I'm new to a FlyAway

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Yesterday I was victim of a FlyAway. It indeed happens. I was in the preflight agenda to take some shots of a Susan K. For the Cure Race and note an unusual delay of the bird to lock at least 6 satellites. It stay in five and I decide to re initiate the process. In the second attempt and after a while it lock and unlock the 6th a couple of times and finally it appear to gave me green light to take off with 6 locked satellites. Whitin seconds or so in the air it begin to drift away with no control of my inputs, both switches in the upper position. I immediately with it in sight move S1 to atti and was able to regain control. Then move it closer to me and after a while return it to gps, and hover for some time verifying its manners. After this scarying seconds the rest was a usual good flight. I think that maybe the lack of sufficient satellites in the air was the reason of its uncontrolled drift away. Here is the short vid of this unpleasant experience, at 1:10 it begin the flyaway uncontrolled action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45CL2fK ... e=youtu.be
 
You are right it just lost enough satellites for it to drop into atti. Even though its says its got a lock doesn't mean it will maintain that during flight. It can cause unexpected behaviour, just be prepared especially if the number of satellites is at the minimum. Quite often you get more satellites once you take off. I have taken off atti with low satellites then once clear of obstacles it got enough to switch into GPS. The IOSD mini helps here.
 
So it didn't flyaway, it just drifted briefly in atti when it lost GPS lock but nervous readers will only see this as another dreaded flyaway.

If you have trouble getting 6+ satellites on the ground, unless you were in an area with trees, buildings etc obscuring the sky, you really should do the foil mod. Then you should get 10+ without much trouble.
 
Ok now I know why there are laws against flying in a cbd area ... just in case a drifting out of control phantom accidentally filmed a bunch of guys in a building called Watergate.
 
Meta4 said:
So it didn't flyaway, it just drifted briefly in atti when it lost GPS lock but nervous readers will only see this as another dreaded flyaway.

If you have trouble getting 6+ satellites on the ground, unless you were in an area with trees, buildings etc obscuring the sky, you really should do the foil mod. Then you should get 10+ without much trouble.

Well I'm guessing the so called Fly Away are similar situation like this one, but were the pilot don't react and can't overcome it. In relation to the foil mod, mine is a vision non plus, so the mod is not supposed to be needed.
 
hotstink626 said:
Ok now I know why there are laws against flying in a cbd area ... just in case a drifting out of control phantom accidentally filmed a bunch of guys in a building called Watergate.
Hi. I didn't know about laws against flying in a cbd area. Please, explain this because I don't want to break actual laws.
 
Sounds like your Phantom worked exactly as designed. No flyaway.
 
Rename this to "float away"
 
All of those tall buildings were blocking the GPS signals.

And boy, I wouldn't ever fly directly over people like that. What if is lost power or something and fell from that height?
 
foil mod? I have a non vision btw.
 
careful of taking off from parking structures. The metal underneath will disrupt the compass before take off and your bird will react how it did.
 

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