P3A went crazy on me

[mjw]

On Friday I was attempting to fly my P3A at a friends house. The backyard was fenced with a 4' high wrought iron fence. The P3A was appx 30-40 feef away from the fence, about 10' from my pickup and the P3A was setting on the driveway. I went through my normal process of getting everything ready. The DJI Go app gave me a safe to fly. I calibrated the compass. Checked sensor readings - compass reading was registering 1500+ and I had 15-17 satellites - fired up the P3A - it launched and at about 12' head right for the wrought iron fence - ran into a small tree, bounced off my pickup and ended up in the grass upside-down. The battery had popped out as well. I re-assembled everything. Started the the aircraft - checked compass sensors and they were reading 5000+. Shut everything off and packed up. Back at the house I tried to down load the flight log to my laptop and found the files were .dat format - and could not open any flight log files. Two questions:
What in the heck happened at my friends house?
How does one open flight log files on the PC (the instructions provided by the DJI GO app say to download the flight log to your laptop) if they are a .dat format?

By the way when i got back home i fired up the P3A and the little dumpling worked just fine.
MJW

 

[envisionabove]

4' high wrought iron fence
30-40 feef away from the fence
10' from my pickup
I calibrated the compass
about 12' head right for the wrought iron fence

I think you have really found your answer.
Real happy it did not get trashed.
No more Fences right?

 

[mjw]

Probably right - but my dilemma is I really want to photograph an old river bridge - the kind with the large arched metal beams - located in a really scenic place on the Brazos river in Texas - I obviously would not get as close as I was to the fence - I see pics / videos posted where folks photographic large ships - they seem to not have had a problem - so I am guessing a significant altitude is going to be safe - and not flying under bridge as well

Also if there is anyone out there that know how to handle the flight log files that are in a .dat format - I would like to know how to look at these files
MJW

 

[4wd]

It's still a bit surprising the fence had anything to do with it.
You should have got a hard to miss warning about compass error, though if in flight it might have been too late to do anything about it.
The only times I saw an issue with mine was standing it on a tin box on an indoor window sill to check white balance, and walking close to a skip (dumpster) while carrying it.
In both cases as soon as it was away from the metal it was back to normal.

 

[envisionabove]

Probably right - but my dilemma is I really want to photograph an old river bridge - the kind with the large arched metal beams - located in a really scenic place on the Brazos river in Texas - I obviously would not get as close as I was to the fence - I see pics / videos posted where folks photographic large ships - they seem to not have had a problem - so I am guessing a significant altitude is going to be safe - and not flying under bridge as well

Also if there is anyone out there that know how to handle the flight log files that are in a .dat format - I would like to know how to look at these files
MJW

"I calibrated the compass."

That mite have been the issue in that area.
Get your compass tweaked in a nice clean area in forget about it.
Until you think you really really need to.,

You should be okay with the bridge I've seen worse. Do you remember the Demo of the Old Factory metal every place.

Here is the Video if you have never seen it it's worth the time.

 

[mjw]

It's still a bit surprising the fence had anything to do with it.
You should have got a hard to miss warning about compass error, though if in flight it might have been too late to do anything about it.
The only times I saw an issue with mine was standing it on a tin box on an indoor window sill to check white balance, and walking close to a skip (dumpster) while carrying it.
In both cases as soon as it was away from the metal it was back to normal.

What is interesting - my house has a metal roof - I have flown many practice flights in my back yard - flown near the roof no issues - no errors or problems getting good GPS satellite counts - compass values in the 1400-1500 - as i said back a the house the aircraft was in control - all i know the problem scared the pants off me - but it survived the crash - all is well

 

[aopisa]

Yesterday I took off from a wooden foot bridge. Once I got it into the air over the stream the aircraft started to behave erratically almost falling into the water and crashing into the trees and I received a compass error. I threw it into ATTI mode and coaxed it back to the bridge.

After narrowly escaping disaster. I checked the bridge and found that it was built over two steel I-beams. It was a stupid error that should have been avoided. I should have known better and checked more thoroughly before. Thankfully I have some experience practicing with the very difficult to control Hubsan X4.

Everything checked out pre-flight.

 

[mjw]

"I calibrated the compass."

That mite have been the issue in that area.
Get your compass tweaked in a nice clean area in forget about it.
Until you think you really really need to.,

You should be okay with the bridge I've seen worse. Do you remember the Demo of the Old Factory metal every place.

Here is the Video if you have never seen it it's worth the time.

Hey, thanks for the video - darn sight more metal than that stupid fence - oh one thing I forgot to mention - the controller / dji go app - was set to multiple controllers - and I never restarted the controller after the attacking fence - I had previously been playing with the new features in the recent release (follow me, etc) - glad you sent the factory video - I now have the courage to film the bridge - the only risky part is ending up in the Brazos - no pain no gain
MJW

 

[mjw]

Yesterday I took off from a wooden foot bridge. Once I got it into the air over the stream the aircraft started to behave erratically almost falling into the water and crashing into the trees and I received a compass error. I threw it into ATTI mode and coaxed it back to the bridge.

After narrowly escaping disaster. I checked the bridge and found that it was built over two steel I-beams. It was a stupid error that should have been avoided. I should have known better and checked more thoroughly before. Thankfully I have some experience practicing with the very difficult to control Hubsan X4.

Everything checked out pre-flight.

I am hearing the secret is to calibrate and take off far away from the subject such as a bridge and fly to it - the aircraft is apparently happy if its brains are in good order before getting to the subject at hand

 

[GoodnNuff]

Rebar in the driveway where you calibrated?