the drone.. Was flying in GPS mode. My question is what my best reaction would be? I'm guessing since the drone is freaking out in GPS mode the homelock function wouldn't work anymore..

So do i go into failsafe? Or try to take over with Atti? ( if that stops the flyaway in the first place? )

Yes you can try either of those, but you should first try and understand what caused your "flyaway". How much battery was left at the time this happened ?

 

[probonic]

You should read up about NAZA mode and Home Lock. If you enable this in the Assistant you can always (as long as you have GPS) bring the quad back regardless of which way it is pointing by selecting Home Lock on S2 and pulling back on the right stick.

Remember this though : If you are enabling NAZA mode make sure you set S1 ATTI2 (bottom switch position) to failsafe and NOT manual.

Thank you for your answer, I use the homelock function sometimes but i'm talking about an Flyaway modus here..
I lost all control of the drone.. Was flying in GPS mode. My question is what my best reaction would be? I'm guessing since the drone is freaking out in GPS mode the homelock function wouldn't work anymore..

So do i go into failsafe? Or try to take over with Atti? ( if that stops the flyaway in the first place? )

The problem with switching to atti mode when you don't know which way it's pointing is that it would be very difficult to know whether you're slowing it down or speeding it up even more as in atti mode it would just continue to drift. Having said that if it is a true flyaway caused by GPS somehow, that would probably be your only choice and just hope you can bring it under control.

 

[adelaar]

You should read up about NAZA mode and Home Lock. If you enable this in the Assistant you can always (as long as you have GPS) bring the quad back regardless of which way it is pointing by selecting Home Lock on S2 and pulling back on the right stick.

Remember this though : If you are enabling NAZA mode make sure you set S1 ATTI2 (bottom switch position) to failsafe and NOT manual.

Thank you for your answer, I use the homelock function sometimes but i'm talking about an Flyaway modus here..
I lost all control of the drone.. Was flying in GPS mode. My question is what my best reaction would be? I'm guessing since the drone is freaking out in GPS mode the homelock function wouldn't work anymore..

So do i go into failsafe? Or try to take over with Atti? ( if that stops the flyaway in the first place? )

The problem with switching to atti mode when you don't know which way it's pointing is that it would be very difficult to know whether you're slowing it down or speeding it up even more as in atti mode it would just continue to drift. Having said that if it is a true flyaway caused by GPS somehow, that would probably be your only choice and just hope you can bring it under control.

What would failsafe do in a case where the GPS stops working?

Information about flyaway:
The battery was full ( around 80% ). There was a construction site which i flew close over, after that it just took a direction and went FULL speed in that direction.
Didn't even have time to realise what was happening.

 

[Andrey320]

You said, "the drone was to far to see what direction is the front and a flyaway occured".
First thing you should do, is figure out what's wrong with that statement.

 

[kitari]

Well for starters, I'd recommend getting one of those very bright led spotlight things to put on the front of your phantom for future longer ranged flights. As for your flyaway, there's a number of things it could be, but it almost sounds like you accidentally flicked the switch down to manual when you panicked and went forward which would make it speed up and go into a nose dive like you mentioned. Not sure if you have it setup for that or not, but if you do, I'd change it back to atti or failsafe for now. As for what to do about it if it happens again, I'd probably just flick the s1 switch down and up, give it some throttle to see if I regained control, and then let it hover to make sure it's not trying to autoland. After that, I'd just switch the tx off and let it come in and land it. Also I'd recommend going back to naza m, and going over all your settings, just to double check that everything looks like it should.

 

[adelaar]

Well for starters, I'd recommend getting one of those very bright led spotlight things to put on the front of your phantom for future longer ranged flights. As for your flyaway, there's a number of things it could be, but it almost sounds like you accidentally flicked the switch down to manual when you panicked and went forward which would make it speed up and go into a nose dive like you mentioned. Not sure if you have it setup for that or not, but if you do, I'd change it back to atti or failsafe for now. As for what to do about it if it happens again, I'd probably just flick the s1 switch down and up, give it some throttle to see if I regained control, and then let it hover to make sure it's not trying to autoland. After that, I'd just switch the tx off and let it come in and land it. Also I'd recommend going back to naza m, and going over all your settings, just to double check that everything looks like it should.

Thank you! Manual mode is not on. And i only started panicking after i saw that i lost complete control..
So still not sure what do the next time this happens..

 

[Narrator]

Adelaar, you need to spell out in detail what happened. As best as I can tell, you flew over a construction site in GPS mode, lost sight of it and then saw it speeding off somewhere and crash. Your only response was to panic, and too late you tried Atti mode. This prompts a whole bunch of questions.
What was on your phone screen?
Might it have lost signal and been heading for the home?
In your panic, perhaps you held a stick down in the wrong direction, which caused it to speed off?
Are you sure S1 and S2 were both switched up?
Was it windy?
Was the construction site being worked on or deserted? (possible radio interference?)
Was there a lot of rebar on the site or metal mesh used in concrete?
Have you flown there before?
How much flight experience do you have?
Did you get 7+ satellites and compass calibration done at the start?
What sort of Phantom is it?
Did you capture any video?
What did the phone app show, before and after?
How high was it?
Were you using Ground Station?

Each of these things may have a bearing on what happened and what to do next time.

The first rule of Phantom flying is, Don't Panic.
When you lose sight of your Phantom, let go of the sticks, look at your phone app, ascend to about 75 feet, switch S2 to home lock and then pull back on the stick.
Alternatively, switch S1 to Failsafe, or turn off your controller and wait for it to RTH.
I also learned early, make sure you know where S1 and S2 are at all times.

 

[syotr]

When you lose sight of your Phantom, let go of the sticks, look at your phone app, ascend to about 75 feet, switch S2 to home lock and then pull back on the stick.
Alternatively, switch S1 to Failsafe, or turn off your controller and wait for it to RTH.

In these situations, where the Phantom suddenly starts flying away at a fast speed in a random direction and does not respond to user input, the problem seems to be GPS related. Switching to homelock won't help and turning off the transmitter to initiate RTH won't help since both of these require GPS functioning properly.
Your best hope is to switch to ATTI mode and try to regain control. If this stops the flyaway but the bird has gone to far to see orientation, then switch to Course Lock. If you were flying in the the direction that the Phantom was pointed when you took off, then pull back on the right stick. This should bring it generally back in your direction. It may be to the right or left of you which will be obvious when it gets closer.
One way to determine orientation if you can't see the lights, is to move the right stick to the right and see if the Phantom moves the same way. If it, does, then it is pointed away from you. If it moves left, then it is pointed towards you,

 

[Umpa]

Everyone blames GPS for FlyAway's. I had a small one and it was a motor fault, nothing to do with GPS. I was low and managed to do a crash with no harm.

I could not control mine, but it did respond to a down stick control all be it darting about like it was on drugs.

If one motor slows the ESC increases power, if it suddenly frees up like mine does it can dart off in that direction. If that's what happened to you I'm not sure what you could do as Atti would not help anyway.

Fit a cheap TK102 tracker and hope you find it.

 

[ZeekArmy]

Obviously not an AMA member.....never fly out of visual range, problem solved. If you are intent on it get a FPV setup. Do you know about 'return home? How about just landing? Because you just described an out of control, 4 bladed Ginsu knife vehicle falling out of the air...hope you don't fly around living things.

 

[PhantomFanatic]

By a tracker, too.