Well, she's gone....

[rrhansen]

Wow...how sad and disappointing - sorry to hear it dude - crappy deal. I've finally got my P2V+ replacement (replaced the original P2V+ with uncontrolled descent issues)...and am so pensive about losing it like yours, the 'fun' is less and guarded. Maybe with enough positive trouble-free flights it will change.

From all the negative posts (and yes, human nature says 10 people will write a complaint to only 1 giving an atta-boy) - isn't there a good alternative / another brand to get away from DJI's customer service issues?

 

[JWarren]

no camera/gimbal so no telemetry as to how many sats but lights were green so figured more than 6.

Had everything been in working order do you believe this would have occurred or was an influence? I'm sorry for your loss, but perhaps others can learn something from it. I'd say lesson learned would be never take off if you have any sort of glitch occurring. But I still don't understand why fail-safe or atti wouldn't' work even with your original glitch. Again, sorry about your missing aircraft.

 

[srandall25]

unfortunate thing is that your phantom could have landed somewhere perfectly and in the same condition you lost it. GPS tracker is a good idea... it's the best insurance for flyaways anyone could have...

 

[EMCSQUAR]

I can't hardly blame him, I had a similar incident happen Saturday - mine turned towards me (It was 200ft up and 175 ft in front of me) flew "full tilt" right over me and kept on going. It had Advanced IMU cal, GPS cal - had 10+ sats and skies were literally perfect.

After that, none of my remaining quads leave the ground without GTU 10 (Garmin tracker) onboard. I have lots of experience w/these and yes I came from the camp of "user error = flyaway" - until last Saturday.

Personally I think DJI has a weak spot in the NAZA software. I think their software has been thrown together w/little amount of field testing similar to their product marketing. It's going to take one flyaway to hit someone, something, cause an accident, whatever and I can see a major lawsuit inDJI's future.

Until then I'll keep flying and enjoying the hobby.

 

[JWarren]

Personally I think DJI has a weak spot in the NAZA software

I'm looking close at that statement since you said you have a lot of experience. I was going to go with NAZA but perhaps keeping it in Phantom would be best. Of the few flights I had before my gimbal problem, I didn't really have a serious loss of control. Just a flash on the screen "connection lost" but nothing came about from it.

 

[JWarren]

May I ask where you mounted your GPS tracker? Thank you

J.

 

[EMCSQUAR]

Since the beginning of the year I've been working on alot of DJI equipment. I see dozens of Phantom s and others every month and I'm seeing a few patterns.

Everytime DJI launches a new product it tends to take months to work out the bugs. IE: Phantom II (Dec release - the big Xmas push) resulted in multiple battery issues, the Zenmuse 2D release had a ton of dead ones come to market, The Zenmuse 3D release - 2 different models w/wo micro USB cable for GoPro (rumor has it they're changing back to original) - I'm seeing the public as DJI beta testers. Same goes with software updates - literally no field testing. I'm guessing they give it a good go through for a couple of days with their in-house guys who probably don't fly as a hobby but all within controlled conditions.

There's all kinds of flaws within NAZA stuff - try flying in humid weather. The barometers in most of the NAZAs go to sleep in high humidity and hovering becomes a challenge. The guys with open frame quads 450s etc, have sunlight to worry about hitting NAZA. How would you like to have an S800 evo ($6k or better) fly away? They do and they also do the dreaded "death flip" which DJI hasn't been able to figure out in 2 years. Try using the MAC assistant software and try doing adavanced IMU calibration - that software is so buggy and inconsistent Apple is suggesting to DJI to upgrade/improve or discontinue becasue of all the complaints. (NOTE: DO NOT TRUST VOLTAGE CALIBRATION W/MAC ASSISTANT SOFTWARE - DJI IS AWARE)

Personally, DJI is winging alot of their releases (no pun) and we all fly at our own risk.

MY GTU 10 tracker gets velcrod to bottom of Phantom(s) our to one of the landing gear on my Kong 450

 

[Skynet1]

"It was about 100ft high at a guess and about 300ft away when it turned right, and flew away"

Incidents such as you have described are more than frustrating, but down right disgusting to read about. It's beyond words to read such incidents, and yet we all strive to do all that we can in hopes to prevent such occurrences. I'm truly sorry to hear this sort of erratic flight issues are still occurring long after the introduction of this model, even after all the brainstorming which has occurred on this forum to help avoid such issues.
A relatively brand new unit as you have mentioned, with camera/gimbal issues would have certainly stopped me dead in my tracks with this bird.
You seemed to be familiar with the Phantom as you previously owned a similar model, and have explained how you had lost control of the camera with this newer Phantom, yet felt comfortable flying this new unit a fairly sufficient distance away, and at a 100 ft. altitude.
I don't recall reading if you had at any time tested the RTH mode in order to determine if the model would responding to that command, this before sending it a sufficient distance away and at a considerable altitude. You may have gotten a bit too comfortable with this newer model after having flown your previous Phantom around with no real concerns other that it too didn't have a working camera.
I must admit the point you have made regarding not having the ability to regain control via the ATTI Mode or the models Failsafe mode is more than a bit concerning, however, something that will remain an unknown at this point because the RTH mode may not have been tested at the start of the flight.
There has also been much discussion regarding a false home point being recorded, for one reason or another, and so there is that. I don't suspect you had attempted to use the Find My Drone function, as someone had mentioned it just may have landed OK, and as long as it was powered up I believe it may have been able to provide some further info. of its whereabouts'.
In any regard, hopefully there is still a chance you may be able to track it down one way or another. All the Best.

 

[4wd]

Personally I think DJI has a weak spot in the NAZA software

I'm looking close at that statement since you said you have a lot of experience. I was going to go with NAZA but perhaps keeping it in Phantom would be best. Of the few flights I had before my gimbal problem, I didn't really have a serious loss of control. Just a flash on the screen "connection lost" but nothing came about from it.

That's a misunderstanding, it still runs Naza Software in the Phantom mode but with some features turned off.

 

[pyrophantom]

I could be wrong but it seems to me that the vast majority of flyaways are in naza mode ?

:?:

 

[Double-D]

I could be wrong but it seems to me that the vast majority of flyaways are in naza mode ?

:?:

Am I correct in that the only mode that doesn't use Naza is manual?

 

[Hovtech]

Why don't you just boot up "Find my Phantom"? It will show you on a map exactly where your Phantom landed. You don't need a GPS tracker, it has one built in. Worked fine when I lost my Phantom in a forest preserve.

 

[syotr]

Hope you had your name and number on it.

 

[slothead]

no camera/gimbal so no telemetry as to how many sats but lights were green so figured more than 6.

Had everything been in working order do you believe this would have occurred or was an influence? I'm sorry for your loss, but perhaps others can learn something from it. I'd say lesson learned would be never take off if you have any sort of glitch occurring. But I still don't understand why fail-safe or atti wouldn't' work even with your original glitch. Again, sorry about your missing aircraft.

Sounds pretty clear to me that it thought home was somewhere else, how or why I don't know.

 

[rrhansen]

Question regarding NAZA mode...
When NAZA is enabled in the Assistant software, and the S2 IOC is "OFF" and the S1 is set to "GPS" - does it operate the same as the default Phantom GPS mode (when NAZA has not been enabled)???
Thanks.

 

[N017RW]

Yupper!

 

[rrhansen]

Thank you both for the quick response.

 

[phantomguy]

Why don't you just boot up "Find my Phantom"? It will show you on a map exactly where your Phantom landed. You don't need a GPS tracker, it has one built in. Worked fine when I lost my Phantom in a forest preserve.

Find My Phantom records last KNOWN location, i.e, Phantom had to land while connection was still in place between Phantom and Range Extender in order to accurately record current location. FMP is of zero use when the Phantom has flown beyond Extender range and then lands elsewhere

 

[phantomguy]

I could be wrong but it seems to me that the vast majority of flyaways are in naza mode ?

:?:

No. but most posters on this forum are using Naza mode.

 

[phantomguy]

All this week there is a multi series article in the Washington Post about Drones (primarily Military drones). In the article it details recently released info on the dozens of military drones that were flyaways and resulted in crashes.

If the military and their drones (which include redundancy and various safety measures) have documented flyaway incidents NOT caused by pilot error, a reasonable person would think its safe to say that Phantom flyaways due to technical issues arent unreasonable to expect..