Blackhawk Down/Phantom Vision Crash

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It happened today. My nightmare came true, a $1200 yard sale in a (thank God) unoccupied field. I will try and describe the sequence of events as best as I can with hopes that someone can explain this catastrophe to me:

This flight was done in a baseball field/park with houses to the east and south, telephone wires approximately 200 yards away to the northeast. No other wires, towers, or interferance present or evident. Firmware was as is, straight out of the box. I have about 12 flights with this thing under my belt, all without incident.

1) Preflight inspection: PV out of case, props checked-tight. Turn on TX, turn on wifi repeater. Insert battery into PV, Turn on battery. Wait for green LEDs, conduct calibration at ground level. Turn on DJI App, wait for camera connection. Ensure that GPS is tracking sattelites (10 satellites). Fully charged battery at 99%.

2) Flight: Fired it up and sat for a couple seconds. Took off and hovered in front of me to check GPS stabilization. Hover was good and stable. Forward input and check hover again, all good. Rotate so that the front is facing me, approximately 20 feet off the ground...... This is where the fun starts!!

After about 5 seconds, hard left bank with absolutely no input. I was able to correct slightly with right bank (still facing me). Hard left bank again with no input from me...... Let me pause by saying that I am experienced in RC flights, mainly with fixed wings, and I am very well versed in controlling an aircraft in any position (away, facing, inverted).

At the point of the second hard left bank with no input, I decided to gain some altitude (I was always taught that with RC aircraft, altitude is your friend so that there is more room for corrections). The PV responded to my altitude input and began to climb to approximately 45 feet. Once it reached this height, it began backwards pitch with no input from me. As it got further away from me, and now out of sight, I activated the distance and positional feature on the app. My hope was to get a good bearing using the FPV and get it closer to me. I was able to sucessfully get the feature up and running. As I gave it forward input, it would respond briefly, then pitch away and to the left and right. It began getting further and further away and over houses at this point. As I tried to regain control using the FPV, it fought me continually, seeminly correcting every one of my inputs with an exact oppossite reaction. My PV flew itself over a clear field across the street, southwest of where I was. At this point I pushed the record feature and continued to fight it. The PV was still completely out of view and I was relying on the FPV to get it back to me. It seemed that as I yawed left or right to get it back to me, it would rotate away without input.

Beings that I was thusfar unsucessful at returning my PV on my own, i made the move that I have hoped that I would not have to make against my will....I shut off the transmitter to initiate the return to home. I watched the screen as it it read: "connection lost", then "returning home". I still had broken FPV. I watched as it rotated left, then rotated right, then left again. It began flying back in my direction, then stopped, rotated right and began forward pitch....forty five degrees away from where "Home" was. Unfortunately at this point it was flying straight for a busy "Raleys" parking lot. It was not returning "Home" and rather, it was flying further away from me.

Many thoughts went through my head at this point: What or who am I going to crash into? How much is this going to cost me? What is this going to do for the public's already poor perception of these things? Why is this happening? Why didn't the "failsafe" "return to home" work?

I watched the screen as the PV gradually plummeted down to earth and landed in the field, just south of the supermarket. The screen then showed "connection lost" again and a view of the field, at a 45 degree, canted angle. The locater app was still functioning. I switched on the "Find my Phantom" setting as I packed my case and set out to discover the impending giant crater that my PV had created.

As I got to the crash, I saw what I had expected (Minus the giant crater). The PV upside down, battery 10 feet away, camera 10 feet away.

There was no apparent damage to the Phantom or the camera, other than the back of the camera case separating slightly. The props were mostly still in tact, with a corner broken off of one of them. I brought it home, cleaned it off, put it back together, replaced the props and gave it a test flight. The test flight was seemingly successful. One thing I did notice was that the servos in the camera seemed to have a "lag" when I tilted the PV forward and backward. It just sounds different, like it is struggling to work.

Now I'm not as confident in this thing. I can't have it flying away on it's own like this, certainly if the "return to home" feature does not work. Should I contact Dronefly and DJI?
 

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You need to update all your firmware. DJI has apparently said that they installed new code to help prevent fly-aways like this in the latest firmware. I highly recommend upgrading your firmware in the Phantom and the controller before any further flights.
 
race3 said:
You need to update all your firmware. DJI has apparently said that they installed new code to help prevent fly-aways like this in the latest firmware. I highly recommend upgrading your firmware in the Phantom and the controller before any further flights.

My pv2 had all the firmware up to date and still went crazy and comitted suicide.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4171
 
demianmoura said:
race3 said:
You need to update all your firmware. DJI has apparently said that they installed new code to help prevent fly-aways like this in the latest firmware. I highly recommend upgrading your firmware in the Phantom and the controller before any further flights.

My pv2 had all the firmware up to date and still went crazy and comitted suicide.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4171

This is definately concerning to read these stories, especially considering that we are all apparently taking all precautions to ensure that this doesn't happen. Have you guys had any luck with contacting the dealers or DJI directly? I'm wondering if a replacement will even be a solution if they is something inherently wrong with some of the PVs?
 
Ital86 said:
demianmoura said:
race3 said:
You need to update all your firmware. DJI has apparently said that they installed new code to help prevent fly-aways like this in the latest firmware. I highly recommend upgrading your firmware in the Phantom and the controller before any further flights.

My pv2 had all the firmware up to date and still went crazy and comitted suicide.
http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4171

This is definately concerning to read these stories, especially considering that we are all apparently taking all precautions to ensure that this doesn't happen. Have you guys had any luck with contacting the dealers or DJI directly? I'm wondering if a replacement will even be a solution if they is something inherently wrong with some of the PVs?


I wrote email to DJI on Thursday 27 November , until now no news, no email. Still waiting :roll:[/quote]

I sent email to my dealer acme-online.de who promptly said that warranty doesn´t cover crashes. I then pointed out that it wasn´t my fault, that I had gone through all the care before take off. He suggested me to enter in contact with DJI support. I then entered in contact with DJI support via their web form and I got a response from the support crew in europe. After a few emails they told me to enter in contact with my dealer. Then I got really upset and nervous. I have when people bounce you around. I asked them to send me a letter or a document stating that they would not exchange my PV2. This is when I received a very polite email from my dealers CEO, saying that I should return my PV2 to DJI germany. and that they should repair or exchange it once they find the failure.

Ill be back in germany on the 19th when I will have it shipped to them.
 
I just got off the phone with William at Dronefly.com. He was very helpful after I explained my Phantom Vision's erratic behavior leading to the crash. He suggested that I update the firmware before trying to fly it again, and keep in touch with them.
 
Ital86 said:
I just got off the phone with William at Dronefly.com. He was very helpful after I explained my Phantom Vision's erratic behavior leading to the crash. He suggested that I update the firmware before trying to fly it again, and keep in touch with them.

Very sorry to hear about your experience and thanks for taking the time to share. I would concur with the person that mentioned the firmware update. Had you had the latest firmware, you may or may not have still had this problem, but the firmware specifically said it dealt with an issue of interference. You have to update both the transmitter (kind of tricky) and the phantom itself (very easy). There is lots of info online to help with the transmitter firmware update. But if it was me, I don't think I would do any more test flights until I got a replacement. Best of luck to you, and let us know how everything ends up. I've heard dronefly is pretty good, so hopefully they will step up to the plate for you.
 
Ital86 said:
It happened today. My nightmare came true, a $1200 yard sale in a (thank God) unoccupied field. I will try and describe the sequence of events as best as I can with hopes that someone can explain this catastrophe to me:

This flight was done in a baseball field/park with houses to the east and south, telephone wires approximately 200 yards away to the northeast. No other wires, towers, or interferance present or evident. Firmware was as is, straight out of the box. I have about 12 flights with this thing under my belt, all without incident.

1) Preflight inspection: PV out of case, props checked-tight. Turn on TX, turn on wifi repeater. Insert battery into PV, Turn on battery. Wait for green LEDs, conduct calibration at ground level. Turn on DJI App, wait for camera connection. Ensure that GPS is tracking sattelites (10 satellites). Fully charged battery at 99%.

2) Flight: Fired it up and sat for a couple seconds. Took off and hovered in front of me to check GPS stabilization. Hover was good and stable. Forward input and check hover again, all good. Rotate so that the front is facing me, approximately 20 feet off the ground...... This is where the fun starts!!

After about 5 seconds, hard left bank with absolutely no input. I was able to correct slightly with right bank (still facing me). Hard left bank again with no input from me...... Let me pause by saying that I am experienced in RC flights, mainly with fixed wings, and I am very well versed in controlling an aircraft in any position (away, facing, inverted).

At the point of the second hard left bank with no input, I decided to gain some altitude (I was always taught that with RC aircraft, altitude is your friend so that there is more room for corrections). The PV responded to my altitude input and began to climb to approximately 45 feet. Once it reached this height, it began backwards pitch with no input from me. As it got further away from me, and now out of sight, I activated the distance and positional feature on the app. My hope was to get a good bearing using the FPV and get it closer to me. I was able to sucessfully get the feature up and running. As I gave it forward input, it would respond briefly, then pitch away and to the left and right. It began getting further and further away and over houses at this point. As I tried to regain control using the FPV, it fought me continually, seeminly correcting every one of my inputs with an exact oppossite reaction. My PV flew itself over a clear field across the street, southwest of where I was. At this point I pushed the record feature and continued to fight it. The PV was still completely out of view and I was relying on the FPV to get it back to me. It seemed that as I yawed left or right to get it back to me, it would rotate away without input.

Beings that I was thusfar unsucessful at returning my PV on my own, i made the move that I have hoped that I would not have to make against my will....I shut off the transmitter to initiate the return to home. I watched the screen as it it read: "connection lost", then "returning home". I still had broken FPV. I watched as it rotated left, then rotated right, then left again. It began flying back in my direction, then stopped, rotated right and began forward pitch....forty five degrees away from where "Home" was. Unfortunately at this point it was flying straight for a busy "Raleys" parking lot. It was not returning "Home" and rather, it was flying further away from me.

Many thoughts went through my head at this point: What or who am I going to crash into? How much is this going to cost me? What is this going to do for the public's already poor perception of these things? Why is this happening? Why didn't the "failsafe" "return to home" work?

I watched the screen as the PV gradually plummeted down to earth and landed in the field, just south of the supermarket. The screen then showed "connection lost" again and a view of the field, at a 45 degree, canted angle. The locater app was still functioning. I switched on the "Find my Phantom" setting as I packed my case and set out to discover the impending giant crater that my PV had created.

As I got to the crash, I saw what I had expected (Minus the giant crater). The PV upside down, battery 10 feet away, camera 10 feet away.

There was no apparent damage to the Phantom or the camera, other than the back of the camera case separating slightly. The props were mostly still in tact, with a corner broken off of one of them. I brought it home, cleaned it off, put it back together, replaced the props and gave it a test flight. The test flight was seemingly successful. One thing I did notice was that the servos in the camera seemed to have a "lag" when I tilted the PV forward and backward. It just sounds different, like it is struggling to work.

Now I'm not as confident in this thing. I can't have it flying away on it's own like this, certainly if the "return to home" feature does not work. Should I contact Dronefly and DJI?

Sorry to hear that. Curious, why did you continue to fly when the responses seemed so awry?? You mentioned after the first hard left bank with no input, you decided to get altitude. I would of just landed and reset everything!

Sent from my Samsung Note 2 using Tapatalk 4
 
Thanks Wangta. To answer your question, "why did you continue to fly when the responses seemed so awry?? You mentioned after the first hard left bank with no input, you decided to get altitude. I would of just landed and reset everything! ":

My immediate thought and reaction to a loss of control was, "i have to get this thing closer to me to try and land, and/or risk bodily injury and snag it out of the air with my bare hands if I have to and prevent injury to others or property. When I gave it inputs and it responded sporadically, more than not responding against my inputs, I decided to give it altitude for more of a reaction time or more time to get itself worked out and get its "mind right". In the back of my mind was the final option of "Return to home" if I lost the fight. Unfortunately, this proved to not work out too well as the sequence did not initiate as advertised. Believe me when I say that if I could have landed it, I would have. At this point, the Phantom communicated with me (by virtue of its behavior) that this was not an option. That is when I lifted up to get a tactical advantage, if possible, to its errant flight. I would have been thrilled if I had the option to land and work stuff out, i.e. "reset everything." Again, unfortunately, it decided to fly a path decided upon by itself and end up in a field, in pieces.

My warning to people, and I have nothing to gain or lose by this, is.......Be cognizant of the fact that a few of these things are behaving this way....completely on their own. I hate saying this because I had great plans for this thing in work related (first responder) applications. Now, I'm not so sure.

I updated all of the TX and main firmware and plan on testing it in the very near future. If it fails again, I will ask for a refund and leave the "R and D" to Amazon and stick to my scale warbirds.
 
Ital86 said:
It happened today. My nightmare came true, a $1200 yard sale in a (thank God) unoccupied field. I will try and describe the sequence of events as best as I can with hopes that someone can explain this catastrophe to me:

This flight was done in a baseball field/park with houses to the east and south, telephone wires approximately 200 yards away to the northeast. No other wires, towers, or interferance present or evident. Firmware was as is, straight out of the box. I have about 12 flights with this thing under my belt, all without incident.

1) Preflight inspection: PV out of case, props checked-tight. Turn on TX, turn on wifi repeater. Insert battery into PV, Turn on battery. Wait for green LEDs, conduct calibration at ground level. Turn on DJI App, wait for camera connection. Ensure that GPS is tracking sattelites (10 satellites). Fully charged battery at 99%.

2) Flight: Fired it up and sat for a couple seconds. Took off and hovered in front of me to check GPS stabilization. Hover was good and stable. Forward input and check hover again, all good. Rotate so that the front is facing me, approximately 20 feet off the ground...... This is where the fun starts!!

After about 5 seconds, hard left bank with absolutely no input. I was able to correct slightly with right bank (still facing me). Hard left bank again with no input from me...... Let me pause by saying that I am experienced in RC flights, mainly with fixed wings, and I am very well versed in controlling an aircraft in any position (away, facing, inverted).

At the point of the second hard left bank with no input, I decided to gain some altitude (I was always taught that with RC aircraft, altitude is your friend so that there is more room for corrections). The PV responded to my altitude input and began to climb to approximately 45 feet. Once it reached this height, it began backwards pitch with no input from me. As it got further away from me, and now out of sight, I activated the distance and positional feature on the app. My hope was to get a good bearing using the FPV and get it closer to me. I was able to sucessfully get the feature up and running. As I gave it forward input, it would respond briefly, then pitch away and to the left and right. It began getting further and further away and over houses at this point. As I tried to regain control using the FPV, it fought me continually, seeminly correcting every one of my inputs with an exact oppossite reaction. My PV flew itself over a clear field across the street, southwest of where I was. At this point I pushed the record feature and continued to fight it. The PV was still completely out of view and I was relying on the FPV to get it back to me. It seemed that as I yawed left or right to get it back to me, it would rotate away without input.

Beings that I was thusfar unsucessful at returning my PV on my own, i made the move that I have hoped that I would not have to make against my will....I shut off the transmitter to initiate the return to home. I watched the screen as it it read: "connection lost", then "returning home". I still had broken FPV. I watched as it rotated left, then rotated right, then left again. It began flying back in my direction, then stopped, rotated right and began forward pitch....forty five degrees away from where "Home" was. Unfortunately at this point it was flying straight for a busy "Raleys" parking lot. It was not returning "Home" and rather, it was flying further away from me.

Many thoughts went through my head at this point: What or who am I going to crash into? How much is this going to cost me? What is this going to do for the public's already poor perception of these things? Why is this happening? Why didn't the "failsafe" "return to home" work?

I watched the screen as the PV gradually plummeted down to earth and landed in the field, just south of the supermarket. The screen then showed "connection lost" again and a view of the field, at a 45 degree, canted angle. The locater app was still functioning. I switched on the "Find my Phantom" setting as I packed my case and set out to discover the impending giant crater that my PV had created.

As I got to the crash, I saw what I had expected (Minus the giant crater). The PV upside down, battery 10 feet away, camera 10 feet away.

There was no apparent damage to the Phantom or the camera, other than the back of the camera case separating slightly. The props were mostly still in tact, with a corner broken off of one of them. I brought it home, cleaned it off, put it back together, replaced the props and gave it a test flight. The test flight was seemingly successful. One thing I did notice was that the servos in the camera seemed to have a "lag" when I tilted the PV forward and backward. It just sounds different, like it is struggling to work.

Now I'm not as confident in this thing. I can't have it flying away on it's own like this, certainly if the "return to home" feature does not work. Should I contact Dronefly and DJI?

To me it sounds like a GPS lock problem or compass misscalibration. Also you didn't say what positions the S1 and S2 switches were in on your remote. They both should be in the UP position if they were not that would also explain some things.

As far as GPS lock you can have a momentary GPS hold then loose it. Depending on the sky and the temperatures you may need to give your bird a couple of minutes to have a solid and consistent lock on the satellites or your bird wont fly as stable and return to home will not work.

Also both your Phantom and the Transmitter should be updated to latest firmware. If only one or the other was, then that could also cause issues for you.

Anyway good luck in getting it repaired.
 
Can you post a photo of where and how your compass is mounted?
Taking off directly up and hovering for a moment, then yawing (twisting, turning on the spot) and then having the phantom go erratic sounds very much like a compass issue!
 
My PV went back together fine after this crash so I would not need a replacement, and I enjoy flying it too much to want or need a refund. Having just sent it back to Dronefly, I have no expectations or than to hopefully figure out what went wrong so I can enjoy it again with peace of mind that I'm not going to injure someone. To answer a previous question also, both switches were up.

Thanks for the interest, I'm hoping we all get these issues sorted out so that we can all enjoy these as they are meant to enjoy.
 
Pull_Up said:
myvrodrocks said:
OMG people!!! Stop with the freaking quote button!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I will, when people stop with the constant "sent from my iPhone..." nonsense.

;)

You do know that is a default and not being manually typed each time right?

I know it can be changed or deleted but the app does that and not the user.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Update: I was contacted by dronefly who had received my PV, had hooked it up to diagnostics and conducted an extensive flight test on it. To be sure, they say that they also initiated return to home. According to them, everything checked clear, with no defects. I am awaiting its return today.
 
:| :| :? My Vision 2 crashed today into a pool. The battery light was still blinking under water.
I believe the battery is done bc it won't charge. :roll:


Problem was, I flew it up to 200 FT. Then the connection was suddenly lost, Pvision started to shake and spin till it fell into the water.


Has anyone experienced this before? Vision in the water? Was it rescued? Battery?

Cheers :geek:

I bought mine on amazon, will probably file a claim. This is not Normal
 
Ital86 said:
Update: I was contacted by dronefly who had received my PV, had hooked it up to diagnostics and conducted an extensive flight test on it. To be sure, they say that they also initiated return to home. According to them, everything checked clear, with no defects. I am awaiting its return today.


Why did I know they were going to say that? Same thing when we take our cars in.
 
I agree, what else would they say? At least I know that I have done my due diligence with it. I have since updated all of the firmware all around and enabled Naza-M. I have two successful flights with it after the upgrades and feel more comfortable that I can switch to Atti if it starts to get crazy on me again.
 

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