Lost p3s (update: FOUND)

yjander · Jan 10, 2017

Hello,
Flying drone at night, I know not smart. Lost video signal and then controller signal and flicked s1 switch to initiate RTH. She never came home. Here is my flight log. Any thoughts of what might have happened?
Thank you all

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Sent from my VS987 using PhantomPilots mobile app

Lunatech · Jan 10, 2017

Looks like you were flying at 184ft and your RTH altitude was 131ft. Was this altitude sufficient to clear everything when the Phantom initiated a failsafe RTH. I noticed on the map that there looked to be some pretty good sized trees to clear and the actual last point was over a pretty good sized one. Might want to go checking with the neighbors in the morning to see if it's in a tree somewhere. Dropping 53ft to RTH is a pretty good drop around those trees.

DaveD · Jan 11, 2017

It wont drop to the set RTH height. It will maintain the 184 on the way back.

Lunatech · Jan 11, 2017

Dave now I'm really new and don't want to come off as a smarta$$ so please don't take this that way but looking at page 13 of the P3S manual it states to make sure your RTH altitude is set to avoid obstacles in case of a failsafe RTH. At least that's how I'm reading it.

Sprocky · Jan 11, 2017

If the bird is lower than the selected RTH alt it will climb first then return home. If it is higher than RTH alt it will return home at current alt.

Lunatech · Jan 11, 2017

The manual is pretty confusing then. I've never experienced a failsafe RTH so I don't know for sure how it works in the real world.

Phantom-Paul · Jan 11, 2017

Sw 1 will cancel RTH .
If the controller lost signal it should have automatically gone into RTH 3 seconds later.
If you toggled sw 1 as you said it would have cancelled RTH.
Maybe it then went into a hover and held its position until Low battery forced it to land where it was .

Sent from my SM-G900I using PhantomPilots mobile app

Loz · Jan 11, 2017

Hi Lunatech, DaveD's comments correct. Suggest, as you indicated you have not experienced RTH is to ACTIVELY practice it so you know what happens and what does not happen. I too not trying to be smart, genuinely strongly encouraging to become familiar with RTH - it's a life saver when then unexpected happens. Fly safe

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

wleung6581 · Jan 11, 2017

Believ s2 is return home if u flicked s1 u cancelled rth

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

yjander · Jan 11, 2017

Hello, thanks for the responses. Just to be clear I have initiated RTH before as well as had failsafe RTH. I am sorry last night I wrote I toggled switch 2 until I heard the beeping. The green light on the rc turned red and never turned green again indicating that it was connected to the phantom. I walked around for an hour last night trying to look in trees and get the rc to light up green again....no luck.

I was recording when I lost it, but the local cache isn't on my phone.

Thank you all

Sent from my VS987 using PhantomPilots mobile app

Pharm · Jan 11, 2017

Just to clarify, if your bird loses contact with the RC, you can NOT initiate RTH by flipping any switch or pushing any button on the screen. This is because you have no contact. No signal from the RC is reaching the bird so it matters not what you do on your end. People always want to press RTH AFTER losing contact. It's too late then. This is when the value of failsafe RTH appears. Lose contact + do nothing (i.e., keep your paws off the RC) = bird returns (assuming it's set to the correct altitude and it's set to RTH, not hover). Continuing to press RTH or flip switches, etc., AFTER RTH has initiated on its own is a good way to cancel it (if contact is reacquired), leaving you standing there wondering why your bird isn't coming home because you don't realize you cancelled RTH.

yjander · Jan 11, 2017

I understand that if there is no signal between rc and phantom, triggering RTH will not do anything. It was more of a failsafe for myself to let the aircraft know I want it to RTH in case it does come back into range of the rc. I have done this procedure before and it did not cancel the RTH.

Could it have kept going in the diection it was going? I know it was not hovering because for the first 20 minutes after I lost contact I walked around the area from the street and did not hear it or see it. Also took rc with me and it never reconnected.

Sent from my VS987 using PhantomPilots mobile app

Pharm · Jan 11, 2017

Also appears you lost contact more than once. Around 1:28 you regained contact after a 10 sec loss (which would have initiated RTH automatically). Apparently you cancelled that once you regained contact. Then you flew back toward home rapidly, then flew away again, also fairly rapidly. I would guess you experienced a catastrophic failure of some kind (hit something, something hit drone, RTH kicked in and hit something on the way back, motor/esc/prop failure, to name a few).

Pharm · Jan 11, 2017

Not likely it continued traveling. These things are pretty consistent about stopping and hovering at signal loss (before RTH kicks in). I think if it was hovering you woukd have seen it, I agree. I think it went down, either before RTH had a chance to initiate automatically or it hit something on the way home.

yjander · Jan 11, 2017

You are correct I went southeast from home point and lost video feed but brought the aircraft back to me manually. Then I zoomed past home point to the northwest and lost video and rc control. I feel that 184 feet was tall enough for the trees around here.

Sent from my VS987 using PhantomPilots mobile app

Pharm · Jan 11, 2017

Stepping totally out of my area, seems like the experts will want your txt log file uploaded to a different place. Search around and you'll find instructions for how and where and what to upload. You might want to contact Msinger. He's great at tracking down lost birds and explaining what happened. Hope you find it!

yjander · Jan 11, 2017

Pharm said:
Stepping totally out of my area, seems like the experts will want your txt log file uploaded to a different place. Search around and you'll find instructions for how and where and what to upload. You might want to contact Msinger. He's great at tracking down lost birds and explaining what happened. Hope you find it!

Thanks Pharm

I'll look for the experts to chime in....