Phantom 2 flew away today

Was this a fully charged battery in the P2?

We're the batteries in the TX new?
 
Right, and I thought you meant the video transmitter. Yes, the batteries in the transmitter were brand new alkaline. I was told not to use rechargeable.
 
I've had 2 flyaways. One I never saw again and the other I had put a GPS tracker on it and was able to recover it. I've ALWAYS done the proper start up sequence and waited for home lock and sat lock before taking off. Quite honestly, I get VERY nervous flying these anymore. I am truly hoping that flyaway reports dwindle down to nothing with the P3.
 
I thought the dance was so the quad would know were it took off from?
The dance is so your compass understands the local magnetic field and is able to fly straight.
You can go months without doing it because it has nothing to do with home or geographic position - which comes from the GPS unit and GPS satellites in orbit.
You need to watch for the fast flashing green LEDs to confirm home has been recorded.
Knowledge and understanding helps you fly better.
 
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[Qget to understandUOTE="dmiles, post: 360847, member: 23275"]Have a Phantom 2 that I bought new on eBay about a month ago. It had the older version motors and esc's. Had a zenmuse 3D, and my trusty GoPro Hero3 that I have had many times to depths of 100 feet or more in the ocean. I had added a video transmitter when I got it, and had a receiver and monitor attached to my DJI transmitter.

Got home early from work so I took it out in my yard and went for a quick flight before dinner. I calibrated the compass as I always do, and had 12 GPS satellites. It had the older style compass, and all firmware updates. I have a iOSD mini giving me the video overlay, which is how I know how many satellites I had locked. All systems go.

I took off, got to about 60 meters, and had flown east about 50 meters, as I had done several times before, and never had an issue. I was bringing it back, when all of a sudden I had no control over the phantom. Immediately I tired to bring it back, and also tried to bring it down, but it would not respond. At this time it was heading pretty much due south, at what I would call a high rate of speed. I had not yet switched to naza mode, I still consider myself a new pilot having only about 20 flights or so under my belt. So I knew my only options were pretty much failsafe, or shut off the transmitter. (I recall setting the right hand switch to failsafe in the software when it was switched all the way down). I continued to try to bring it back, running down the street, until it was obvious I had no control, so I shut the transmitter off, running down the street, until I lost sight of it.

I had not yet put my name on it as I have barely flown it out of my yard. I live in a rural area with no power lines, cell towers, etc. Not interested in bashing DJI or anyone else, just posting this for informational purposes I guess. If I did something wrong, I would really like to know what it might have been, in 20 flights I never had a hiccup. I am just sick about it, probably the worst thing of all was watching my 7 year old special needs son cry his eyes out. I don't really want to sell out everything I have left, but don't want to risk this ever happening again either.

Pretty much all there is to say, it all happened in the span of a few minutes, so I didn't really have a chance to check the readings on the video overlay like I wish I would have. I knew pretty quickly that I had lost control, but I really don't think there was much else I could have done. And also, no real wind to speak of, just a beautiful day. If anyone has any questions, or feels they can help in any way feel free to reply. I think I'm going to have to have a pretty good idea of what I did wrong, that might be correctable, before I consider re-investing. Thanks.[/QUOTE]
I
Have a Phantom 2 that I bought new on eBay about a month ago. It had the older version motors and esc's. Had a zenmuse 3D, and my trusty GoPro Hero3 that I have had many times to depths of 100 feet or more in the ocean. I had added a video transmitter when I got it, and had a receiver and monitor attached to my DJI transmitter.

Got home early from work so I took it out in my yard and went for a quick flight before dinner. I calibrated the compass as I always do, and had 12 GPS satellites. It had the older style compass, and all firmware updates. I have a iOSD mini giving me the video overlay, which is how I know how many satellites I had locked. All systems go.

I took off, got to about 60 meters, and had flown east about 50 meters, as I had done several times before, and never had an issue. I was bringing it back, when all of a sudden I had no control over the phantom. Immediately I tired to bring it back, and also tried to bring it down, but it would not respond. At this time it was heading pretty much due south, at what I would call a high rate of speed. I had not yet switched to naza mode, I still consider myself a new pilot having only about 20 flights or so under my belt. So I knew my only options were pretty much failsafe, or shut off the transmitter. (I recall setting the right hand switch to failsafe in the software when it was switched all the way down). I continued to try to bring it back, running down the street, until it was obvious I had no control, so I shut the transmitter off, running down the street, until I lost sight of it.

I had not yet put my name on it as I have barely flown it out of my yard. I live in a rural area with no power lines, cell towers, etc. Not interested in bashing DJI or anyone else, just posting this for informational purposes I guess. If I did something wrong, I would really like to know what it might have been, in 20 flights I never had a hiccup. I am just sick about it, probably the worst thing of all was watching my 7 year old special needs son cry his eyes out. I don't really want to sell out everything I have left, but don't want to risk this ever happening again either.

Pretty much all there is to say, it all happened in the span of a few minutes, so I didn't really have a chance to check the readings on the video overlay like I wish I would have. I knew pretty quickly that I had lost control, but I really don't think there was much else I could have done. And also, no real wind to speak of, just a beautiful day. If anyone has any questions, or feels they can help in any way feel free to reply. I think I'm going to have to have a pretty good idea of what I did wrong, that might be correctable, before I consider re-investing. Thanks.
I get to understand that if you fly in naza mode its likely to not have fly aways. Guess you can't rely totally on gps. Sorry for your loss tho.
 
The dance is so your compass understands the local magnetic field and is able to fly straight.
You can go months without doing it because it has nothing to do with home or geographic position - which comes from the GPS unit and GPS satellites in orbit.
You need to watch for the fast flashing green LEDs to confirm home has been recorded.
Knowledge and understanding helos you fly better.
Its good to be amongst wise people with knowledge that can help me develop and learn the skills required to become a safe and competent Phantom flyer.
Thank you.
 
I get to understand that if you fly in naza mode its likely to not have fly aways. Guess you can't rely totally on gps. Sorry for your loss tho.
It's not that simple. Plenty of people who have switched out of Phantom mode and using Naza have lost their Phantoms too.
Flyers using Naza mode are mostly relying on GPS as well.
GPS is a lot more reliable than some operators are.
 
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You turned off your controller? How are you supposed to control it?

Maybe you didn't read my entire post. I had already lost control of the phantom. I had already switched to failsafe, which did not work either. Turning off the transmitter is a last resort. Upon loss of signal from the transmitter, the phantom is supposed to return to home. In my case, due to some catastrophic failure, it did not.
 
Ya, I just had my DJI fly off .. land 300 feet out into a lake and drown itself. It was locked to gps and all was good but I believe there were solar flares (magnetic pull) happening on the west coast and this causes serious gps malfunction. The shitty little dii literally committed suicide and sank to the bottom of a dark deep lake. DJI customer service totally blew me off and basically said "oh well".
there goes $2700. in 2 weeks !! Thanks DJI - you suck ..
 
Ya, I just had my DJI fly off .. land 300 feet out into a lake and drown itself. It was locked to gps and all was good but I believe there were solar flares (magnetic pull) happening on the west coast and this causes serious gps malfunction. The shitty little dii literally committed suicide and sank to the bottom of a dark deep lake. DJI customer service totally blew me off and basically said "oh well".
there goes $2700. in 2 weeks !! Thanks DJI - you suck ..

Solar flares. Yeah, that's the ticket.
 
I've seen the wifi switch on for no reason on the GoPro if that happened that signal could interfere with the phantoms 2.4Ghz radio signal...
 

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