My Drone went CRAZY!

[acesvett]

Please Help! I have a Phantom 4 and it went crazy 2 days ago. I uploaded the flight log and the link is below. I was flying over my house as usual, but my takeoff point was in my back yard near my pool. The P4 decided to go home for some reason and I panicked, I didn't want it to land in the pool. So I flipped the switch to ATTI mode, as you can see in the flight log, to cancel the go home. Then a few seconds later it started flying in crazy circles. I was trying to control the P4, but I am not that good at flying this thing yet. I have only had it for a few months. I ended up crash landing it into my neighbors garage door with no damage as I was able to slow it down enough. Why did this thing spin out of control? Is it because it was in ATTI mode? Thanks for all of your help.

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[GMack]

Did you ever calibrate your sticks? If not, then they may have the bird flying someplace else and not staying put or where you'd "Stick it to fly to." After one GO update my sticks were different for some reason, and I saw the blue line indicating it was offset for some reason so I had to do a re-cal of them.

The regular RC radios (Futaba, Airtronics, etc.) have the fine tuning buttons that we don't have on the DJI radios to tweak the resistance band on the sticks should they get noisy or differ in time. Don't tune them and the helicopter or plane goes off someplace else.

Also, everyone should fly in ATTI for practice, or get a RC craft or flight simulator that doesn't have the GPS/compass luxuries and practice. I'd bet many who got flipped into ATTI mode would panic at how different the bird acts when not under sensor control. I've been rudely awakened just disengaging out of an Autopilot flight a few times, but at least I had a wide buffer area to regain control manually while it got batted around in the wind gusts. When GO does the auto-change from P to ATTI mode and back again, these things are very squirrelly to control.

 

[acesvett]

Did you ever calibrate your sticks? If not, then they may have the bird flying someplace else and not staying put or where you'd "Stick it to fly to." After one GO update my sticks were different for some reason, and I saw the blue line indicating it was offset for some reason so I had to do a re-cal of them.

The regular RC radios (Futaba, Airtronics, etc.) have the fine tuning buttons that we don't have on the DJI radios to tweak the resistance band on the sticks should they get noisy or differ in time. Don't tune them and the helicopter or plane goes off someplace else.

Also, everyone should fly in ATTI for practice, or get a RC craft or flight simulator that doesn't have the GPS/compass luxuries and practice. I'd bet many who got flipped into ATTI mode would panic at how different the bird acts when not under sensor control. I've been rudely awakened just disengaging out of an Autopilot flight a few times, but at least I had a wide buffer area to regain control manually while it got batted around in the wind gusts. When GO does the auto-change from P to ATTI mode and back again, these things are very squirrelly to control.

How do I calibrate the sticks?

 

[AlecW]

Was it windy?

 

[acesvett]

No Wind at all! Just went crazy on me. I let go of the sticks and it was flying off in another direction so I had to try and make it circle back around. It would not hover at all!

 

[GMack]

How do I calibrate the sticks?

GO may look different, but this is for a P3 and much the same as a P4:

Also, I flew gas heli's before I got a drone and found myself planted under a DJI NFZ due to a nearby airport. Those gas things were hard to control in my yard as the wind direction is all over the place and hard to tell from where at times dues to walls, fences and trees. The things behave like a kite in wild winds around corners of the house and you don't have much setup/tuning/reaction time. I gave up flying in the yard after a few costly accidents, roof retrievals, and knocking on the neighbor's door. Bad stuff happens in small spaces.

 

[Jayfdee]

You were flying relatively high 380ft and close to home, did you have your antennae correctly orientated.When flying overhead you need to have the antennae parallel with the bird.

 

[Suhail78]

I highly doubt the P4 went crazy, if anything its probably a pilot error.
If your flying in ATTI mode, it will not hover, it will drift any direction the breeze is going.

 

[ChiefStealth]

No Wind at all! Just went crazy on me. I let go of the sticks and it was flying off in another direction so I had to try and make it circle back around. It would not hover at all!

That's typical Atti mode. You let go of the sticks it is not going to stay in one spot. The barometer will keep the altitude pretty stable. You won't have to control altitude so much. But in Atti mode there is nothing stabilizing the forward/backward.. left right. There is nothing to make it hover. What you call going crazy, is probably just normal Atti mode drift. You should have known that. You should also have known that you probably could have switched back out of Atti mode, and back into GPS mode. That would have stopped the drifting.
So, you flew in Atti mode, without knowing what that means.
You flew in a rather confined space.
IMHO both bad ideas.

 

[Mr. Salty]

Please Help! I have a Phantom 4 and it went crazy 2 days ago. I uploaded the flight log and the link is below. I was flying over my house as usual, but my takeoff point was in my back yard near my pool. The P4 decided to go home for some reason and I panicked, I didn't want it to land in the pool. So I flipped the switch to ATTI mode, as you can see in the flight log, to cancel the go home. Then a few seconds later it started flying in crazy circles. I was trying to control the P4, but I am not that good at flying this thing yet. I have only had it for a few months. I ended up crash landing it into my neighbors garage door with no damage as I was able to slow it down enough. Why did this thing spin out of control? Is it because it was in ATTI mode? Thanks for all of your help.

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Well, year, your problem was that you panicked and switched to ATTI mode rather than just cancel return-to-home. If you're "not that good at flying this thing yet," I'm willing to bet you're awful at flying in ATTI mode. It's difficult. I learned to fly on a cheap Syma quadcopter and I still struggle with flying in ATTI.

If your bird goes into RTH and you don't want it there, learn to cancel RTH the correct way, either using the app or the controller, and go back to flying it in P-GPS mode. But don't just switch it to ATTI mode if you don't know how to fly it without GPS assistance.

 

[RW-1]

Sorry to hear about your mishap.

The lesson for everyone is (if you haven't already) to take your quad to a nice large treeless field and learn to get comfortable actually flying it (ATTI).

Sooner or later everyone, including myself, will run into an issue either by accident, or intentionally whereas ATTI may save it, and you must be prepared for that eventuality.

That's likely the only real advantage some of us who have flown R/C have IMHO.

 

[AlecW]

Were you moving around with the RC, like going from the back yard to the front yard?

 

[ROD PAINTER]

Looks like he landed and then took off again with 37% battery.

 

[BuickGS]

I have a small, non-GPS enabled drone that my wife got me for Xmas. This is what I started out with before getting a DJI. I fly it inside the house, and use it to help get used to the controls and learn how to fly without any assistance. I can say this, its a little work to keep it in one spot. Any little movement on the controls and it wants to take off in that direction. Also, when I go down the hall and the ceiling fan is on, the drone is a nightmare to control due to the changes in airflow.

So with that said, I absolutely agree with everyone else. Your drone worked as advertised, its just a little tough to control without GPS.

 

[WWK888]

It boggles my mind how many people fail to read the manual thoroughly and do not take baby steps in learning how to fly. You would think with such an expensive investment you would really prepare and learn how to fly.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[Meta4]

Please Help! I have a Phantom 4 and it went crazy 2 days ago. .. The P4 decided to go home for some reason and I panicked, I didn't want it to land in the pool. So I flipped the switch to ATTI mode, as you can see in the flight log, to cancel the go home. Then a few seconds later it started flying in crazy circles. I was trying to control the P4, but I am not that good at flying this thing yet. I have only had it for a few months. I ended up crash landing it into my neighbors garage door with no damage as I was able to slow it down enough. Why did this thing spin out of control? Is it because it was in ATTI mode?

Looking at the flight record, I can't see any evidence that your Phantom went crazy at all.
It looks like a case of inexperience.
You were flying in GPS mode and when RTH started, rather than cancelling RTH, you switched to atti mode.
Despite feeling it was out of control, you left it in atti mode for a minute until the end of the flight.

If you had a little more experience you could have:
Cancelled RTH by touching the RTH button and resumed control
You wouldn't have chosen atti mode but if you did, you would have known what it does and how to fly in atti mode and not used big stick movements (that's what made you think the drone was going crazy)
You would have known that you could switch back to GPS mode and had full position holding at any time.

Go to a nice big clear area well away from trees and buildings and practice some basics like RTH and switching to atti (with gentle stick movements) to learn how things work.

 

[acesvett]

It boggles my mind how many people fail to read the manual thoroughly and do not take baby steps in learning how to fly. You would think with such an expensive investment you would really prepare and learn how to fly.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

Not really, this is just a toy. My plan is to buy the QuadroCopter to get better shots. I am only using the P4 as a training device. Thanks for asking though!

 

[acesvett]

Looking at the flight record, I can't see any evidence that your Phantom went crazy at all.
It looks like a case of inexperience.
You were flying in GPS mode and when RTH started, rather than cancelling RTH, you switched to atti mode.
Despite feeling it was out of control, you left it in atti mode for a minute until the end of the flight.

If you had a little more experience you could have:
Cancelled RTH by touching the RTH button and resumed control
You wouldn't have chosen atti mode but if you did, you would have known what it does and how to fly in atti mode and not used big stick movements (that's what made you think the drone was going crazy)
You would have known that you could switch back to GPS mode and had full position holding at any time.

Go to a nice big clear area well away from trees and buildings and practice some basics like RTH and switching to atti (with gentle stick movements) to learn how things work.

Ok, that sounds about right. Thank you for the information. I have never been in the ATTI mode before (not sure why I left it in ATTI mode), but it is my goal to learn ATTI mode proficiently by the end of this month. I appreciate your comments!!

 

[Meta4]

Ok, that sounds about right. Thank you for the information. I have never been in the ATTI mode before (not sure why I left it in ATTI mode), but it is my goal to learn ATTI mode proficiently by the end of this month. I appreciate your comments!!

Atti is just like P-GPS without the position holding.
It's like driving on ice with no brakes so gentle stick movements are necessary.

 

[acesvett]

Were you moving around with the RC, like going from the back yard to the front yard?

Yes, I went from my back yard to my front yard with the RC during flight. I am a Real Estate appraiser and I am going to use these drones to take aerial photos of real estate property. So going from a back yard to a front yard is going to be a common task. Is that OK or will there be an issue with that RC movement?