What Happened? Erratic Unresponsive Flight, Orientation off(video and logs)

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I almost had a fly away. The bird was under control, I was doing a 360 panning shot, and it switched itself to P-ATTI then back to GPS but continued to drift. I tried to pilot it back in but it was 90% unresponsive and continued to drift and reporting wrong orientation. RTH triggered it continued to drift. Finally I was able to FPV fly it toward the sun, which brought it back to me. No Compass or IMU errs or messages.

30+ MPH winds which I know is not recommended but I've flown in the wind quite a few times without trouble. I haven't taken it out again, I did a cold IMU calibration I wonder if I should have switched it out of GPS mode, but I was hoping GPS RTH would save me. Any advice on what to do in the future?

Flight Log
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I wonder if I should have switched it out of GPS mode
Switching to ATTI is always a good thing to try if you ever get into a scenario like this.
 
It looks like you still had GPS as the app was able to record your position at all times.
A lot of the problem is directly related to the wind speed.
Your P3 can make 34 mph in still air but when it's pushing a headwind, that eats your speed.
If say, you were flying flat out 34 mph in a 30 mph headwind, your net speed is 4 mph.
This is further complicated by RTH not using full speed - unless you crank it up, RTH cruises along at a lazy 22 mph.
 
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Switching to ATTI is always a good thing to try if you ever get into a scenario like this.

Thank you I'll remember that. I was thinking RTH only worked in GPS mode I need to familiarize myself with how the fail safe works.

It looks like you still had GPS as the app was able to record your position at all times.
A lot of the problem is directly related to the wind speed.
.

GPS recorded, but the orientation was almost 180 degrees reversed. It was windy but before I did that 360 and orientation got reversed it was stable and responsive. I probably won't fly in over 20-25 mph winds. Your right 38 mph winds was at least part of the problem.
 
I almost had a fly away. The bird was under control, I was doing a 360 panning shot, and it switched itself to P-ATTI then back to GPS but continued to drift. I tried to pilot it back in but it was 90% unresponsive and continued to drift and reporting wrong orientation. RTH triggered it continued to drift. Finally I was able to FPV fly it toward the sun, which brought it back to me. No Compass or IMU errs or messages.

30+ MPH winds which I know is not recommended but I've flown in the wind quite a few times without trouble. I haven't taken it out again, I did a cold IMU calibration I wonder if I should have switched it out of GPS mode, but I was hoping GPS RTH would save me. Any advice on what to do in the future?

Flight Log
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I have flown in 30mph+ winds and what you perceive as being unresponsive is actually the wind overpowering the capabilities of the P3. If you have a diagonal cross wind in trying to fly it back to you in that kind of wind, it is next to impossible to fly a straight line even using the radar. I have experienced the same thing.
 
I have flown in 30mph+ winds and what you perceive as being unresponsive is actually the wind overpowering the capabilities of the P3. If you have a diagonal cross wind in trying to fly it back to you in that kind of wind, it is next to impossible to fly a straight line even using the radar. I have experienced the same thing.

That makes sense in GPS mode with winds at or over it's ability to counter, and looking closer at the log and wind direction(those logs are cool!) that really seems to be the case.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond, I'm still not sure why the orientation went but every other issue including RTH failure was just me being a novice and flying in to much wind=Pilot Error

I calibrated the compass and flew for 10 minutes today with no issue or drifting, the IMU warm up was much faster so maybe the cold IMU calibration helped, or maybe there was no issue there.
 
That makes sense in GPS mode with winds at or over it's ability to counter, and looking closer at the log and wind direction(those logs are cool!) that really seems to be the case.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond, I'm still not sure why the orientation went but every other issue including RTH failure was just me being a novice and flying in to much wind=Pilot Error
We have all been there-- :)
 
30+mph wind, not to mention gusts. Come on man be a responsible pilot. You could hurt people if you had a flyaway.
 
30+mph wind, not to mention gusts. Come on man be a responsible pilot. You could hurt people if you had a flyaway.

I don't think I ever put people in danger, there are few houses out there. The weather report was 20 MPH wind with gusts, it wasn't until reading the flight log that I found out just how strong the winds were(off ground level). Thanks for taking the time to respond.
 
I don't think I ever put people in danger, there are few houses out there. The weather report was 20 MPH wind with gusts, it wasn't until reading the flight log that I found out just how strong the winds were(off ground level). Thanks for taking the time to respond.
@Toy Tank, this doesn't have anything to do with being a responsible pilot. Just ignore crass remarks like that. Some folks are always ready to input opinions regardless of the applicability. A flyaway is extremely rare, and could happen to anyone at anytime and anywhere and has absolutely nothing to do with flying in the wind.

Cheers :):)
 
High wind has a lot to do with flyaway, I would say 98%.
tumblr_nozbavrxe51ro8ysbo1_500.gif An where does that statistic come from?
 
High wind flying might contribute to some mistaken flyaway reports but high winds don't cause a Phantom to fly away.

Good post! I flew for 6 minutes in the wind no issue before the orientation started reporting reversed. I can't say if the GPS mode was battling me or it was simply wind but RTH seemed to head in the wrong direction or was just completely over powered by the wind.

It wasn't the best most responsible choice I've ever made flying that day, but I don't think there was any risk except to my personal property.
 
Good post! I flew for 6 minutes in the wind no issue before the orientation started reporting reversed. I can't say if the GPS mode was battling me or it was simply wind but RTH seemed to head in the wrong direction or was just completely over powered by the wind.
.
I missed the part about orientation being reversed. Can you post the .DAT file for this flight so that we can take a look. If you can't post it via DropBox you can upload it to FLYXXX.DAT and I can retrieve it and post it to DropBox.
 
I missed the part about orientation being reversed. Can you post the .DAT file for this flight so that we can take a look. If you can't post it via DropBox you can upload it to FLYXXX.DAT and I can retrieve it and post it to DropBox.

Sure thing, like I said I'm a bit of a novice, when I look I see a .txt, which I've uploaded to healthy drones and linked to in OP. I also see a .info and a .csv but I didn't see a .DAT file. Would it be in a file on my device, or is this the raw data in the birds internal card?
 
Sure thing, like I said I'm a bit of a novice, when I look I see a .txt, which I've uploaded to healthy drones and linked to in OP. I also see a .info and a .csv but I didn't see a .DAT file. Would it be in a file on my device, or is this the raw data in the birds internal card?

Go to FLYXXX.DAT and press the "Retrieve .DAT file" button at the top. That will show you the instructions to retrieve that file which is on the P3 internal SD card.
 
Go to FLYXXX.DAT and press the "Retrieve .DAT file" button at the top. That will show you the instructions to retrieve that file which is on the P3 internal SD card.

Thanks for the help Bud, I'll do that later today, got everything packed up for a morning flight in a bit.
 

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