Just lost my P4 this evening.

[brothers]

...pretty sure it is illegal to block... I don't think so. Many businesses put out some kind of jamming signal if they want to prevent cellular use. I have seen it many times, and not because it is a metal building, but because they have specifically taken measures to disable cell calls.

And the FCC is cracking down on those highly illegal jamming devices.

 

[Pharm]

We need to find a GPS tracker to go on Drones. All I can find are Bluetooth that only reach about 100" . Anyone have any ideas?

100"? That's only a little over 8 feet! Surely there are trackers, even Bluetooth, that reach further than that! I'd probably standing on top of it by the time the tracker showed it.

 

[gsreinke]

Hope someone does not turn it in to FAA with name/address. Video onboard, flying near buildings, people, 5 mi of airport, no line of sight. That could result in a fine. Just sayin. Be careful. To be honest, I am not a drone pilot, yet, but I know how the FAA works.

 

[Pharm]

Count yourself in the top ten of stupid, careless, dangerous, no regard to others safety or damage to property. I can't believe you would even post this. You should be locked up and the key thrown away.
No wonder we drone flyers get a bad rep.

Gosh! What's it like to be perfect? KevMo made a mistake. Yes, he should have known that going between those buildings would cause disconnection and RTH initiation and yes, he should have known that his RTH height should have been set higher, but he erred, something we all (including you) do on occasion. It irritates me too when people do things that could have been avoided by reading and understanding the manual (as you can tell from some of my posts) but I don't think he deserves such a bashing. He's learned from his mistakes, I hope. I think it's time to stow the tar bucket and the large bag of feathers.

 

[Pharm]

I guess I pushed it too far this evening with my P4. So I'm flying across the Ohio River directly across from Louisville Kentucky. I'm on Indiana side of river and it's about a mile across the river to get to the buildings. Dumb me got lined up to go between two 500ft tall buildings in town. Started driving right between them and totally lost connection almost instantly. Had 70% battery left so I thought no problem should be coming home. But return altitude was set at 120 meters. Not tall enough if it has to go over the tallest building. But it should not have hit it because of Object avoidance right? It should have just stopped and tried to go around or just hover there until battery ran out right? I was using Windsurfer's too btw. Which I don't think I would have got as far over the city as I did without them. But they did not help when it ducked behind 500ft tall building at over a mile out. My stupidity for sure
But anyway, it never came back at all. So I drove over to downtown Louisville and walked the streets and even talked to two security guards and gave them all my info. All of my info was on the bird too. So hoping I get lucky and get a call on it. I'm almost more pissed because of the nice footage I had of barges going up and down river and the awesome sunset on the skyline was cool too. I will also never set my maximum altitude to 400ft ever again either. I was trying to climb to get just above those bulidings which may have kept my RC control. But with max altitude set at 400 it would not let me climb as I was driving it forward. This def my fault and I should have known better than to try flying these buildings and being so far away from me. Lesson learned I guess. Be glad to upload the files from my Ipad if I knew how. Help on that if possible? Now what to do next? I was ready for an Inspire anyway. As much as I freaking love the P4, I'm ready for a little better sensor with better stills too!

The bottom line here IMO, as I'm sure you know, is NOT so much how far away you were but not having a good understanding of RTH. You "effed" up. We all do. However, if you get an Inspire and do the same thing, me and "the boys" will probably personally tar and feather you! Happy flying!

 

[Pharm]

If I had been thinking slowly I would have set up a mission real quick in Litchi. But I was hurrying running out of light and just went ahead and flew manual. Got too excited how cool city looked. Had full bars on everything almost the entire flight. But lesson learned here for sure. Seen Dirty Bird do flights all over buildings with Lithchi. He has to be totally losing signal as far out as he is too. But Lithci continues to fly the mission even disconnected right?

Correct, IF it's a waypoint mission. If you're using Litchi manually, it'll do whatever you have it set to do at signal loss.

 

[Pheasant]

Neven,
I joined in hopes I might learn or get some new ideas on the Phantom drones.. Mostly I read about people flying and or promoting very dangerous flights. If you want to fly long flights go out in the country not flying in heavily populated areas.

 

[neven]

Neven,
I joined in hopes I might learn or get some new ideas on the Phantom drones.. Mostly I read about people flying and or promoting very dangerous flights. If you want to fly long flights go out in the country not flying in heavily populated areas.

How far from other people are you flying?


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[normr]

I think a lot of folks learned something from your flight and I do appreciate you sharing the experience - even if you did take some knocks there from others. I'm studying for the FAA drone test on Monday and after all the info I've read this past month about line of sight, interrupted signals, airspace classification, sectional charts, risk management, METARs, weather I'd be too scared to fly over a mile away. Not to mention my registration # is on the drone. If it goes down, I'm toast. FAA is going to want my records and I have 10 days to produce them (not to mention a lawyer if someone is injured.) They can take my UAS Certificate away. The airspace is going to drastically change on Aug 29th and it you want to fly in the National Airspace you have to play by the rules. Are you flying in class C airspace or an Alert area? You need to know how to read a Sectional Chart - you'd be surprise at all of the stuff going on up there. I was - like geez, I just want to fly the dang thing. But it's all about safety. If you loose line of sight and it falls out of the sky on top of someone . . . well that's one of these things FAA is trying to avoid. And you can tell by the practice questions the FAA has given out to study. #18) "Identify the hazardous attitude or characteristic a remote pilot displays while taking risks . . ." well, in this case it could have been "Invulnerability". Look at that sunset! I can pull this off and get back with plenty of battery. I don't have the skill to pull off a flight that far out and I'm just too plain scared to try. FAA scared. Thanks again for sharing your story, it's brave to share the painful loss of a nice drone on a forum.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Where is the "Dislike" button?

Count yourself in the top ten of stupid, careless, dangerous, no regard to others safety or damage to property. I can't believe you would even post this. You should be locked up and the key thrown away.
No wonder we drone flyers get a bad rep.

 

[Neon Euc]

just had another thought... flying between two buildings causes "cross winds" imagine your walking alongside a building, you turn around the corner and a draft gets you.... maybe this is what happened to the phantom. as soon as it hit the building the draft pushed it and maybe it hit the building and fell.... even a possibility some office worker saw it and tried to capture it or knock it with a broom..... I doubt that happened.. just keeping an open mind here ;-) but I do hope you get it tho

 

[gsreinke]

Where is the "Dislike" button?

As a military and commercial airline pilot with over 12,000 hours, following the rules and regulations is paramount in the safety of everyone. The future of drone flying is dependent on this concept. A FEW who violate the rules will destroy the hobby for everyone.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Give yourself a pat on the back & a gold star!

As a military and commercial airline pilot with over 12,000 hours, following the rules and regulations is paramount in the safety of everyone. The future of drone flying is dependent on this concept. A FEW who violate the rules will destroy the hobby for everyone.

 

[Kamloops]

100"? That's only a little over 8 feet! Surely there are trackers, even Bluetooth, that reach further than that! I'd probably standing on top of it by the time the tracker showed it.

Just like the StoneHenge prop in Spinal Tap!

 

[dirkclod]

As a military and commercial airline pilot with over 12,000 hours, following the rules and regulations is paramount in the safety of everyone. The future of drone flying is dependent on this concept. A FEW who violate the rules will destroy the hobby for everyone.

Wow . That's a lot of flying .
Welcome to the forum

 

[fastfed]

A FEW who violate the rules will destroy the hobby for everyone.

lol and people said the same thing about cars, those pesky speeders are going to ruin it for everyone. how about guns? jesus those kill more in 1 day, rules and regulations are in place, but its not ruined for anyone.

THERE WILL BE people who do stupid things with drones, you could already do some pretty terrorist things with them, but does that mean we have to suffer? will you just sit back and allow the government to do that?

 

[Dirty Bird]

I guess there's a chance you might catch a shot of TreeBeard out in the forest.

Neven,
I joined in hopes I might learn or get some new ideas on the Phantom drones.. Mostly I read about people flying and or promoting very dangerous flights. If you want to fly long flights go out in the country not flying in heavily populated areas.

 

[Michael_A]

Had no issues at all the whole time going over and down past both big bridges and then came back and went a couple of blocks into the city. Just over a mile out. Full bars on everything. Also flying with the Windjammers too. They def help a decent amount btw. It looked so **** cool with the clear sky and gorgeous late sun lighting up all the buildings I just kept driving it at 400ft and tried to go right between the PNC Bank and The Gault House Hotel. It disconnected almost instantly when I got the PNC Bank between me and my controller across the river where I was. Looking at the video again, It could very well be on that shorter building that is just in front on the tall PNC Bank building. But it should have tried to go home which Im thinking it would have came down to my set RTH altitude and then head right for me. But it would have stopped if a building was in its way. Then I would assume it would stay there until it ran out of battery. Which it had almost 70% left on it btw.

Haven't yet read the entire thread yet, but a point to be aware of is that most hotels have WiFi routers en every room. That's probably consuming the entire WiFi bandwidth, and imagine all the spurious signals emanating in the area. It may simply have gone berserk and landed on a roof for all you know. If it was trying to RTH with eventual critical low batt, i suspect straight down becomes home.

 

[Michael_A]

Had no issues at all the whole time going over and down past both big bridges and then came back and went a couple of blocks into the city. Just over a mile out. Full bars on everything. Also flying with the Windjammers too. They def help a decent amount btw. It looked so **** cool with the clear sky and gorgeous late sun lighting up all the buildings I just kept driving it at 400ft and tried to go right between the PNC Bank and The Gault House Hotel. It disconnected almost instantly when I got the PNC Bank between me and my controller across the river where I was. Looking at the video again, It could very well be on that shorter building that is just in front on the tall PNC Bank building. But it should have tried to go home which Im thinking it would have came down to my set RTH altitude and then head right for me. But it would have stopped if a building was in its way. Then I would assume it would stay there until it ran out of battery. Which it had almost 70% left on it btw.

Haven't yet read the entire thread yet, but a point to be aware of is that most hotels have WiFi routers en every room. That's probably consuming the entire WiFi bandwidth, and imagine all the spurious signals emanating in the area. It may simply have gone berserk and landed on a roof for all you know. If it was trying to RTH with eventual critical low batt, straight down becomes home.

I think P4 will not RTH sideways and it is fair to assume that it is going to fly straight home making use of those OA sensors. What I don't know is how does phantom avoid object on its path while returning home. Probably by gaining altitude. What happens if it hits maximum altitude while doing that I also don't know. Probably stop and hoover.

This should be easy to test in a controlled experiment using an isolated structure (barn etc.) and RTH set below the roofline. Start off from the opposite side and go hover below RTH setting and then manually initiate RTH. Use prop guards, have no other obstacles like trees around the building or between it and home.

 

[gsreinke]

Give yourself a pat on the back & a gold star!

With that response, sir, it is obvious you have a very limited knowledge of aviation, safety and gov regulation. Good day!