I'm definitely a new pilot, but have been having a blast with the Phantom 3 Pro. I've been honing my flight skills over wide open areas so I can keep track of it in the sky and to hopefully provide a soft landing if it goes down. I'm also watching a ton of YouTube videos and reading a ton of posts to learn more.
Today I was flying in a very open area, and I flew the drone to the other side of a hill where I lost sight of it. The hill wasn't huge but did present an obstacle between me and the drone (which I assume was a bad move as it interrupted the signal). My iPad gave me the "Signal Lost" message and I could no longer see the camera view.
I waited patiently for about 1 minute, hoping it would return, and after it didn't, I took a hike to the top of hill. There the camera view came back on and I was able to use the GPS to find it again - about 10 feet from a pond (phew!). In reviewing the video, the drone hovered for about 15 seconds after losing signal to me, then did a slow landing, straight down. In briefly hit a small tree and landed in dry grass, with minimal damage. It still works fine.
I understand that when the Phantom 3 loses signal to my controller it is supposed to return to the original launching point using GPS, and it did have a GPS lock when launched. I'm trying to figure out why it landed itself straight down instead of returning. I'm assuming it was because it lost GPS signal to the satellites, but this was a very open area and I can't see how this would have happened. Would anything else have caused this? Should I be doing something differently?
I posted a video of it here:
Any ideas would be welcomed. I lose a lot of confidence when this happens, especially as a new pilot.
Thanks!
Today I was flying in a very open area, and I flew the drone to the other side of a hill where I lost sight of it. The hill wasn't huge but did present an obstacle between me and the drone (which I assume was a bad move as it interrupted the signal). My iPad gave me the "Signal Lost" message and I could no longer see the camera view.
I waited patiently for about 1 minute, hoping it would return, and after it didn't, I took a hike to the top of hill. There the camera view came back on and I was able to use the GPS to find it again - about 10 feet from a pond (phew!). In reviewing the video, the drone hovered for about 15 seconds after losing signal to me, then did a slow landing, straight down. In briefly hit a small tree and landed in dry grass, with minimal damage. It still works fine.
I understand that when the Phantom 3 loses signal to my controller it is supposed to return to the original launching point using GPS, and it did have a GPS lock when launched. I'm trying to figure out why it landed itself straight down instead of returning. I'm assuming it was because it lost GPS signal to the satellites, but this was a very open area and I can't see how this would have happened. Would anything else have caused this? Should I be doing something differently?
I posted a video of it here:
Any ideas would be welcomed. I lose a lot of confidence when this happens, especially as a new pilot.
Thanks!