Fly away, crash and spiral down to earth :(

[kirbinster]

Kind of a windy but clear day. Set bird up on box to take-off, got GPS lock, recorded home position and started my flight. She was drifting some but had a GPS lock, then after about a minute or less she lost the GPS signal; switched to ATTI mode and decided to bring her in. Was a little hard to control in the wind, then all of a sudden she took off up and backwards. I pulled control sticks to make her go down and forward but she just took off with no control up and backward. Fortunately she was caught by a big tree across the road before she took off to never been seen again. Went into a death spiral and landed on her back with leaves caught in the props. Turned her off and put gimbal guard on and figured she was a goner. Went back to my car and tested her out on the ground and camera and bird work perfectly. Lucky me. No clue why she took off. Perhaps I'll post the video of the death spiral and she spiraled down from the tree.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Er9KHKNnewI[/youtube]

 

[mickey78]

Very interesting. Since you were in ATTI, it's defiantly not the GPS who was acting up, or at least it is less likely.
Wild guess: wind blowing too strong? Were you very high?

 

[kirbinster]

No it was only about 20 or 30 feet up when it started to go. I flipped the switch to ATTI but I don't think the bird reacted at all. After it was all done I checked the find my phantom and it showed a last position of just before it crossed the road. There was no reaction to the controls at all as it was flying away.

It crashed into a tree at the back end of the gravel parking lot on the other side of the road.

 

[mickey78]

Wow... was it your first time switching to ATTI?

 

[itchybeard]

No it was only about 20 or 30 feet up when it started to go. I flipped the switch to ATTI but I don't think the bird reacted at all. After it was all done I checked the find my phantom and it showed a last position of just before it crossed the road. There was no reaction to the controls at all as it was flying away.

It crashed into a tree at the back end of the gravel parking lot on the other side of the road.

Whoa nasty!

An RC controller calibration and an advanced IMU calibration of the bird before you take her up again, eh? It might even be a good idea to take the lid off and check the connections inside if she's been rattled. Sounds like you were very lucky there, Kirbinster.

 

[zir6rm]

We have been having very serious solar flares the past week. They can badly interfere with radio communication. I have kept my Phantom on the ground.

 

[flyNfrank]

Hey Kirb, when even just a little windy,....stay away from ATTI mode! You have to think of atti mode as a balloon without brakes. It's much safer to remain in GPS mode.

 

[Madwak]

Seems a bit of a coincidence that instead of going down and forward it went up and backward (the exact opposite) are you sure you didn't have a brain fart in you're panic and mix the sticks up? :?:

 

[kirbinster]

No it was only about 20 or 30 feet up when it started to go. I flipped the switch to ATTI but I don't think the bird reacted at all. After it was all done I checked the find my phantom and it showed a last position of just before it crossed the road. There was no reaction to the controls at all as it was flying away.

It crashed into a tree at the back end of the gravel parking lot on the other side of the road.

Whoa nasty!

An RC controller calibration and an advanced IMU calibration of the bird before you take her up again, eh? It might even be a good idea to take the lid off and check the connections inside if she's been rattled. Sounds like you were very lucky there, Kirbinster.

Thanks, brought it home and did an advaced IMU calibration as I figured it might have gotten knocked out of kilter. Also opened her up to check everything and make sure things were still connected.

 

[kirbinster]

Wow... was it your first time switching to ATTI?

No I have flown it in ATTI before with no issues, once I switched to ATTI it seemed like it had already lost control and did not do anything other than keep going up and away even with sticks pulled to come down and forward

 

[kirbinster]

Seems a bit of a coincidence that instead of going down and forward it went up and backward (the exact opposite) are you sure you didn't have a brain fart in you're panic and mix the sticks up? :?:

No brain fart, but I can understand why you might assume that. When I saw it was not responding I switched to try to send it up higher to try and clear the tree but that did not seem to change its rate of climb either. It just did not react at all to control input.

 

[RedBaron]

My crash was very similar to yours. It has happened twice. I also switched to ATTI mode but did not get any response. It was like the controller instantly shut off. Would be nice to find out what is happening. I see there are others that have had similar mishaps. I personally do not think it is pilot error, vortex problems or even the wind.

 

[Panamon Creel]

What's the status of your TX batteries, brand new? used a few times? been in there for some time?

 

[kirbinster]

What's the status of your TX batteries, brand new? used a few times? been in there for some time?

They are the original batteries from DJI and have maybe 50 minutes of usage on them.

 

[victor]

Something like that kinda happenned to me too once. It very breifly(thank god) went into weird spasm/attitude and looked like I lost control input, so I switched to manual and brought her in with some struggling. I recalibrated compass and it never happened again.
I assume it was due to either the compass or just temporary 5.8GHZ radio interference!
I would re-cal your compass and watch out for rf interference!!

 

[mickey78]

Are you saying you lost it the second you switched to ATTI?

 

[rrmccabe]

Almost sounds like it lost 5.8 connectivity while this GPS was going in and out (which you noticed) and it raised to 60' and lost GPS again and got caught in wind in ATTI mode. Seemed like drift in wind and not like it took off.

GLAD it survived !

 

[kirbinster]

Are you saying you lost it the second you switched to ATTI?

No, it just started going when it lost gps so I switched it to ATTI to try to stop that and take control, but it never gave me control back. It never actually went into ATTI mode.

 

[ealt]

You're so lucky it did not went to the water direction. Hope you can update us if you managed to find the root cause...
Cheers

 

[rrmccabe]

Off topic but nice lake and beautiful country where you are. I had a customer in Mine Hill near the lake you were at. Really enjoyed the drive.