Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway

[Eagle Simon]

Sounds like your problem may have been caused by a malfunctioning gyroscope or accelerometer, doesn't sound like GPS to me.

tbenst Thanks for the response. I convinced you must be right. Spoke to a very knowledgeable bloke today at the shop where it was bought and he agrees. He also told me not to expect a reply to the mail I sent DJI as they are apparently notorious for not responding. I fitted the crash guards I purchased from him and have had 4 initially tentative flights today. Every test I could think of it has behaved perfectly, not a hiccup. The winds got up to a constant 15mph at ground level and the Phantom battled them to stay in hover with ease. By the fourth flight I was back over water again.
All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't happen again. I must say I'd be gutted now if I lost mine as it certainly is a buzz flying it.
Hope you get yours back guys.

 

[N017RW]

If the wind is 15 mph on the ground it is much faster higher up! At 400 feet it could be much higher, 60 + mph. the Phantom can not keep up and will be lost to the wind. This is called Operator Error not Phantom Flyaway.

wc,
I agree that this likely explains a % of the F-As.

Are you suggesting it explains all of them?

 

[midwestjeff]

If the wind is 15 mph on the ground it is much faster higher up! At 400 feet it could be much higher, 60 + mph. the Phantom can not keep up and will be lost to the wind. This is called Operator Error not Phantom Flyaway.

wc,
I agree that this likely explains a % of the F-As.

Are you suggesting it explains all of them?

Highly doubt it was the wind. It wasnt that windy of a day. This was not my first time flying around at that height for the day. I had no problem flying around and back at that height earlier. It should have been able to maintain a hold while I located it visually. The issue I had was the sun in my eyes otherwise I wouldnt have lost it period. There had to be some glitch in the system that sent it flying off when I flicked the S1 down all the way to activate return to home. Thats the only thing I can think of. Granted I'm sure some of the flyaways are user error but I consider myself a pretty advanced pilot when it comes to RC. I may be new to the tech side of this quad, but I have been flying a 450X Heli for years, Blade 350QX (which I can triple flip from 200 feet up) I know this machine is not designed for any of that but if it was my fault or pilot error I would gladly take the blame. I just wish there was a way of knowing what happened so me and everyone else can stop worrying and enjoy this machine for what it is!

cheers

Jeff

 

[Cocoa Beach Kiter]

If the wind is 15 mph on the ground it is much faster higher up! At 400 feet it could be much higher, 60 + mph. the Phantom can not keep up and will be lost to the wind. This is called Operator Error not Phantom Flyaway.

I do agree this could be the explanation for a few of the F-A's, however you would not normally see that much increase in wind over a 400' range. It is not that inconceivable however with an altitude increase of 1500' or more to have a substantial increase in the wind velocity. You can obtain winds aloft from any pilot weather briefing using free apps or from the FAA and may be a good idea as part of your preflight.

In any case, the increase in wind velocity would be a gradual increase and not "all of sudden". If you see the copter starting to drift in one direction, there is a possibility it is unable to maintain position due to wind and descending to a lower altitude is your only option to exit the increased wind.

Hope this helps...

 

[EV2]

Oh, the humanity!

 

[Mal_PV2_Ireland]

If the wind is 15 mph on the ground it is much faster higher up! At 400 feet it could be much higher, 60 + mph. the Phantom can not keep up and will be lost to the wind. This is called Operator Error not Phantom Flyaway.

I do agree this could be the explanation for a few of the F-A's, however you would not normally see that much increase in wind over a 400' range. It is not that inconceivable however with an altitude increase of 1500' or more to have a substantial increase in the wind velocity. You can obtain winds aloft from any pilot weather briefing using free apps or from the FAA and may be a good idea as part of your preflight.

In any case, the increase in wind velocity would be a gradual increase and not "all of sudden". If you see the copter starting to drift in one direction, there is a possibility it is unable to maintain position due to wind and descending to a lower altitude is your only option to exit the increased wind.

Hope this helps...

There can be quite a diffence in wind speed from ground level to 400' I used to operate tower cranes for 12 years and wind played a big factor is safe operations. I have had many arguements with foremen who were on the ground with an aneometer reading 20mph where as I would be 400' above them and be getting readings of 50mph, but it may not be gradual due to local surroundings and gusts which could get 20mph above the wind speed you are experiencing.

 

[Railhound]

Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

So my tale of woe is that I did all of the usual pre-flight checking and set up. GPS lock was on. All green lights. Camera connected. All good to go. As usual, I slowly powered up my Phantom 2 + for a nice slow ascent. Just a couple of seconds later my Phantom went into full throttle and took off straight up in the air and then made a beeline out of my neighborhood at full throttle. I tried to bring it back down as it was going up but I had no control at all. Camera immediately disconnected. I quickly lost site of it. Gone in 20 seconds.

So, here's what happened.

For full details see the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ge3GuhEDRM

In summary, the flyaway issue is caused by three things.

1) Even though you got a GPS lock prior to flight, the lock is in the wrong position right of the start. See multipath GPS issues: http://www.gpsinformation.net/multipath.htm

2) When the Phantom takes off, it believes it is out of it's limit range due to the erroneous GPS lock at start up. The logic in the firmware sends the Phantom into return to home mode and flies off like a bat out of hell to the erroneous GPS home location. That location is going to be somewhere beyond the radius set in your Phantom by the Assistant software. I believe the default is about 1 mile or 1500M or so.

3) The firmware logic has a bug in it that should compensate for erroneous GPS readings. (These misreads can also happen in mid-flight.) Especially at take-off if the Phantom thinks it is out its limits it should see this as an error because it would be physically impossible to be a mile or more away just seconds into the flight. It should also do a reasonableness check during flight that determines if the current GPS reading is possible given the flight speed and direction up to that point. In other words, if it thinks it is suddenly a mile away from where it was 5 seconds ago, that would not be reasonable.

The video and commentary explains how to protect yourself at take-off but once in flight you could get erroneous GPS readings that may still cause the Phantom to have unpredictable flight.

 

[xgeek]

Re: Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

2) When the Phantom takes off, it believes it is out of it's limit range due to the erroneous GPS lock at start up. The logic in the firmware sends the Phantom into return to home mode and flies off like a bat out of hell to the erroneous GPS home location. That location is going to be somewhere beyond the radius set in your Phantom by the Assistant software. I believe the default is about 1 mile or 1500M or so.

Except people have had fly aways long before that feature was implemented in the FW. Plus RTH mode is a slow 8m/s which is far from a bat out of hell speed

 

[Mori55]

They had flyaways with original phantom 1.

 

[jaykay2PT]

Re: Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

Except people have had fly aways long before that feature was implemented in the FW. Plus RTH mode is a slow 8m/s which is far from a bat out of hell speed

I went flying with a friend on Friday afternoon, according to the sat position predictor,

http://satpredictor.navcomtech.com/

we had a 70 minute window, to fly with 8 sats. I landed 10 minutes before the deadline
and as we packed up I switched on my Tomtom , to cross check and sure enough
they had dropped to only 5!

Had I stayed flying I could potentially have had a flyaway!

Food for though, and you can check you flying location days before you set off to fly,
just locate your flying location on Google Earth
and write down the lat/lon co-ordinates,
then put them in sat predictor, with the date you intend flying.

I very nearly forgot to put the time in as the "summer time" setting, that could have been fatal!!

 

[Railhound]

Re: Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

2) When the Phantom takes off, it believes it is out of it's limit range due to the erroneous GPS lock at start up. The logic in the firmware sends the Phantom into return to home mode and flies off like a bat out of hell to the erroneous GPS home location. That location is going to be somewhere beyond the radius set in your Phantom by the Assistant software. I believe the default is about 1 mile or 1500M or so.

Except people have had fly aways long before that feature was implemented in the FW. Plus RTH mode is a slow 8m/s which is far from a bat out of hell speed

You are incorrect. Please see the Naza-M quick start manual page 22 here: http://www.dji.com/product/phantom/downloadThe earlier Phantoms had the same concept.

As far as the speed goes, let's put it this way, it was so fast that there was only maybe 20 - 30 seconds before I couldn't see it anymore. At 8m/s that's say 240M which is a long way away in an urban environment to track it with trees and housing and such in the way.

What other explanation is there? Even if you tried to fly the Phantom out of range it is designed to return to home - which it didn't. It is also designed just to hover when you let go of the controls - which it didn't. It can't be pilot error then since there was no control seconds after take off and the Phantom didn't not respond as designed.

Ergo - faulty design. If you have a better explanation I am all ears.

 

[deejay1947]

Re: Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

Except people have had fly aways long before that feature was implemented in the FW. Plus RTH mode is a slow 8m/s which is far from a bat out of hell speed

I went flying with a friend on Friday afternoon, according to the sat position predictor,

http://satpredictor.navcomtech.com/

we had a 70 minute window, to fly with 8 sats. I landed 10 minutes before the deadline
and as we packed up I switched on my Tomtom , to cross check and sure enough
they had dropped to only 5!

Had I stayed flying I could potentially have had a flyaway!


Food for though, and you can check you flying location days before you set off to fly,
just locate your flying location on Google Earth
and write down the lat/lon co-ordinates,
then put them in sat predictor, with the date you intend flying.

I very nearly forgot to put the time in as the "summer time" setting, that could have been fatal!!

Hey JayKay.. thanks for the sat predictor link! who knew!

 

[neoneo]

mine turned around when rth was activated, came back a few hundred feet and just stayed put till it ran out of juice and slowly descended into some guys tree. find my phantom had me 600 feet away in another neighborhood smh. I still don't know what happened. I'm happy my number is on the drone!!

 

[xgeek]

Re: Phantom 2 Vision+ Flyaway Cause and Resoultion

2) When the Phantom takes off, it believes it is out of it's limit range due to the erroneous GPS lock at start up. The logic in the firmware sends the Phantom into return to home mode and flies off like a bat out of hell to the erroneous GPS home location. That location is going to be somewhere beyond the radius set in your Phantom by the Assistant software. I believe the default is about 1 mile or 1500M or so.

Except people have had fly aways long before that feature was implemented in the FW. Plus RTH mode is a slow 8m/s which is far from a bat out of hell speed

You are incorrect. Please see the Naza-M quick start manual page 22 here: http://www.dji.com/product/phantom/downloadThe earlier Phantoms had the same concept.

No I am correct That feature may have been in the Non Phantom 2 Naza firmware for a while but was only implemented in the Phantom 2 branch of Naza firmware from version 2.00 onwards. Please see item 2 below in the release notes.

March 26, 2014 PHANTOM 2 Firmware V2.00 has been released
ZENMUSE H3-3D compatible with PHANTOM 2 is released.
What’s new?
Main Controller Firmware
1. Supported of iPad Ground Station and PC Ground Station functions. When using iPad Ground Station, the BTU
firmware should be upgrade to V1.0.1.3 or above.
2. Added Flight Limits functions, including Max Height and Max Radius limits.
3. Added LED indicators warning, if non-DJI smart battery is detected, the LED flight indicators will be solid red.
4. Optimized compass calibration algorithm to increasing its resistance to interferences.
5. Improved battery level detecting methods to make low battery level warning more precise.
6. The maximum descending speed is limited to 3m/s.
7. Fixed the bouncing problems after landed.

http://download.dji-innovations.com/downloads/phantom_2/en/PHANTOM2_release_notes_en.pdf

 

[Phantom_Menace66]

Oh man that sucks and scares the **** outta me... >_<
Imdid update mine when i received it before even flying, thinking it's best to be up-to-date. Then i read lots complaining about the new firmware, but mainly for no fly zone reason. Yet, a few invoke the stability issue of the system.

I still use the basic phantom settings but was planning to switch to nazam. Seems better. Yet, there are also issues happening then...

This bird is real fun to play but it gets so stressful with all the 'possible' dramatic events.

I'm even scared to fly to the point where connection breaks and hope for it to come back. Since i'm in Shanghai at the moment, if it does fly away, there's a 99% chance it will not come back, will hit someone and kill my new addicition formthis hobby...

Be strong !

Here's a trick I use, might help avoid flyaways:
Before you take to the sky after you do the compass calibration and the green lights flash to indicate it has set a home position, go to 'Find my Phantom' in the app to see if it is where it says it is! It may have set the home point 600m away, so when you fly it 200m, it thinks it has gone out of range & tries to go back to the home point which was not where you are! You never know how accurate/inaccurate the GPS is. (Just my theory)

 

[ocphantom]

Oh man that sucks and scares the **** outta me... >_<
Imdid update mine when i received it before even flying, thinking it's best to be up-to-date. Then i read lots complaining about the new firmware, but mainly for no fly zone reason. Yet, a few invoke the stability issue of the system.

I still use the basic phantom settings but was planning to switch to nazam. Seems better. Yet, there are also issues happening then...

This bird is real fun to play but it gets so stressful with all the 'possible' dramatic events.

I'm even scared to fly to the point where connection breaks and hope for it to come back. Since i'm in Shanghai at the moment, if it does fly away, there's a 99% chance it will not come back, will hit someone and kill my new addicition formthis hobby...

Be strong !

Here's a trick I use, might help avoid flyaways:
Before you take to the sky after you do the compass calibration and the green lights flash to indicate it has set a home position, go to 'Find my Phantom' in the app to see if it is where it says it is! It may have set the home point 600m away, so when you fly it 200m, it thinks it has gone out of range & tries to go back to the home point which was not where you are! You never know how accurate/inaccurate the GPS is. (Just my theory)

I do that and also fly it 20m away, change its heading, then test ATTI mode. Once successful, having my xenxun gps tracker on there and at least 6 sat makes me feel better about flying it.

 

[desertphantom]

I just moved from V to V+ and noticed quite a delay in getting GPS lock signal compared to the V where it happened almost instantly.
It's better to hoover on top of your take of point for a while to confirm GPS lock signal because that will also be your RTH point.

 

[DrJoe]

Guys, this is like the 12th subject on this GPS error crap in a month.. Your all rehashing old news, with the exception of the poster that had his phantom stuck at altitude over the home point (I don't get that one) Just do the following:

#1 check connections in the Phantom (made in China)
#2 check satellite/space weather and winds aloft
#3 Don't even take off until you have 6 satellites.
#4 Know your modes, and how to fly ATTI, home to use IOC on home point, etc. When your ready, learn to fly manual mode.
#5 Fly with Situational Awareness and watch the satellite indicator in the App.

 

[Mori55]

I know one vendor sells a aluminum heli pad for taking off from , so you can see the lights better. Would this be ok ?

 

[Dirty Bird]

I know one vendor sells a aluminum heli pad for taking off from , so you can see the lights better. Would this be ok ?

Aluminum is a non-ferrous metal. It isn't magnetic.