P3 Pro never came back home

[Numone]

Really sorry for the loss of your A/C, but on the strength of the video evidence alone, you flew into the trees I'm afraid. When I decide to do a passing shot below the A/C, I always make sure with a horizontal check with the camera ahead for obstacles before I make the manoeuvre. Visually, it seems you pretty much remained at your take off height throughout the flight. At 34s into the flight, you can see the land to your right (A/C left) is much higher than your take off point and you then turn the camera way from you, point the camera down to shoot beneath the A/C and then fly in the direction of higher ground. If only you'd raised the camera angle horizontally earlier, you would've noticed the impending doom and avoided it. Yep as you say, a very expensive lesson learned. Feel for you..

 

[mnewxcv]

hope you had contact info on your bird. good luck. If RTH isn't bringing yuour bird back turn the remote off!

 

[Numone]

hope you had contact info on your bird. good luck. If RTH isn't bringing yuour bird back turn the remote off!

.....and then back on and try again?

 

[msinger]

.....and then back on and try again?

RTH will initiate 3 seconds after the remote controller signal is lost. If you're going to attempt to initiate RTH like this, it would be best to keep your remote controller turned off until you know it's returning home. There is really no need to turn it off though since the RTH button works just fine.

 

[Mark The Droner]

No. Turning off the remote triggers RTH with no ifs, ands, or buts. There is no reason to turn the controller back on unless the pilot can see it and wants to regain control.

(Edit: Actually there is one technique which some use. That would be, turn off the RC, wait a sufficient amount of time, then turn it back on, regain control, and race it home. This makes sense if it's on a distance run and you're not sure the battery will last flying back in slow-speed RTH mode.)

Another option is to IOC homelock it in. But that's even slower than RTH.

None of this applies in this case though because the OP flew it into the trees before he realized he had a problem.

 

[CCDD]

This forum offers incredibly helpful information!!!!! The Inspire Forum is so sleepy and very few members are ever willing to help others. When I run into a problem with my I1, I'm coming here for info.

 

[Reed L]

So the initial reason that you lost the signal was because the tips of your antennas need to point up. By pointing them out, the signal was pointing at the ground because it's the flat part of the antenna that sends the signal. With the tips pointed towards the bird, the reality was that the signal was hitting the ground right in front of your feet. So your antennas were 90° off. This happens a lot and you're not the first by any means From where you were you should have been able to see it the entire time, but when you went behind that knoll and into the trees, the game was over...

 

[Numone]

So the initial reason that you lost the signal was because the tips of your antennas need to point up. By pointing them out, the signal was pointing at the ground because it's the flat part of the antenna that sends the signal. With the tips pointed towards the bird, the reality was that the signal was hitting the ground right in front of your feet. So your antennas were 90° off. This happens a lot and you're not the first by any means From where you were you should have been able to see it the entire time, but when you went behind that knoll and into the trees, the game was over...

I think the time delay twix signal loss and the apparent collision with the trees would've meant it was probably too late in any event. Sadly for the OP, but a lesson for us all, if ever there a great example of the reason for not loosing sight of the horizon was needed, this could be it.....

 

[RedHotPoker]

This forum offers incredibly helpful information!!!!! The Inspire Forum is so sleepy and very few members are ever willing to help others. When I run into a problem with my I1, I'm coming here for info.

That is a sad state of affairs if true. One would think a higher priced drone, would Also capture a higher class is pilot...
But as we all know, money doesn't buy class.
The folks are pretty level headed and helpful here, no doubt.
Yes, We are... Haha

Also sad to read about the OP losing the drone. That's not good...

RedHotPoker

 

[Wolfiesden]

That is a sad state of affairs if true. One would think a higher priced drone, would Also capture a higher class is pilot...
But as we all know, money doesn't buy class.
The folks are pretty level headed and helpful here, no doubt.
Yes, We are... Haha

Also sad to read about the OP losing the drone. That's not good...

RedHotPoker

I think the problem there may be twofold. 1. Its a Pro class drone (at least its supposed to be) therefore I suspect the pilots there don't put up with as much or are too busy in their business. And 2. Since its more of a pro level of price, the volume is substantially less meaning fewer pilots on the forums.

 

[RedHotPoker]

In reality, @dji have sold thousands of Inspire 1. At the same time, perhaps millions of Phantoms have shipped world wide. ;-)

RedHotPoker

 

[Wolfiesden]

My point exactly. Its a numbers game. For every one I1 pilot, there are 1000 P3's

 

[Xcessfun]

Sorry to hear about your flyaway.
My suggestion, albeit after the fact, is to fly with a tracker like the Marco Polo from UAVfind.
I hope DJI treats you right.

What's up everyone, just trying to see if anyone has experience what I had the displeasure of experiencing this past weekend and find out what could have possibly gone wrong.

I am completely sick to my stomach right now with what happened. And DJI's customer service don't even open til tomorrow morning so I've been stuck with this feeling all weekend.

To preface my story, I've owned and flown a P3 Standard since early March of this year and was flying expertly and with full confidence. I recently upgraded to the Pro because I wanted the 4K and longer range. I've flown it just 6 times before this past Saturday, max distance was a little over 1.5 miles.

So I went on a very popular hiking trail in my area, only 3,481 feet in elevation from sea level. Many people have flown here before, a guy flew his around just before I did with no issue. When he was done I set up my Pro and sent it out like I always do, compass calibrated, home point set, 15 sats connected, 97% battery. I reached about 1,400 ft and turned it back around when I started to get the "Image Tranmission Weak" notification. The problem occurs when I am heading back. I'm flying back manually and just as I look down to see how far I am away(9xx ft.), I get the dreaded "No Signal" notification, screen on my Samsung Galaxy tablet goes completely grey and black. No worries I thought, this has happened before, I had full confidence in DJI's famous RTH function. Except only this time it completely failed me!

I waited a few secs. after the "No Signal" and waited for my RC to beep letting me know that it's returning home but after it didn't I went ahead and pressed the RTH and just as expected it beeped, RC LED is red, showing it's coming home except it never did. After a couple mins panic started to set in, heart was pounding, it shouldn't be taking this long to come back it was under 1,000 ft away. There was 21 mins left of flight time when everything lost signal so I patiently waited and waited, but it never showed up.

I feel betrayed, I don't know how else to explain it. I can't even find comfort in my cached video, it cuts off at the exact moment I lost signal so I have no idea what happened. Have no access to my flight log.

Has anyone ever had this happen to them?

 

[dewster]

Always think about bird strikes. They are pretty aggressive in defending their territory/airspace. I've had a few go after my multis. The smaller birds are even more aggressive. You see them chasing the big birds away from their area all the time.
It would be crazy to think that all of those things happened at once.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[sackpack]

With such a large investment I use a seperate gps tracker called trackimo. This will help find a drone in case of fly aways.

 

[DennyBoBenny]

Edit: this is the final frame of the video. You look to be clearing the trees at that point by maybe 50 feet and the ones in the foreground are rising fast. I could be wrong on this, but I believe when you lose signal, the AC continues on its current course for some length of time (10 seconds?) before stopping and initiating RTH. I know that when I see loss of signal on mine for something like 1.5 seconds (happens all the time on mine for some reason), the course is not altered during that 1.5 seconds and it continues moving. Another 10 seconds on your current course, from the looks of the video, and the trees could have risen to the height of the AC.

Mike

Mike, I've had this happen to me before...the AC flying a little farther after letting go of the sticks when on a distance run and the signal was going in and out. It might not have been 10 seconds, but probably at least 5 or more. Scared me for a little bit until I got the signal back and hit the RTH button.

 

[FliteDoc]

Anyone know if Litchi creates a flight log like DJI GO??? I do a lot of Litchi programmed flights now, never operating w. GO ...

 

[msinger]

Yes, Litchi creates a log in CSV format.

 

[cdronefly]

Always sorry to see birds go.
I have lost many a bird - my non-GPS models....maybe $1k worth of them.

I have never lost a GPS bird because I fly super-conservatively. I'd be surprised if I have been over 1200 feet away from my home position once in a year.

As some have noted - most of us could even take off in an airbus with someone next to us explaining the controls. Whether we could land in fog and wind is another story!

This one is probably 100% pilot error but many do fall on a scale. In any case, it's important for the public to understand drones are not warranted against crashing or losing. I'm speaking of the actual terms (written) of the warranties. The options for a pilot include separate trackers, conservative flying, additional education (on emergency measures) and extra-cost insurance (DJI care or Neary Aerial).

I just wrote an article about "whose fault is it" and although it doesn't apply to this one some may want to bookmark it or pass it on.

Did your Drone Crash? Maybe it's not your Fault! - Drone Flyers

 

[DAP-UAV]

Always sorry to see birds go.
I have lost many a bird - my non-GPS models....maybe $1k worth of them.

I have never lost a GPS bird because I fly super-conservatively. I'd be surprised if I have been over 1200 feet away from my home position once in a year.

As some have noted - most of us could even take off in an airbus with someone next to us explaining the controls. Whether we could land in fog and wind is another story!

This one is probably 100% pilot error but many do fall on a scale. In any case, it's important for the public to understand drones are not warranted against crashing or losing. I'm speaking of the actual terms (written) of the warranties. The options for a pilot include separate trackers, conservative flying, additional education (on emergency measures) and extra-cost insurance (DJI care or Neary Aerial).

I just wrote an article about "whose fault is it" and although it doesn't apply to this one some may want to bookmark it or pass it on.

Did your Drone Crash? Maybe it's not your Fault! - Drone Flyers

Taking off in an Airbus is one thing. Just about anyone can do that. Landing an airbus or any manned aircraft for that matter is a whole different ball game. Sitting next to someone explaining the controls will not cut it.