Found Crashed P3 Professional

Ill look again but I looked everywhere on this thing for any tags at all. Other than standard serial numbers and what not there nothing there. I didn't see anything in the battery bay. Calling DJI today to see if they can locate the registered owner. Assuming he registered. Nothing so far has indication this guy knew what he was doing preflight. The battery still has the clear plastic instructions from the manufacture on it that would normally be used be removed after using the first time and looks like it wasn't used much at all.

You guys think this owner got it and just could hold his water long enough to take the precautions necessary preflight? Like registering it?

Still no responses to our ads on social media and nobody has been around the neighborhood asking/looking.

Perhaps the owner knew the thing was damaged when it flew off and wrote it off? I live in a very wealthy area of metro Atlanta. For all I know this guy has already replaced it.
I would say a very heavy percentage of owners don't do the manual thing, or the pre-flight thing, or the simulator, so its a 50-50 chance he wasn't prepared to take it out and fly. (I may get flack for that) The best thing to do is just keep trying to find him. A case could be made for going ahead and do repairs on it, then if he shows up, he should reimburse you for the repairs, and if he doesn't, ?????
 
Yeah the benefit of keeping it isn't great. I researched the parts to see how mad I would if I broke it after crashing it and the gimbal with camera is like $500. That almost half the cost of a new one.

Furthermore, if I kept it id have to drop the $500 in a new gimbal and another $500 on an RC. That is the cost of a new one.

I'll just exhaust a few more avenues. But I'm not going to put myself out too much. I have a lot going on and I don't have time to sit and call this place or that place or print flyers etc.

If I were a concerned owner is definitely post here or I would have marked up the thing with contact info.
If nothing else, if he doesn't show, and you think you might want to get into it,(you are getting quite an education on drones) just sell it on ebay and put the money towards a new one. Doesn't have to be a dji, there are other brands, although dji makes the most popular drone right now, and at the most reasonable price. The time that's past, the fact that no one has showed up knocking on your door, the neighborhood site you have it listed on, etc, I would say you are doing everything possible to get it home. If you decided tomorrow to quit and move on, I wouldn't blame you.
 
I'm just going to hold it for now. I'm studying for the CPA exam which I take my last part next week. If nothing comes of it by then I may just repair it and buy an RC and see if it's something I like. If not, I'll sell it. I'll wait a month before moving on anything. I'll try DJI today.

I'll need a hobby anyways after studying for this godforsaken exam. I'll have a ton of freetime.
 
What's funny through all of this is that if I got a quad, id immediately put contact info in the battery bay, register with FAA, register with DJI or whichever manufacturer, register with AMA(?), put contact I for on the body, calibrate before every use away from metal objects, never fly it out of my sight and treat it as I would a loaded weapon by never getting too comfortable.

I read a bunch of threads on here the other night just going down the rabbit hole on related threads and learned quite a bit about this hobby.
 
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I'm just going to hold it for now. I'm studying for the CPA exam which I take my last part next week. If nothing comes of it by then I may just repair it and buy an RC and see if it's something I like. If not, I'll sell it. I'll wait a month before moving on anything. I'll try DJI today.

I'll need a hobby anyways after studying for this godforsaken exam. I'll have a ton of freetime.
Well, there's no age that isn't immune to it. Not everyone gets into it, but, I'd stay a member here, if you know what I mean.....LOL
 
What's funny through all of this is that if I got a quad, id immediately put contact info in the battery bay, register with FAA, register with DJI or whichever manufacturer, register with AMA(?), put contact I for on the body, calibrate before every use away from metal objects, never fly it out of my sight and treat it as I would a loaded weapon by never getting too comfortable.

I read a bunch of threads on here the other night just going down the rabbit hole on related threads and learned quite a bit about this hobby.
As you should:)

The hobby is different things for different people. Some like to fly out miles away, look at their tablets and do that kind of thing. Some(me) like to take videos of things closer in. I really get no thrill simply because I'm seeing the world from the air, but taking videos from the air is a different story. It's a tool IMO, to get me up in the air.
 
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As the saying goes "ignorance of the law excuses no one". The current FAA rules state that operating a UAS for commercial purposes without a Section 333 exemption is worth $27500 in fines and maybe more in criminal penalties, depending on what you're doing with it.
I agree that it's somewhat unlikely that you'd get caught under normal circumstances, but Realtors are not normal. I say this because I have family who are agents. lol
The real estate business is cut-throat. I have absolutely no illusions about how long it would take for "someone" (a rival agent) to report me if I started offering my services to local Realtors.
I know this because that's exactly why I bought my Phantom in the first place. I was quite bummed when I found out about the Section 333 thing and the requirement of having to be a pilot.
Otherwise, I'd be filming big houses for sale right now. Instead, I have a cool new (expensive) hobby. :(
 
Sorry to hijack the thread with a question, but I never used the simulator before the first flight( was more of a hover anyway) , I have loaded the simulator since then and didn't think much of it, in my opinion the best way to experience a quadcoptor is to fly one, I've come from a Hubsan x4 and Syma X5SW, both operating in mode 2, is the inbuilt simulator just an introduction to control stick responses? For people who haven't flown anything in the past?
 
Hi all...so for the past week, I have noticed a green light blinking in the woods behind my house. I saw it and just ignored it until last night. I was on my deck enjoying a cigar and cold beer and again saw the light blinking out there. So, I gathered up my beer and my dog and we went to investigate. Turns out the green light was the light emitting from the phantom intelligent flight battery. I thought it was weird that the battery was out there but no drone, but it was pitch black and I honestly didn't think twice about looking for the drone. I thought those things had like back up batteries or something. Anyways, I thought about it again this morning and thought well surely the drone must be out there somewhere and sure enough, it was there. A phantom 3 professional. 4K camera and gimbal(?) completely snapped off. The camera was laying about 10 yards away from the drone. The drone itself doesn't seem to be in too bad of shape. Some scuff marks.

I read about it's GPS and locating software so I took the drone outside and popped the battery in so that it's computer would fire up and hopefully tag the owner as to its location. I've heard about this "home" function so I took it outside so that it would try to fly back to a GPS tag inside my house. It's been a week since I noticed the green light, so clearly someone has no idea where it is. I tried to extract it's camera information but can't seem to find anything to help me there. My wife posted it's disappearance on facebook and we are asking all that claim it provide serial number, complete description and anything else that would prove it's theirs.

Anyways, what are the rules here. I'm not too happy finding a crashed drone on my property with a camera. We don't live near anything neat to look at. Just a residential neighborhood. But I don't think it's anything bad intentioned, someone could just be the victim of a flyaway.

I know nothing of these things, other than it looked cool as hell when I fired it up. I want to do anything I can to help the owner find it. If it were a $100 drone I'd call finders keepers, but it's $1,200 it looks like and I can't do that with a clear conscience.

Obviously, if I can find anyone with a week or 2 I'll call it abandoned and I'll have a new hobby. It'll take about $500/$600 in repair for the gimbal and camera. The camera lens itself is fine, it's just the bracket broke off and the ribbon is cut.

Anyways, any ideas? I feel I have exhausted my resources.


I don't understand how a drone which has already supposedly flown for awhile to get to you emits a green light "for about a week". I don't think there is any way it could do that. It just won't hold a charge for that long.
 
I don't understand how a drone which has already supposedly flown for awhile to get to you emits a green light "for about a week". I don't think there is any way it could do that. It just won't hold a charge for that long.
I agree. I was hoping the guy was unsure of how many days it blinked or something. I turned mine on to discharge the batteries while my gimbal was being repaired and it lasted 1 day. But, who knows.
 
I don't understand how a drone which has already supposedly flown for awhile to get to you emits a green light "for about a week". I don't think there is any way it could do that. It just won't hold a charge for that long.

Won't it auto shutoff ?
 
I don't know of any auto shut off. There may be one, but it would probably just cause problems like so many other things seem to.

True. Seems like it would after no activity for sometime but I guess not.

Did he say he hooked up to PC via usb cable ? There's some log files on there than can give more info.
 
Sorry to hijack the thread with a question, but I never used the simulator before the first flight( was more of a hover anyway) , I have loaded the simulator since then and didn't think much of it, in my opinion the best way to experience a quadcoptor is to fly one, I've come from a Hubsan x4 and Syma X5SW, both operating in mode 2, is the inbuilt simulator just an introduction to control stick responses? For people who haven't flown anything in the past?

One can use the simulator to fly "what ifs." There were a few things I didn't find in the manual so I was unclear on those. For example I live on a lake so I wanted to know how far away from "home point" I had to be before RTH would RTH and not set down in the water. I flew it in the Sim and found out. Days later I discovered it in the documentation.

I also saw nothing on landing distance and taking off again, so I flew that in the Sim and realized that one could do that.

Also tried to do the waypoints in the Sim and attempted to transfer them to the bird as a work around. That didn't work.

I utilize the Sim to fly problems and ideas before I risk the real bird.
 
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I respect you for trying to do the right thing. If I lose mine, I hope it's someone like you with morals.
 
One can use the simulator to fly "what ifs." There were a few things I didn't find in the manual so I was unclear on those. For example I live on a lake so I wanted to know how far away from "home point" I had to be before RTH would RTH and not set down in the water. I flew it in the Sim and found out. Days later I discovered it in the documentation.

I also saw nothing on landing distance and taking off again, so I flew that in the Sim and realized that one could do that.

Also tried to do the waypoints in the Sim and attempted to transfer them to the bird as a work around. That didn't work.

I utilize the Sim to fly problems and ideas before I risk the real bird.


I never looked at it like that.

Nice :)
 
True. Seems like it would after no activity for sometime but I guess not.

Did he say he hooked up to PC via usb cable ? There's some log files on there than can give more info.
He found an sd card, not in the camera, but laying on it somewhere, and said it was just a couple minutes long, and didn't have anything identifiable on it. I don't know about you, but I lost an sd card, in my living room, and didn't find it for a month. Those things are as bad as some of the screws in the phantom...lol
 
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I have read many stories in my research about people shooting them from the sky over their property or bashing with bats upon find one on their property. I could have easily took a shovel to someone's expensive investment, but instead, I decided to be prudent and do some research. The term flyaway, gimbal, price, etc. aren't exactly like explaining nuclear physics. Flyaway means exactly what it sounds like.
I'm not sure I understand the suspicion implied by these questions. The drone name is right on the quadcopter itself. The other info is easy to find at DJI's web site. Thanks for looking for the owner. I hope the owner hasn't given up and that you are rewarded for your search if or when you return it to him or her.
 
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He found an sd card, not in the camera, but laying on it somewhere, and said it was just a couple minutes long, and didn't have anything identifiable on it. I don't know about you, but I lost an sd card, in my living room, and didn't find it for a month. Those things are as bad as some of the screws in the phantom...lol

You can pull logs from the phantom itself I thought. That's what I was referring to. Connect the phantom directly to PC via usb cable
 
You can pull logs from the phantom itself I thought. That's what I was referring to. Connect the phantom directly to PC via usb cable
You can, by the mini usb on the front. Not sure flight logs would help in this case. He said the card only had about a minute of fly time on it, and I would say the pilot was a newbie, flying out of sight, crashing on someones property, and apparently not looking for the drone. He'll either find the owner, or he wont.
 

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