Today I had a fly-away.... What would you do?

[Jeremyconk]

I've had my vision for around 2 months now. Close to 100 flights in that time. I have a lot of experience with rc copters, so I have had no crashes. A few tip overs when landing in grass, but nothing major at all.
I went through my normal flight sequence and wound her up. Around 100' she started sliding left like it was in Atti mode, but a quick glance showed both S1 & S2 in up most position. I started to lose sight so I pushed the stick to climb but nothing... Then I tried yaw and roll right but nothing. I lost site of it , the video link went out of range and I lost it.
Looked around for about an hour. I never was able to reestablish FPV or Radar. So my bird is gone

I love it and will be replacing it, but should I do another vision, or P2 with the go pro and new 3axis gimbal.

 

[phantomguy]

sorry to hear that. you 100% sure you had proper GPS lock, the Pv2 established home lock, etc all before taking off? If so, RTH should have kicked in...

 

[Jeremyconk]

I had 8 satellites, and the lights were flashing green.....
That tells me I was locked in for home.... I kept waiting around to see it in the sky but nothing....
It was the longest 20 minutes ever !!! :shock:

 

[JimDE]

Jeremy, I am sorry this happened to you..... it has to be not only puzzling but aggravating at the same time........ were you flying in a area with lots of interference?

 

[BenDronePilot]

Sorry to hear your Phantom went missing. FYI there is no 3 axis gimbal for the P2. At least not a Zenmuse version. If you were happy with your P2V by all means pick up another. A P2 with GoPro Hero 3+ Black and Zenmuse will give you nice stabalized video of higher quality than the P2V at the expense of not being able to start and stop pictures and video on demand or preview in flight. A P2 with Gimbal requires you setting up your own FPV system. A P2 with custom FPV will also cost more, but you can set up a higher quality FPV video stream than the 640x48015fps limit you have with the P2V. In summary there are many plus and minus to going with P2V or P2 with Zenmuse and Custom FPV that include cost, ability to build the system yourself or buy one pre-made and so forth. In the end no one can see what will be better for you or your use of the system. Best of luck either way and hopefully no lost Phantom's this time. You may also want to have a reward if found sticker as well as a tracker on your new Phantom.

 

[EMCSQUAR]

Pssstt - Ben -> http://www.dji.com/info/releases/dji-re ... muse-h3-3d

 

[mtpisgah]

Jeremyconk,

sorry about what happened. anyway, if you're buying a new phantom. buy phantom2, not phantom2 vision. i have both. the most reasoning i can give it to you, for real life experience .... we were at windrock park atv at tennessee. i was gonna take video of wind mill power site is on Buffalo Mountain near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. . guess what, no wi-fi signal. unfortunately, i took p2v and not p2 w/ me during atv-ing!

 

[onesNzeros]

What firmware version were you running? Was it drifting with the wind or did it just start moving in that direction like it was being controlled? Vision mode or Naza mode? Did you try going into failsafe? Was it close enough that you could see the lights that indicates it has GPS lock?

Sorry to hear about your craft. Might want to wait to see what DJI comes out with at the NAB conference this week before purchasing again. Supposedly announcing a new Phantom Vision +.

 

[Jeremyconk]

Thanks fella's for the response....
As for the new bird, I'm thinking of going with the P2.... I know it will cost me more with the FPV, but I was thinking that it will give me the most flexibility in the future..

 

[Jeremyconk]

What firmware version were you running? Was it drifting with the wind or did it just start moving in that direction like it was being controlled? Vision mode or Naza mode? Did you try going into failsafe? Was it close enough that you could see the lights that indicates it has GPS lock?

Sorry to hear about your craft. Might want to wait to see what DJI comes out with at the NAB conference this week before purchasing again. Supposedly announcing a new Phantom Vision +.

Great Point about the newest Phantom...

As for the other questions:

It was drifting with the wind... It would not hold position, or respond to any commands...
I was in NAZA mode.... I did try going to fail safe, and I switched off my controller which always triggers a return to home...But it failed miserably this time...

 

[BobUnplugged]

Did you try the "Find my Phantom" feature of the app?

 

[Gizmo3000]

I feel your pain
..just a week or so ago I lost my F450, was flying GPS and then it just got all sloppy and within a half sec it just took off with a mind of it's own.
I had my phone number on it, (hope you did as well), looked for house, but nobody has called.
but like you, I will rebuild (and fly my Phantom in the meantime).

But I've vowed not to lose my next bird, so I'm getting one of these
www.tagg.com
I'll gladly pay $7 a month to make sure my $1900 investment doesn't fly away on me again!

 

[SlackerATX]

Which firmware were you running?

 

[Gizmo3000]

Which firmware were you running?

Me, I was running 4.02,. worked perfectly fine for months. never a problem.

 

[myvrodrocks]

I have that find friends from apple and life360. While I can see if my wife is at home, work or shopping, i cannot locate her exact position in walmart. I seriously doubt tagg would be accurate enough to find something as small as a phantom. Course gps would probably be better than cell signal triangulation...

 

[Gizmo3000]

I have that find friends from apple and life360. While I can see if my wife is at home, work or shopping, i cannot locate her exact position in walmart. I seriously doubt tagg would be accurate enough to find something as small as a phantom. Course gps would probably be better than cell signal triangulation...

Guess I'll find out,
but I just tried FindMyPhone with my iPhone, and it seems to be within 20ft of my location, which is good enough for me.
.. .. I'd kill to be able to located within 150ft of wherever my F450 now resides

 

[Green_Phantom]

This is the main reason I have a sticker with my phone number and **REWARD** on the bottom of mine. Sucks to hear about the fly away.

 

[BobUnplugged]

I have that find friends from apple and life360. While I can see if my wife is at home, work or shopping, i cannot locate her exact position in walmart. I seriously doubt tagg would be accurate enough to find something as small as a phantom. Course gps would probably be better than cell signal triangulation...

Guess I'll find out,
but I just tried FindMyPhone with my iPhone, and it seems to be within 20ft of my location, which is good enough for me.
.. .. I'd kill to be able to located within 150ft of wherever my F450 now resides

Dogs are pretty small. And that is what TAGG is made for. I have been using TAGG for a couple of months, and it works great. I feel confident that I could find my Phantom using the TAGG app on my phone. I even have some extra bettin' money if anyone would like to issue a challenge....

 

[mysticalice]

Sorry to hear -

Just curious - how can you tell how many satellites the GPS is connected to?

 

[flyNfrank]

OK I read maybe 1/2 of the responses and didn't see this mentioned, but I'm sure since your in the P2V forum you were flying with the P2V app. It has a "Find My Vision" that works very well. I have used it twice now. It actually shows that last point in which your P2V was alive before the battery died. So it doesn't matter if the battery is already dead, just open your app and go to the settings area and scroll down to the "Find My Vision". It will show your P2V's location on a google map (I think) and your current location if you are accessing wifi.

So unless your P2V landed on a highway, or in a river/lake you should be able to go pick up your P2V right now. If you don't have a P2V....well....now you why you should have one. Btw, I had almost the exact same thing happen tonight. I wrote about it here: http://forums.multicopterpilots.com/sho ... -No-Friend