I had a very strange flight Saturday afternoon. The flight started from my driveway. I took off then hovered so my kids could take a few pictures. The battery was at 98% after they finished. After that I flew out to 3473'. Turned around then headed back towards the house. I started to climb to see the sunset when it was just under 1100' away. I went up to max altitude but that shouldn't cause any problems. After that I'm not really sure what happened. It just started moving away on it's own. There were times when I was at 100% throttle to go forward but it was slowly moving backwards. I looked around at the scenery and checked the map to see where it was and kept trying to get it to do what I wanted but that wasn't working. I could control the altitude but it wouldn't fly in the direction that I was telling it to. It was just over 3900' away when the low battery warning came on (I have it set at 22%). The bird was trying to land at that point. I remembered that I could push through it to keep it in the air so I did that. I don't know what changed but I was able to regain control. I keep on the left stick to maintain altitude so it wouldn't land and pushed hard on the right stick to get it back as fast as I could. And that wasn't fast. It's horizontal speed was only 11-15 MPH. The battery was dropping FAST! I showed it to be 2189' away with 10% left and then 1280' away with 5% left. At that point I could see where I wanted to go (home) but knew it didn't have enough juice to make it. I kept trying while looking for a place to put it down. It was over trees at that point so it wouldn't have been good if to run out of power there. The only option was one street away. There was a cut de sac with enough room to put it down so that's what I aimed for. Full throttle forward and hard on the left stick to bring it down. Coming in hot!!! The bird was 160' up and 381' away from me with 1% battery. At that point I made it to my emergency landing area and got it down fast. Tree below it, back up a little, watch out for the utility pole, keep going down. Nailed the landing without hitting anything then jump in the car and take a quick driver over to get it. I later found that it was 50' up with 0% left. 2% might not seem like much but in this case it was the difference between my street and the next one over.
As for it venturing off on it's own. I still don't know what happened. I think it would take some serious wind to blow it backwards at full throttle. There was a little breeze but it wasn't that windy. Total flight time was 19:06. A lot less than normal so maybe the bird was fighting some serious wind.
I checked all of the controls Sunday morning. Everything was fine and there were no issues when I flew during the afternoon. That was an experience that I don't want to repeat!
As for it venturing off on it's own. I still don't know what happened. I think it would take some serious wind to blow it backwards at full throttle. There was a little breeze but it wasn't that windy. Total flight time was 19:06. A lot less than normal so maybe the bird was fighting some serious wind.
I checked all of the controls Sunday morning. Everything was fine and there were no issues when I flew during the afternoon. That was an experience that I don't want to repeat!