- Joined
- Jan 2, 2017
- Messages
- 610
- Reaction score
- 303
- Age
- 63
I had my first serious crash two days ago while flying a Litchi mission / P4. The short summary, blocked by Obstacle Avoidance (good), paused mission with pause button on screen, aircraft would not respond to any forward/back/left/right/up/down stick movements. Checked display again, mission was not running, triangle "Play" button on the screen.
After being unable to move the aircraft at all with an obstruction ONLY in front of it, I decided to try rotating it. This is when disaster struck. Turned left a little, then decided to turn 90deg right to open field and see if clearing OA would make things move with forward stick.
Move they did! As soon as the bird turned enough to so the OA cameras were clear, the P4 immediately accelerated fast to the left -- the direction of the mission course -- right into the thin tree/bush that was blocking it.
Crashed, and fell down to the ground, right into the worst place it possibly could: A 3ft wide, 3 ft deep culvert with 3" of fresh water running down it. One motor was completely submerged, the other 3 arms out of the water and dry, as well as the main body and battery.
Unfortunately, the gimbal was under water. Watch the end of the video for some fun.
Dried it very thoroughly with compressed air, did the rice thing for the gimbal and camera overnight. Yesterday, carefully tested the aircraft without props, motors spun great, sounded fine. Did some careful test flying, first just hovering a few feet, rotating, small translations, etc. Burned an entire battery progressively testing more and more intensively, until I was flying radically in sport mode for the last 5 minutes or so, went up to 400 feet and back down, all sorts of great stuff.
The bird is fine.
The gimbal, on the other hand, is not. It needs a high dose of viagra or something. It just hangs there, limp, no motor activity at all.It's dead. The camera sensor and electronics are working fine, and the image looks just as good.
And now, without further delay, I present the next Academy Award winner, My Water Torture:
After being unable to move the aircraft at all with an obstruction ONLY in front of it, I decided to try rotating it. This is when disaster struck. Turned left a little, then decided to turn 90deg right to open field and see if clearing OA would make things move with forward stick.
Move they did! As soon as the bird turned enough to so the OA cameras were clear, the P4 immediately accelerated fast to the left -- the direction of the mission course -- right into the thin tree/bush that was blocking it.
Crashed, and fell down to the ground, right into the worst place it possibly could: A 3ft wide, 3 ft deep culvert with 3" of fresh water running down it. One motor was completely submerged, the other 3 arms out of the water and dry, as well as the main body and battery.
Unfortunately, the gimbal was under water. Watch the end of the video for some fun.
Dried it very thoroughly with compressed air, did the rice thing for the gimbal and camera overnight. Yesterday, carefully tested the aircraft without props, motors spun great, sounded fine. Did some careful test flying, first just hovering a few feet, rotating, small translations, etc. Burned an entire battery progressively testing more and more intensively, until I was flying radically in sport mode for the last 5 minutes or so, went up to 400 feet and back down, all sorts of great stuff.
The bird is fine.
The gimbal, on the other hand, is not. It needs a high dose of viagra or something. It just hangs there, limp, no motor activity at all.It's dead. The camera sensor and electronics are working fine, and the image looks just as good.
And now, without further delay, I present the next Academy Award winner, My Water Torture:
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