Well done on the 2.7 miles phxbird!
I'm sorry to say I crashed my P2V this morning. I ran 2.4 miles out and was coming back the last quarter mile descending over some woods like I've done a hundred times and it dropped faster than I was expecting. This happens some times when I'm moving fast. In this case I was at 38 mph. I was distracted because I could hear a Cessna flying in the area but I wasn't worried because I was coming in fast and low. So as it dropped below 300 feet and hit 250 I slowly leveled off on the elevator and flattened it as it hit 225 and it continued to drop in altitude which is kind of normal. I do this every flight and its routine. Usually it levels off at 200 or sometimes 175. Anything below 150 feet is dangerous because that's where the tree tops are. Well, sure enough, next thing I know it's at 150 and the trees are filling my FPV so I did and emergency thrust up - but instead I thrust DOWN. Moved the stick the wrong **** way! Left stick down! No! No! No!
Again, that plane messed me up. I lost my concentration. Otherwise I would not have made that mistake.
Lost signal. I never saw the Phantom hit the trees. Flytex showed me where it was. In fact the last live screen showed it still on at 0 altitude which didn't make sense because the ground elevation of these woods is something like 50 feet above my launch. It's like my flight ended and then flytrex started a new flight when in fact it was the same flight. But it never showed me a log for the last bit on the ground.
Anyway I looked at the flytrex log and the last entry was 189 ft altitude which also didn't make sense. My litchi app showed it at 157 ft. The litchi log showed it at 126 feet two secs later. End of log.
Took me quite a while to find it because those woods are thick.
Apparently the Phantom fell to the ground with the battery out just a crack but still in the Phantom and props still spinning. It landed soft in thick brush but hit the ground and the props dug into the dirt and kept digging until the battery died (battery was at 39% just before the crash). Props did not break. So the motor mounts melted from the motors getting too hot. Two motors were pulled up right through the arms though the melted white plastic.
Camera didn't even come loose from the gimbal. One of the fpvlr dipoles broke.
When I got it home I wanted to see the video and I knew I would have to power it up so it would fix the file. So I did (with another battery). The phantom started up normally!
The vid showed me approaching the trees and that was the end. No contact. End of video.
Not sure of the state of the motors. The wiring inside is still a bright copper color so that's good. But I'm not sure if they have enough free movement. There might be too much friction there.
I'm trying to grind down the melted plastic and remount the motors with longer screws and flat washers.
Not sure how all this will work.
If I wanted to do it right I could get a new bottom shell and two new motors. Might still do that.
We'll see what happens.
