Bye bye phantom. It was fun :(

[Dazzauk]

so lost signal tonight, and the app was disconnected. Looking at the position the aircraft was and the fastest line back to me I think I know what happened.

Manage to get the aircraft back but not sure if the repair cost will be so much that it's in economical. We will find out I guess.

Not as mad as I thought I'd be. I guess the way I look at it is flying drones always carries this risk of crashing

.

 

[Brian BB]

So what sort of damage did you have exactly? I had my P3 do an involuntary RTH, smash into a tree at 100 feet up, get lost in the snowy woods for a week, and other than broken props the bird was good to go after we tracked it down.

 

[Jesse_M]

So was it a RTH altitude issue that crashed it?

 

[Dazzauk]

So was it a RTH altitude issue that crashed it?

Kind of yeah. By law you can't fly higher than 400ft.

That chimney is 660 ft

 

[Dazzauk]

So what sort of damage did you have exactly? I had my P3 do an involuntary RTH, smash into a tree at 100 feet up, get lost in the snowy woods for a week, and other than broken props the bird was good to go after we tracked it down.

Body's popped open.

Remote won't connect to aircraft.

Gimbal or yaw arm is snapped

Don't know if camera works but I do have it.

Legs are snapped

 

[Brian BB]

Body's popped open.

Remote won't connect to aircraft.

Gimbal or yaw arm is snapped

Don't know if camera works but I do have it.

Legs are snapped

Yikes. Yeah, any one of most of those sound fatal...I guess tree+woodland ground aren't nearly as hard as chimney+pavement.

 

[nwcove]

from the screen shot it looks like you made it past the chimney without issue on the outgoing trip, and didnt get close on the return trip ?

 

[Dazzauk]

from the screen shot it looks like you made it past the chimney without issue on the outgoing trip, and didnt get close on the return trip ?

The drone lost signal right at the spot the screen shot was taken. So it tried to come home which is normally a straight line. But the chimney was in its way.

 

[Matts175]

Ohhhh no. I'm sorry to hear about this. I hope you get another. I like reading your posts.

If it's unfixable, you could sell the remote, DBS mod, charger (and whatever else looks fine) to someone. The Professionals are going for $550 US now. Maybe the wife will have sympathy and let you get one. I'll still stand by my offer to send my cousin a birthday gift, if you want.

Have any pictures?

 

[Matts175]

Ohhh, BTW..... I'm not sure about the UK, but in the US if there is a structure, you can be 400 feet above it. Therefore, you could legally fly over that chimney at 1000 feet.

 

[Dazzauk]

Ohhhh no. I'm sorry to hear about this. I hope you get another. I like reading your posts.

If it's unfixable, you could sell the remote, DBS mod, charger (and whatever else looks fine) to someone. The Professionals are going for $550 US now. Maybe the wife will have sympathy and let you get one. I'll still stand by my offer to send my cousin a birthday gift, if you want.

Have any pictures?

Thanks mate, will deffo either get it fixed or have another one in the future. I love them. Just one of those things really. Wrong position at the wrong time.

Hopefully won't cost too much to get fixed. Guess it all depends on if the camera still works.

Oh and I'll deffo check out the height structure law.

 

[120CCPM]

Really unfortunate, yet a reminder that Murphy's Law does very much apply to drones, too!
Hope you get another one quickly, your forum questions were keeping everybody busy around here...

 

[lynck]

Lame .. condolences... can you post death pics? I am morbidly interested in the damage lol

 

[Gkecorp]

Lynck, you sick *******

 

[Brian BB]

Lame .. condolences... can you post death pics? I am morbidly interested in the damage lol

Ooh, even better would be video of the crash itself. I have one from last year:

At about 7:38 the RTH engages, and then it's not long before the crash (the video is sped up by a factor of 2x by the software I used to try to reconstitute the corrupted file off the SD card--this was before our live streaming was fully functional--I guess crash monitoring is another reason why you should live stream your videos, ha ha).

Brian
www.skytubelive.com
www.instagram.com/skytubelive

 

[lynck]

Great crash but you're not the OP [emoji6]

 

[DanMan32]

Body's popped open.

Remote won't connect to aircraft.

Gimbal or yaw arm is snapped

Don't know if camera works but I do have it.

Legs are snapped

I crashed hitting a wire on ascent (thought I had passed under it already) day after Christmas and had that amount of damage. I think DJI had sympathy as they only charged me $178. Writing on the form that it was a Christmas present might have helped. The quote was to fix the gimbal but clearly they replaced it. I can't remember if the RC could connect but if not it was only because it had a broken compass cable and couldn't complete initialization. DJI missed that one of the motors had a damaged bearing where a few weeks later I had to replace it.

so lost signal tonight, and the app was disconnected. Looking at the position the aircraft was and the fastest line back to me I think I know what happened.

Manage to get the aircraft back but not sure if the repair cost will be so much that it's in economical. We will find out I guess.

Not as mad as I thought I'd be. I guess the way I look at it is flying drones always carries this risk of crashing
View attachment 79729
.

 

[DanMan32]

Ohhh, BTW..... I'm not sure about the UK, but in the US if there is a structure, you can be 400 feet above it. Therefore, you could legally fly over that chimney at 1000 feet.

Yes, but with RTH during signal loss, having sufficient RTH height would exceed regs most of its trip home.
However if signal returned before it makes it back to the chimney, You still have control when RTH is engaged so you can maneuver around or above it. .

 

[jwmcgrath]

Aw... sorry to hear that. Ditto everything Matt said.

 

[120CCPM]

However if signal returned before it makes it back to the chimney, You still have control when RTH is engaged so you can maneuver around or above it.

Honestly, in a situation like this, with RTH engaging at the perfect (worst) time, when the obstacle is right between AC and Home Point, there's little you can do as the AC will be hidden behind the obstacle.
I think what we learned from this incident is this:
- always remember to set the RTH height above the tallest obstacle in the flying area, and keep in mind that the height is relative to the Home Point
- when the tallest obstacle would require an RTH height above the recommended ceiling (400ft in US), make a determination on whether it would be still safe to go higher depending on location, circumstances, likelihood of RTH, etc
- if you cannot set RTH height above the tallest obstacle, never put that obstacle between you (Home Point) and AC
- drones with obstacle sensing technology are nice