I was flying a P4P in the hills behind my house, taking the opportunity to film the verdant foliage afforded by the recent deluge of rains in Southern California. The flight nearly ended in a flyaway due to two main factors: 1) carelessness and 2) arrogance.
I was flying in an area that I had flown many times before without incident. However, there is an array of cell towers close by that I had been told had been inactivated. At the end of my 2nd flight, I pushed the Return to Home button and the bird suddenly shot to the right, climbed in altitude and headed off into the wilderness. I immediately shut off the RTH function but still had no control of the unit. It was a tiny fleck in the sky and continued to head 'to the coast'. In spite of a good measure of panic, I decided to just let it fly for 30 seconds more, to allow it to fly far from the cell towers. I then pushed up all the way on the left stick, and much to my relief, regained control. I flew it home far from the towers and landed without incident, with wet palms and shaking fingers and with almost no battery remaining. I could here my wife's voice in the back of my head saying, 'You lost what, costing how much money!'
1) Carelessness- I had flown and used up one battery and had installed the second battery and took to flight again. However, I did not wait long enough to allow the home point to be reset. Lesson learned- replacing batteries requires a complete flight check again before taking off.
I have since made a small laminated card with a pre-flight checklist, and swore I would use it before every flight
2) Arrogance - flying close to cell towers in spite of all the warnings on this site. I am not sure this was a contributing factor but will never fly close to towers or electric lines again.
I was flying in an area that I had flown many times before without incident. However, there is an array of cell towers close by that I had been told had been inactivated. At the end of my 2nd flight, I pushed the Return to Home button and the bird suddenly shot to the right, climbed in altitude and headed off into the wilderness. I immediately shut off the RTH function but still had no control of the unit. It was a tiny fleck in the sky and continued to head 'to the coast'. In spite of a good measure of panic, I decided to just let it fly for 30 seconds more, to allow it to fly far from the cell towers. I then pushed up all the way on the left stick, and much to my relief, regained control. I flew it home far from the towers and landed without incident, with wet palms and shaking fingers and with almost no battery remaining. I could here my wife's voice in the back of my head saying, 'You lost what, costing how much money!'
1) Carelessness- I had flown and used up one battery and had installed the second battery and took to flight again. However, I did not wait long enough to allow the home point to be reset. Lesson learned- replacing batteries requires a complete flight check again before taking off.
I have since made a small laminated card with a pre-flight checklist, and swore I would use it before every flight
2) Arrogance - flying close to cell towers in spite of all the warnings on this site. I am not sure this was a contributing factor but will never fly close to towers or electric lines again.