Filming a castle (+ crash/help please?)

Alex Assenmacher · Oct 6, 2015

Hi guys, finally I can upload my latest video.

It's been really crazy lately: while I was filming this video near Mataró (Barcelona), I accidentally crashed my phantom. Well actually it crashed itself. I lost signal for a few seconds (I always get in panic like hell), and when pressing the return to home button it just crashed. Normally, when I lose signal (not that often by the way) the drone flies many meters up (such as max altitude), and then flies back. But this time I don't know why it didn't fly up, it just came back straight from where it was. I was really really lucky because it did not crash against the castle, but against the trees that surround it. And I was even luckier because I found it almost 30 min later by the sound of the motors that were still moving, and I was even much luckier because few seconds after I found it the battery ran out, so I wouldn't have been able to find it a couple of minutes later.
But anyways, does anyone know why the drone flew straight back when flying back to home and didn't rise higher before coming back? Oh and by the way, of course I filmed the crash, which I will post as soon as it's uploaded on youtube

But for now, here's the video of the castle, built in the year 1017. (I probably would have filmed double the shots that I did...**** crash...):

au01st · Oct 6, 2015

Just curious where you took off from? Could it be that you were already above the "return home" height?

bbfpv · Oct 6, 2015

Or was your bird already above the RTH height?

dronehigh · Oct 6, 2015

that was one hell of a height. Were you on the other hill?

Alex Assenmacher · Oct 6, 2015

Hi guys, thanks for the fast replies.
I was at the same hill of the castle, I'd say 20 meters below. The top of the castle is at 401 meters above the sea level. But how does it calculate the height for the return flight? I mean if it did it on sea level, I wouldn't be able to film in Bogota for example, or any other place like 2000 meters above the sea level.
I was filming about 50-60 meters height from where I was.

Thanks!!

SteveMann · Oct 6, 2015

Alex Assenmacher said:
Hi guys, thanks for the fast replies.
I was at the same hill of the castle, I'd say 20 meters below. The top of the castle is at 401 meters above the sea level. But how does it calculate the height for the return flight? I mean if it did it on sea level, I wouldn't be able to film in Bogota for example, or any other place like 2000 meters above the sea level.
I mean, I was filming about 50-60 meters height from where I was.

Thanks!!

RTH height is always above the takeoff point.

au01st · Oct 6, 2015

Alex Assenmacher said:
Hi guys, thanks for the fast replies.
I was at the same hill of the castle, I'd say 20 meters below. The top of the castle is at 401 meters above the sea level. But how does it calculate the height for the return flight? I mean if it did it on sea level, I wouldn't be able to film in Bogota for example, or any other place like 2000 meters above the sea level.
I was filming about 50-60 meters height from where I was.

Thanks!!

So at 50-60m you were still not high enough to go over the castle? If your RTH height is set at the factory 20m then it would not have gone up in altitude at all and just headed for home. There is no object avoidance so it doesn't know it's going to slam into a wall or tree.

For example, I set my RTH height at 50m. In Louisiana, that could probably get me across most of the state without hitting anything. I wonder if your RTH height was 100m would you have avoided crashing? Something to ponder.

Alex Assenmacher · Oct 6, 2015

au01st said:
So at 50-60m you were still not high enough to go over the castle? If your RTH height is set at the factory 20m then it would not have gone up in altitude at all and just headed for home. There is no object avoidance so it doesn't know it's going to slam into a wall or tree.

For example, I set my RTH height at 50m. In Louisiana, that could probably get me across most of the state without hitting anything. I wonder if your RTH height was 100m would you have avoided crashing? Something to ponder.

It's strange, because I always had 50 m on my app for RTH. But as I can see on the filmed crash, the drone just turns around and flies back... Maybe it set down to 0 automatically due to a firmware update or app update? What do you think?

MattyDread · Oct 7, 2015

I was quite dissapointed after watching the video - I was expecting a crash

Alex Assenmacher · Oct 7, 2015

MattyDread said:
I was quite dissapointed after watching the video - I was expecting a crash

there you go

flyinphantom · Oct 7, 2015

sorry about the crash... i loved your older ibiza video.. good stuff.. ! hopefully u get your bird repaired soon... i had trouble with my p2 as well... it just started dropping for a second then it stabilizes... it did a 360 flip before stabilizing on my last flight...so i said thats it... sent it in for repair to dji and its coming back soon... free of charge