Fly away Phantom 2

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My Phantom 2 went nuts this afternoon and flew away and crashed into a lake unrecoverable. Bummed to say the least. Has this happened to anyone else and do you know why? This is my second Phantom I got to upgrade to FPV. Lost the quad, Gopro, and FPV transmitter. Would be alright with it if it was pilot error, but not the case. Was my second flight of the afternoon and as I was trying to retain control it came back toward me only to veer off and fly away. Tried failsafe return mode as it veered off and got no response despite a confirmed home lock before take off. Any ideas?
 
Are you positive that the wifi on the gopro was turned off at the time? Once the Phantom is more than 30ft away that can block your control signal and result in weird flight behavior and crashes like that.
 
A question for my own edification:
Had you crashed or anything prior to that?

Had one today and get to rebuild this three-day old toy. A fly-away, that is to say.
 
Not sure if you're just looking for moral support or you want to find out what went wrong. If it's the latter, you'll need to give use much more detail than that.

P2 flyaways have a handful of common root causes: bad compass calibration, taking off from a moving object, taking off from a localized magnetic field, GoPro WiFi left on, pilot disorientation, inadvertent mode switch, botched repairs, ill-advised add-ons, mechanical failure. You'll notice that most all of these are avoidable.
 
What was installed, where, what was jammed inside, what was not, too many variables to base a reasoning without knowing more.
Where were you flying too.
 
Chuckle,
Definitely has to be the moral support as I am definitely admitting user error. What ever went awry was totally my fault.

Glad the parts aren't crazyily-priced.
 
WiFi was off on Gopro, mods were the Kumba can FPV hard wired for power from P2, and video signal from zen muse. Had flown the night before, as well as a half hour previously with zero issues and no crashes. Only things mounted were Gopro in zen muse and the FPV tx velcroed to underbody as instructed. The only thing different was that I was not recording on the Gopro. I lost video signal when the Gopro timed out and control was lost very shortly after that. Would not think the 5.8ghz signal would be capable of interfering. ??.
Past moral support, **** happens and don't play with expensive toys if you can't afford to lose it. Want to know what could have gone wrong. As stated, very experienced pilot fly both my P1and P2 almost daily. Wondering why fail safe mode didn't take over when selected,or when remote was turned off as last ditch effort.
 
I'm always amazed at how many "I didn't do nothing wrong" crashes end up at the bottom of a lake or ocean and can't be recovered.

Did you have iosd? If so, what was the battery level or voltage before things started to go haywire?

Other questions:
1. Did you toggle to Home Lock?
2. Were you in GPS mode or ATTI? Did you toggle between the two?

Just wondering if you tried any of the above before going into failsafe.
 
5.8GHz had nothing to do with it unless you had the vTX across both of the RX antennas which would be hard to do. GoPro shutting off sounds like nothing other than coincidence. So still not enough info to even guess at a root cause.
 
Having also suffered the loss of a P2 plus all the attached equipment I can sympathise with you. There is a very small chance it could have been caused by a F-U-C-T-A-R-D (Faulty User Control Terminating Another Reject Drone) but if not then you need to consider the following questions:

1) What colour was they sky in your world at the time?
2) What were the voices of the 'little people' on your shoulder telling you?
3) Were there any NSA agents hiding in the trees?
4) Do you believe in Aliens?

I finally came to the conclusion that my own fly away was caused by aliens inputting the wrong GPS co-ordinates into my head via the NSA agents in the trees. I remember because I have never seen such a lovely purple sky on a Tuesday before.

Hope that helps.
 
Wow you guys are ruthless.

I'm betting you're the same type of person that blames the Toyota accelerators getting stuck as "user error" or "floor mats getting jammed between feet and accelerator"

Believe it or not sometimes mechanical devices do have issues. Contrary to popular belief.
 
Pete, Being that you're in Christchruch, your flyaway may very well have had something to do with the compass being 22 or more degrees off. Don't know if you considered that but everyone in NZ has significant compass issues with the P2.
 
ianwood said:
Pete, Being that you're in Christchruch, your flyaway may very well have had something to do with the compass being 22 or more degrees off. Don't know if you considered that but everyone in NZ has significant compass issues with the P2.

Nah, my flyaway was actually more of a mechanical failure at high altitude which caused my beloved P2 to turn into a meteorite and bury itself in a field or lake somewhere near my home. To be honest, I've never really had any issues with the compass on either my new P2 or my 550, both appear to behave themselves pretty well except the 550's failsafe doesn't appear to work at all.
 
mysticalice said:
Wow you guys are ruthless.

I'm betting you're the same type of person that blames the Toyota accelerators getting stuck as "user error" or "floor mats getting jammed between feet and accelerator"

Believe it or not sometimes mechanical devices do have issues. Contrary to popular belief.

Its just our way of coping with the grief when one of the brothers loses his Phantom. No harm meant.
 
PetePerrim said:
ianwood said:
Pete, Being that you're in Christchruch, your flyaway may very well have had something to do with the compass being 22 or more degrees off. Don't know if you considered that but everyone in NZ has significant compass issues with the P2.

Nah, my flyaway was actually more of a mechanical failure at high altitude which caused my beloved P2 to turn into a meteorite and bury itself in a field or lake somewhere near my home. To be honest, I've never really had any issues with the compass on either my new P2 or my 550, both appear to behave themselves pretty well except the 550's failsafe doesn't appear to work at all.


The compass issue is only P2 but surprised you didn't have much issue with it there. Anyway, I've heard of the Naza failsafe issue before. It's different than the P2. Have you talked to ladykate? I think he had the same problem.

mysticalice said:
Wow you guys are ruthless.

I'm betting you're the same type of person that blames the Toyota accelerators getting stuck as "user error" or "floor mats getting jammed between feet and accelerator"

Believe it or not sometimes mechanical devices do have issues. Contrary to popular belief.

I don't believe in jumping to conclusions. I believe in empirical data. I won't accept at face value when someone says it wasn't their fault. Not that I think they're lying. It's because most of the time, they don't know. People make very poor witnesses to their own experiences especially when emotionally charged.

As it relates to the P2, there aren't that many flyaways that can't be explained. Mechanical failures happen but they're not very common. To DJI's credit, they've dealt with most of the issues that caused P1 flyaways.

And trust me, if you've been following my thread on the compass declination defect, you would know that if I thought the P2 had an "accelerator stuck to the floor" type of issue, I would be all over it.
 
ianwood said:
PetePerrim said:
ianwood said:
Pete, Being that you're in Christchruch, your flyaway may very well have had something to do with the compass being 22 or more degrees off. Don't know if you considered that but everyone in NZ has significant compass issues with the P2.

Nah, my flyaway was actually more of a mechanical failure at high altitude which caused my beloved P2 to turn into a meteorite and bury itself in a field or lake somewhere near my home. To be honest, I've never really had any issues with the compass on either my new P2 or my 550, both appear to behave themselves pretty well except the 550's failsafe doesn't appear to work at all.


The compass issue is only P2 but surprised you didn't have much issue with it there. Anyway, I've heard of the Naza failsafe issue before. It's different than the P2. Have you talked to ladykate? I think he had the same problem.

mysticalice said:
Wow you guys are ruthless.

I'm betting you're the same type of person that blames the Toyota accelerators getting stuck as "user error" or "floor mats getting jammed between feet and accelerator"

Believe it or not sometimes mechanical devices do have issues. Contrary to popular belief.

I don't believe in jumping to conclusions. I believe in empirical data. I won't accept at face value when someone says it wasn't their fault. Not that I think they're lying. It's because most of the time, they don't know. People make very poor witnesses to their own experiences especially when emotionally charged.

As it relates to the P2, there aren't that many flyaways that can't be explained. Mechanical failures happen but they're not very common. To DJI's credit, they've dealt with most of the issues that caused P1 flyaways.

And trust me, if you've been following my thread on the compass declination defect, you would know that if I thought the P2 had an "accelerator stuck to the floor" type of issue, I would be all over it.

Well said.
 
Thanks all, no real answers but the cynical/sarcasm does indeed help to ease the pain of loss. On the bright side, the next gen zenmuse I hear is 3 axis, and since I need a replacement anyway, might be worth waiting for release. Anyone know about this? Still having fun with P1, sort of like going from a Lexus to the piece of crap you drove in high school. But not afraid to fly P1 more aggressively so makes it fun not shooting footage.
PetePerrim said:
Having also suffered the loss of a P2 plus all the attached equipment I can sympathise with you. There is a very small chance it could have been caused by a F-U-C-T-A-R-D (Faulty User Control Terminating Another Reject Drone) but if not then you need to consider the following questions:

1) What colour was they sky in your world at the time?
2) What were the voices of the 'little people' on your shoulder telling you?
3) Were there any NSA agents hiding in the trees?
4) Do you believe in Aliens?

I finally came to the conclusion that my own fly away was caused by aliens inputting the wrong GPS co-ordinates into my head via the NSA agents in the trees. I remember because I have never seen such a lovely purple sky on a Tuesday before.

Hope that helps.

Hilarious! Never seen a purple sky but we do get purple lightning from time to time. Little guys on my shoulders both had that WTF look going. We have Night Herons and osprey in the trees so if there was anything else they would let me know. Aliens are a non issue as we are directly across the lake from Johnson Space Center (NASA) which designates our area as a section 46.51 no fly zone under the Milky Way treaty of MMCXIII B..M.. There is always the possibility it is a L.O.F.T. issue. (Lack of f#@¿ talent) as mentioned we bear poor witness to our own misfortune.
 
hired gun said:
Thanks all, no real answers but the cynical/sarcasm does indeed help to ease the pain of loss. On the bright side, the next gen zenmuse I hear is 3 axis, and since I need a replacement anyway, might be worth waiting for release. Anyone know about this? Still having fun with P1, sort of like going from a Lexus to the piece of crap you drove in high school. But not afraid to fly P1 more aggressively so makes it fun not shooting footage.
PetePerrim said:
Having also suffered the loss of a P2 plus all the attached equipment I can sympathise with you. There is a very small chance it could have been caused by a F-U-C-T-A-R-D (Faulty User Control Terminating Another Reject Drone) but if not then you need to consider the following questions:

1) What colour was they sky in your world at the time?
2) What were the voices of the 'little people' on your shoulder telling you?
3) Were there any NSA agents hiding in the trees?
4) Do you believe in Aliens?

I finally came to the conclusion that my own fly away was caused by aliens inputting the wrong GPS co-ordinates into my head via the NSA agents in the trees. I remember because I have never seen such a lovely purple sky on a Tuesday before.

Hope that helps.

Hilarious! Never seen a purple sky but we do get purple lightning from time to time. Little guys on my shoulders both had that WTF look going. We have Night Herons and osprey in the trees so if there was anything else they would let me know. Aliens are a non issue as we are directly across the lake from Johnson Space Center (NASA) which designates our area as a section 46.51 no fly zone under the Milky Way treaty of MMCXIII B..M.. There is always the possibility it is a L.O.F.T. issue. (Lack of f#@¿ talent) as mentioned we bear poor witness to our own misfortune.
 

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