Now I am not sure.

[seajunky]

I was going to order the P/Vision, but I have read so many reports of fly aways that quite honestly I couldn't afford it to happen to me. My feelings on this are, that if I am putting a grands worth of kit up in the air then I want to know for sure that it's going to come back to me. And reading all of the fly away reports is making me very nervous. It seems that there is no definitive reason as to why this is happening, It's all well and good offering a spare battery FOC, but if that’s all you have left after your vision does a bunk then it's not worth taking a chance on. I think I will wait until this gets sorted out. I hope that DJI read this and appreciate that the uncertainty is causing them lost sales.

Steve
Merry Xmas everybody

 

[LeoS]

Good call, merry xmas!

 

[iDrone]

Agreed, best to hold off for now. Thru "crowd-sourced data" it appears related to compass calibrations done prior to the fly-away's. Whatever happens seems to eventually create an increasing error & conflict between Compass & GPS data, resulting in a sudden spinout or fly-away when the error becomes too excessive. Hopefully they'll be able to mod the firmware to recognize this condition and keep the aircraft under control, but for now everyone's just being real careful about compass calibrations and keeping away from anything that might interfere with it. Beyond that some of us are experiencing premature low battery warnings (precursor to an involuntary auto-landing) while others batteries have just outright failed and won't fully charge. Hopefully DJI will sort it all out and we'll all be able to fly with confidence again.

iDrone

 

[ginsonic]

I was going to order the P/Vision, but I have read so many reports of fly aways that quite honestly I couldn't afford it to happen to me. My feelings on this are, that if I am putting a grands worth of kit up in the air then I want to know for sure that it's going to come back to me. And reading all of the fly away reports is making me very nervous. It seems that there is no definitive reason as to why this is happening, It's all well and good offering a spare battery FOC, but if that’s all you have left after your vision does a bunk then it's not worth taking a chance on. I think I will wait until this gets sorted out. I hope that DJI read this and appreciate that the uncertainty is causing them lost sales.

Steve
Merry Xmas everybody

Just buy Phantom 2 (not Vision) and replace RC with Futuba one. Can add to Futuba a DragonLink for extra security and range. I will do this. All fly away was reported for stock RC. I can't find on net any fly away for a Phantom with Futuba. Allmost all these situations was interferation issues.

 

[UAVInsurance]

Good call, merry xmas!

+1

 

[Pull_Up]

I know what you are saying, but whenever you launch any form of remotely controlled aircraft you can never guarantee it will come down in one piece. There are many videos on YouTube showing large-scale model fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters flown by vastly experienced pilots (that cost their owners/builders many thousands) suffering catastrophic failures, crashes and all forms of carnage.

I know the flyaways with DJI products are a specific issue, but there are many other ways to turn your Vision into a pile of broken bits, including pilot error. These things contain electronics, for example, and these can and do fail at any time in any device. Add in the vibrations, temperature differences and other issues involved with a rotorcraft and you increase the fail rate.

What I'm trying to say is if you are unable to accept any chance that you could completely destroy your aircraft then RC flying may not be the right hobby for you. Even if DJI manage to diagnose and fix the flyaway issue you can't guarantee the same number of safe landings as take-offs so must accept that risk if you want to fly things.

 

[TheFlyingSentinel]

Hi ...

I understood your concerns ... it’s a big investment … But I have to say from my personal experience (more than 100 flights) the system is very reliable. I never had one single issue which would not be simply explainable.

The P2V works excellent ...at least for me ...

If you read and study the manuals and boards. A lot of persons are start to use the P2V without any experience of flying and overtake them self. Then they are very quickly in an critical situation and become nervous and do the wrong thing ...

Personal I think there is no better system at the market ... The system has still some room for future developments but in general there is nothing really wrong with the system, today...

cheers,
Nik

 

[coloradosky]

I was going to order the P/Vision, but I have read so many reports of fly aways that quite honestly I couldn't afford it to happen to me. My feelings on this are, that if I am putting a grands worth of kit up in the air then I want to know for sure that it's going to come back to me. And reading all of the fly away reports is making me very nervous. It seems that there is no definitive reason as to why this is happening, It's all well and good offering a spare battery FOC, but if that’s all you have left after your vision does a bunk then it's not worth taking a chance on. I think I will wait until this gets sorted out. I hope that DJI read this and appreciate that the uncertainty is causing them lost sales.

Steve
Merry Xmas everybody

Steve,

(Anyone that reassures you into buying one hasn't lost theirs yet)

That being said, I haven't lost mine yet and I love it! The feeling of flying is like nothing else, and being able to watch the video after you're done? Priceless. Well, maybe the price tag is 1200.

As it was already said, you have to be willing at some point to say, "S***, just lost $1200", and walk away from it-- but at all costs try to prevent that scenario.

There are a lot of folks that buy and fly and are 'probably' doing fine, and not fussing here about the details- so this forum may mis-represent the actual risk of buying a Phantom.

THAT being said- DJI **** well better be working on the issues a large group of folks is having with their cadillac flying camera....

Now if that didn't sound a little contradictory, it was intended to be an encouraging warning.

:shock:

 

[seajunky]

It is possible that I am being a bit over cautious but I am thinking of buying a cheap quad to "play" with just to get a bit of experience under the belt. But until such times that I see a reduction in the number of fly away reports I am going to keep my money in my pocket. I know that there is never a guarantee of not making an error, crashing the bird, or fly aways, but if there is a software problem, or a batch of bad batteries, then I am going to give them a bit of a chance to sort it out, and delay my purchase for a while. (Which might not be to long as I am an impatient bugger at times) :roll: and I want to go flying.

Steve

 

[TheFlyingSentinel]

Just one comment left ... "If you buy cheap you will buy twice ..."

Cheers,

Nik

 

[seajunky]

I agree. But it,s only a toy then.

 

[rilot]

Getting a cheap quad to play with is a good plan. Get a Hubsan X4 and fly it around your house. They are £30 and fly really well. It will teach you the basics of flying in manual mode too.
I've got 2 X4s and their little brother, the Q4 too. They are all great fun and give me my flight fix when the weather is bad.

 

[BenDronePilot]

Hi ...

I understood your concerns ... it’s a big investment … But I have to say from my personal experience (more than 100 flights) the system is very reliable. I never had one single issue which would not be simply explainable.

The P2V works excellent ...at least for me ...

If you read and study the manuals and boards. A lot of persons are start to use the P2V without any experience of flying and overtake them self. Then they are very quickly in an critical situation and become nervous and do the wrong thing ...

Personal I think there is no better system at the market ... The system has still some room for future developments but in general there is nothing really wrong with the system, today...

cheers,
Nik

I'd have to agree with you to a large degree on this one. My experience thus far has been perfect and DJI has been making improvements in the firmware to save you in the event of random interference and what not. And something iDrone said earlier is some problems are just do to random failures in electronics which can happen in any device and is not something that DJI is necessarily at fault for in their construction and at the price point they sell these for. And yeah their is always room for improvement and additional safe guards that can be added to help prevent or minimize fly away disasters but their is no 100% fix no matter what flying platform you're on and their will always be some risk of loss. Just try to do what we can to minimize it.

 

[BenDronePilot]

It is possible that I am being a bit over cautious but I am thinking of buying a cheap quad to "play" with just to get a bit of experience under the belt. But until such times that I see a reduction in the number of fly away reports I am going to keep my money in my pocket. I know that there is never a guarantee of not making an error, crashing the bird, or fly aways, but if there is a software problem, or a batch of bad batteries, then I am going to give them a bit of a chance to sort it out, and delay my purchase for a while. (Which might not be to long as I am an impatient bugger at times) :roll: and I want to go flying.

Steve

Getting experience in a cheaper quad, or using a flight simulator is certainly not a bad idea before flying a $1,200 machine. Though I'd probably suggest pulling the trigger on it just before the end of the month so you can get in on the free battery deal. The platform as it is, is stable and reliable enough. And just think of the thousands of units they likely sold the fly aways or problems are in the minority. And many of them can be chalked up to user / operator error in one form or another. Also add to that, some of the known issues or causes of said fly aways have already been addressed in firmware patches. Best of luck whatever you decide but I'm telling you you're going to love this thing! Everyone who's seen me flying this has been VERY impressed.