Lost my P3 sunday

[mgholson]

After almost a year of flying my Phantom 3 Standard I was super confident. I had never crashed it or lost it. Sunday morning I drove to a nearby lake to take some video of the fall colors. It was dead still at the lake at 6:30 AM, no wind at all. I flew the drone up over the trees and our a few hundred feet while checking out the sunrise colors. Turned the drone to return to the lake and realized it was getting farther away and climbing. It was up around 1000 feet. I assumed I was having a control issue, but I had control it just kept slipping further away.

I have a range extender reflector and was getting signal at 10,000 feet. The drone started automatic landing. I realized the lake sets in a hollow and there was some kind of crazy wind above it. Ran to my car and drove to the drone. Someone behind me was freaking out while I kept slowing down and checking my radio they started flashing their lights, but there was nowhere to pull over. I found signal, and battery life came up 9% but the signal was gone in a few seconds.

Never could find the signal again and spent 6 hours walking through fields with no luck. My flight data has coordinates at 22% battery life and 750 feet. I searched its heading and all over with no luck. I was sure as I would find it as it was flying over mostly harvested fields.

I'm really bummed out. Spent 400 dollars on it so I guess not a huge loss, but I already miss flying it. WInd was really strong in the fields, I just hadn't noticed it at the lake.
Do you think it would have safely landed or died on the way down?

 

[Nightwolf]

DJI Flight Log Viewer - Phantom Help
follow the instructions to upload your flight log above then return here with the URL from after the site parses your flight

 

[Fly Dawg]

Do you think it would have safely landed or died on the way down?

No way to even answer your question without seeing the flight logs. If you uploaded to Phantom Help, share the link back here, otherwise if you uploaded to Airdata, you can share that here as long as you make the link FULLY sharable.

 

[mgholson]

Here's the flight log

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[RodPad]

I just saw your log, You will have some good guys with good information soon.

Rod

 

[With The Birds]

Blown away- basically. With wind speed at close to 50mph you were always going to have a hell of a time getting your P3 back to the home point.

 

[mgholson]

Yeah it was such a crazy day, there was no wind when I left my house, and when I got in the air around 7AM it was dead still.

 

[Ansia]

Sorry for your loss. Hope you replace it soon and get back to flying.

 

[sar104]

As noted above, the wind speed was the problem, 45 - 50 mph out of the SW at 1000 ft. Looking at the battery level, distance and altitude shows the following:

The good news is that after critical battery autoland was triggered at 660 s, there was enough battery left to land (as there should be). Estimating landing time from the descent rate and combining with the drift rate to estimate where it would have landed gives a further drift from the last recorded position of between 250 and 525 m.

Looking at that in Google Earth shows the following:

It should have landed somewhere along the green line segment.

 

[With The Birds]

As noted above, the wind speed was the problem, 45 - 50 mph out of the SW at 1000 ft. Looking at the battery level, distance and altitude shows the following:



It should have landed somewhere along the green line segment.

Probably precisely half way along the green line given the reliability of your log analysis.

Good news is there will likely be very minimal damage.

 

[mgholson]

Wow, thanks, thats pretty much where I searched, Most of the green arrow was thick soybeans that would have really hidden the drone. Will try walking that line tommorow.

 

[Cellblock776]

Wow, thanks, thats pretty much where I searched, Most of the green arrow was thick soybeans that would have really hidden the drone. Will try walking that line tommorow.

Hoping to hear that you located your P3S safe and sound.

 

[Nightwolf]

there was no wind when I left my house, and when I got in the air around 7AM it was dead still

At what altitude?

 

[mgholson]

@Nightwolf right, yes there was zero wind on the ground but obviously strong winds over the hills.

I searched the field again this morning with a bright light from 5:30 to 6:30 when I had to go to work. No luck. Sadly it rained heavily all day and will rain heavily tonight and tomorrow. I am 90% certain it's not on the green line, but a bit ahead of it. I believe as it lost altitude the wind was much weaker it began a more straight down descent. Winds close to the ground were maybe 10-16 mph in teh fields while I was searching for it.

The red section of the line crossed a growed up drained ditch you can see on the map. Around the ditch is heavy brush and the soybeans are really thick there. You can't see at all. I think that area is where it went down.

 

[Meta4]

Where is the wind speed displayed?

The flight data is full of indications of a strong wind.
Look around 9:47 - in RTH the drone was going backwards at 18 mph while trying to return home.

 

[Meta4]

Turned the drone to return to the lake and realized it was getting farther away and climbing. It was up around 1000 feet. I assumed I was having a control issue, but I had control it just kept slipping further away.

You need to ask yourself a few questions.
Why go to 1000 feet in the first place?
Why no wind awareness when you got up high? (the wind is always stronger up higher)
Why you stayed at 1000 feet when it was obvious the Phantom was being blown away?

 

[sar104]

Where is the wind speed displayed?

 

[With The Birds]

Its a good thing they don't incorporate flightradar24 data- we could see some scary things at these sorts of altitudes.

 

[Cellblock776]

This thread was on my mind today as I went up on the levee along the Mississippi River this morning to do some flying. I had problems with the DJI Go app crashing on my tablet so I tried using Litchi. Twice the Litchi app crashed while I was in the air. Swapped from tablet to cellphone but was having serious lag issues. As I worked to correct the problems the winds began gusting. I have a Kestrel brand hand held wind gauge which was only showing 4mph where I was standing but the trees along the river were swinging in the breeze pretty well. So, with the wind, the apps crashing, clouds popping up and my ADS-B monitor showing planes flying all around me I decided to call it a day before I ended up with a similar story of my UAV being blown away.
Still hoping to hear good news that you found yours.
I have written under my battery compartment, "If Found Call (my cellphone number) For Reward". If it does get lost I hope that increases it being returned to me if found.

 

[Cellblock776]

You need to ask yourself a few questions.
Why go to 1000 feet in the first place?
Why no wind awareness when you got up high? (the wind is always stronger up higher)
Why you stayed at 1000 feet when it was obvious the Phantom was being blown away?

The way he worded it, I took it to mean that he lost control of the UAV due to the high winds and the winds are what caused it to go up to 1000', not him deliberately flying it that high.