Well it happened, My FC40 is gone... the good thing is I was only going up and hovering when I lost sight of it, the bad thing is that it is a very dense wooded area. I turned off the transmitter and it did not return to Home. My question is, does the FC40 store the last known home point in memory if the battery is removed ( I hope not ) and would it simply just slowly land straight down from the last point of input it was told to hover at. I think I took off to early and thats why it didnt return to home
Flyaway help
- Thread starter Jetmarine
- Start date
That sucks.
I do not believe it retains the position after the battery is removed. The home point gets set after it gets GPS lock, confirmed by the green rapid flashes. It is my understanding that when you use the stick to go up, it stores the position then.
Did you just send it up out of sight or did it ascend that high on it's own?
I do not believe it retains the position after the battery is removed. The home point gets set after it gets GPS lock, confirmed by the green rapid flashes. It is my understanding that when you use the stick to go up, it stores the position then.
Did you just send it up out of sight or did it ascend that high on it's own?
I went straight up and was looking at my Phone panning around lost connection to wifi I looked up and didnt see it so I didnt panic because I figured it would return to home... well it didnt. So as long as it just came down on low battery my search area will be more focused
Sorry to hear this. I'm still to nervous to fly it out of site. Doesn't really seem like you had a 'fly away' per say. More of a.. you flew it out of site and weren't able to bring it home.
I think the documentation on the 'return to home' is to vague. Many still believe the fc40 will 'return to home' upon low battery, which is not the case. But rather (like you suggested) it simply just lands from where ever it is at
I think the documentation on the 'return to home' is to vague. Many still believe the fc40 will 'return to home' upon low battery, which is not the case. But rather (like you suggested) it simply just lands from where ever it is at
It was definitely My Fault as I have been becoming more and more cocky with it. And as long as it landed pretty much straight down I have a decent chance of finding it.
I had the same thing happen when I put carbon fiber landing gears and relocated the compass. Found mine and could have found it faster if I had looked at night. I viewed the GoPro footage and as night fell the lights on the copter blinked for several hours. The weird thing was when I found my copter, the battery was no where to be found.
I think that most fly offs are caused by the compass not being calibrated or not having a satellite signal.
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I think that most fly offs are caused by the compass not being calibrated or not having a satellite signal.
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mikey said:
Thanks I thought it would fly home if the battery was low!!! better stop the ocean flights now
72 hrs now no luck finding it but I did use My phone and satellite Map to view the possible Auto Landing Site This really helped in focusing in on where it might be. Tomorrow I might break out the Hubsan drone I originally purchased (B4 I upgraded and haven't flown since ) to check on some roof tops! LOL but why not?... Not sure If I would replace My FC40 with another or upgrade from It
Well, first things first, did it have a lock on 6 or more satellites, if not, no home location set, no GPS positioning, could be anywhere because it would be in attitude mode or non GPS mode and the wind could blow it anywhere
If it went up and stopped somewhere it will not come home unless it looses signal with the controller, if it has constant signal it will sit where it is waiting for you to do something or until the batteries drain then it will land by itself where it is.
Not sure if RTH can be set with the S1 switch with the FC40 even though I fly one all the time.
Every time I want to fly I ensure I have a good satellite loc of more than 6 satellites and the home location has been set, the exception to that is when I know that I will not receive enough satellites and I fly in Attitude mode, usually in valleys etc.
If it went up and stopped somewhere it will not come home unless it looses signal with the controller, if it has constant signal it will sit where it is waiting for you to do something or until the batteries drain then it will land by itself where it is.
Not sure if RTH can be set with the S1 switch with the FC40 even though I fly one all the time.
Every time I want to fly I ensure I have a good satellite loc of more than 6 satellites and the home location has been set, the exception to that is when I know that I will not receive enough satellites and I fly in Attitude mode, usually in valleys etc.
Jetmarine said:
That's a real shame, we all certainly hope it turns up for you. I couldn't imagine losing my phantom like this.
Jetmarine said:
That really sucks!!!!
Not sure if I'm kicking in an open door but have you checked the wind direction and speed and followed that path?
If you took off too early it probably couldn't get a GPS fix and switched or remained in Atti. In Atti the quad will move with the wind direction and with the wind speed, and that is faster than people might think. Within 2 minutes tops it would be out of range and could not return to home because of a lacking GPS home point. So it might have started to hover at some point, it should have gotten a GPS fix along the way, probably at the end of the Tx control range. So you should look at a circle with a radius of 500-600 meters (and further perhaps) focussing on the down wind vector.
It looks obvious but I thought it might help maybe.
Good luck, I just took my bird 400 meters high and 100 meters over the lake, just after dinner, and coming back and reading this turns my stomach around.
There's something emotional about having a quad flying away from you, it really sticks as a memory. I flew my first quad over the lake never to be seen again, the wind took it and I lost orientation. Every movement I tried seemed to make the quad going further away. Truth is, the wind was much stronger than I expected and the quad simply couldn't get home up wind, or it had such a slow groundspeed up wind, that it wasn't notable from where I stood. It was a non GPS quad (RC Logger Eye Xtreme) with very limited LED indication. I still can photographically remember how I watched it disappearing as a very tiny dot in the evening sky.
Good luck, I really hope you find it. Miracles do exist, I hope... for this once.
Jan
Wow Thanks for the support everyone!
I don't know whats worse to see it fly away and land in a body of water and know for sure its the end of story or to see it land in a forest with a general idea of where it could be, never to find it, knowing its there somewhere, or in this case hoping it had a GPS signal and landed within 50 sqr yards of wooded tall trees and grass or just drifted 2 miles away.
I have the rest of My life to find it or not and if I do cool. Like I said I own a tiny Hubsan and had fun pushing it to its limits
I have lost it 2 times in the trees and waited weeks for a storm to blow it down and found it, then decided it was a Toy and wanted more thus the $500.00 investment in the FC40 and have been very happy and impressed.
This was all My fault because I got careless and flying to high relying on FPV and dont for sure remember waiting on all green (pilot error)
I was Focused on recording a approaching Rain Cloud from the West near Sunset and was capturing awesome Video to share when I lost WIFI and relied on RTH
OK so now My search method is
Look in the obvious open areas first but keep looking up in the trees
wait for another windy day/night and check again in some areas that are not that easy to walk
while looking think about if I want another FC40 or something better HMMM 500 VS 700 VS 1000 thats the hard one
remember that I might find it someday and I will have 2
I don't know whats worse to see it fly away and land in a body of water and know for sure its the end of story or to see it land in a forest with a general idea of where it could be, never to find it, knowing its there somewhere, or in this case hoping it had a GPS signal and landed within 50 sqr yards of wooded tall trees and grass or just drifted 2 miles away.
I have the rest of My life to find it or not and if I do cool. Like I said I own a tiny Hubsan and had fun pushing it to its limits
I have lost it 2 times in the trees and waited weeks for a storm to blow it down and found it, then decided it was a Toy and wanted more thus the $500.00 investment in the FC40 and have been very happy and impressed.
This was all My fault because I got careless and flying to high relying on FPV and dont for sure remember waiting on all green (pilot error)
I was Focused on recording a approaching Rain Cloud from the West near Sunset and was capturing awesome Video to share when I lost WIFI and relied on RTH
OK so now My search method is
Look in the obvious open areas first but keep looking up in the trees
wait for another windy day/night and check again in some areas that are not that easy to walk
while looking think about if I want another FC40 or something better HMMM 500 VS 700 VS 1000 thats the hard one
remember that I might find it someday and I will have 2
How long was it up for before you lost it??? If it auto landed from low battery it does not try to fly back home it just trys to land its self were every the hell its over. and if up high and it dont have enough power to make it all the way down to the ground before the battery is to low to fly at all it just crashes.
I hate that am low battery auto land bs and keep it shut off because it is a lot easier to use a battery buzzer and have tome to fly it back home. When the auto land battery alarm level is hit if you leave it on ITS very hard to fly cause you also have to keep the left stick up to keep it at altitude while also trying to fly it back. and trying to keep it from losing altitude also eats the last bit of battery up faster to. I would never ever even think of flowing over or even near water with out first turning that stupid low battery auto crash thing off first. It serves no good use but to help you not make it home before it decides to go and land were you dont want it to land.
I hate that am low battery auto land bs and keep it shut off because it is a lot easier to use a battery buzzer and have tome to fly it back home. When the auto land battery alarm level is hit if you leave it on ITS very hard to fly cause you also have to keep the left stick up to keep it at altitude while also trying to fly it back. and trying to keep it from losing altitude also eats the last bit of battery up faster to. I would never ever even think of flowing over or even near water with out first turning that stupid low battery auto crash thing off first. It serves no good use but to help you not make it home before it decides to go and land were you dont want it to land.
