Missing - One Phantom 3 Standard

[Providian623]

Tonight was normal. Did my preflight, drone dance compass calibration, got the GPS "Safe to Fly" message hovered at 4 feet to make sure everything was working correctly and the GPS Sats were, indeed locked. I climbed to about 150 feet AGL to take some night pictures and the last thing I saw of the aircraft was it travelling North East, high rate of speed, climbing, strobes a flashing and I had no control what-so-ever, I sent an RTH signal and saw the drone start to turn around (White strobes on front, red on back) It turned a complete 360 and that was all she wrote. What ever happened must have been catastrophic because the Trackimo is not responding either with the last ping being my property around takeoff and showing a 75% battery charge. DJI GO does indicate it was flying a straight line when it lost signal as it flew out of range and I can see that point on Google Maps. I tried every trick in the book for an RTH and hoped it would just return when the bird lost the connection. No such luck. And the Trackimo failure has me so pissed off I could chew a fence post. I have my name and number on it plus my FAA markings, and I reported it to local law in case someone comes out for church and a Drone is sitting on the hood of their car, but I don't have much hope of finding it again unless it's found and out of curiosity (if it is still working) the SOS button get's pushed on the Trackimo) To expensive for these type of Fly-A Way ...........................................

 

[ctomford]

That really sucks. Are you able to upload the flight logs to healthydrones.com? I'm sure there's someone on here that can help decipher what happened.

 

[Tony Cowan]

Wow. What a horrible story. I can't imagine what happen unless someone else with a drone on the same frequency was in range. They hit rth and your drone went to them. Now rhey have 2 drones instead of 1. Hence no trackimo signal. Weird. Only explination I can think of from your description.


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[msinger]

I can't imagine what happen unless someone else with a drone on the same frequency was in range. They hit rth and your drone went to them.

The Phantom can only be bound to one remote controller at a time.

 

[DroneDestination]

Wow. What a horrible story. I can't imagine what happen unless someone else with a drone on the same frequency was in range. They hit rth and your drone went to them. Now rhey have 2 drones instead of 1. Hence no trackimo signal. Weird. Only explination I can think of from your description.


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DJI is not some cheap $5 RC car maker. Phantoms may interfere, but will never [legally] take control of each other.

I think that either the P3 fell in water, which explains the Trackimo, or someone found and removed the tracker

 

[rmasson]

How often did you have the trackimo set to transmit its position? Any chance the trackimo could have interfered when transmitting the position via GSM?

Sorry for your loss, but now you have a new excuse to upgrade to the advanced or professional.


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[DroneDestination]

Sorry for your loss, but now you have a new excuse to upgrade to the advanced or professional.

lol sad but true. sell ur p3s controller on eBay or maybe here for maybe $80-100 depending on condition (brand new one costs $130).

 

[mrcrane2u]

I feel your pain providian623 my standard did basically the same thing 6 weeks old.lost signal rth was initiated started watching the range instead of getting closer it was going away from me. Looked at healthy drones.com it showed the bird climed to 375ft and flew back over me and went to a residential area and probably landed in the swamp

 

[mrcrane2u]

And i just got my p3pro friday.should of got the pro the first time .i have dji involved so maybe with more people loosening their standard they will take notice

 

[Providian623]

I uploaded the information and I believe the data definitely shows a run-a-way. I never fly above 250 - 350' and the data shows the drone was substantially higher when it lost contact. At takeoff I had at least 9 sats locked up for GPS. As far as I can tell it made no effort to RTH. The map shows it was travelling in a straight line from point of takeoff to point of lost signal. I projected the line out and searched the area but there are two large wooded treeline areas along the projection and small lakes, or two. My only hope is that it travelled beyond the wooded area and will be found in some farmers field. It's well marked with FAA numbers and my personal info. If my Trackimo had worked I'd have it as I type, but the only thing I can think of is tit went down into water. It was working at pre-flight, and I had it set at 1 minute intervals. I think the drone is lost and although I like the sport, I don't think I like it enough to shell out for one of the more advanced models, with the accessories I had on my original. I can't justify the expense and believe it or not, the wife wants me to get another if this one doesn't turn up.

How often did you have the trackimo set to transmit its position? Any chance the trackimo could have interfered when transmitting the position via GSM?

Sorry for your loss, but now you have a new excuse to upgrade to the advanced or professional.


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I am sort of leaning to the theory it went down into a pond or small lake. We have a few in the area. I agree that would explain the Trackimo problem.

 

[Providian623]

I did that and the data definitely shows a run-a-way. I never fly above 250 - 350' and the data shows the drone was substantially higher when it lost contact. At takeoff I had at least 9 sats locked up for GPS. As far as I can tell it made no effort to RTH. The map shows it was travelling in a straight line from point of takeoff to point of lost signal. I projected the line out and searched the area but there are two large wooded treeline areas along the projection. My only hope is that it travelled beyond the wooded area and will be found in some farmers field. It's well marked with FAA numbers and my personal info. If my Trackimo had worked I'd have it as I type, but the only thing I can think of is that I somehow accidently turned it off when I was doing pre-flight, which sucks. I think the drone is lost and although I like the sport, I don't think I like it enough to shell out for another one with the accessories I had on my original. I can't justify the expense and believe it or not, the wife wants me to get another if this one doesn't turn up. Hopefully she means another "wife" ...........


I am sort of leaning to the theory it went down into a pond or small lake. We have a few in the area. I agree that would explain the Trackimo problem.

lol sad but true. sell ur p3s controller on eBay or maybe here for maybe $80-100 depending on condition (brand new one costs $130).

I am already considering that.

 

[DroneDestination]

Hey! @Providian623 ! Sell ur controller here: Wanted: Phantom 3 Standard Controller

 

[185EZ]

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[Providian623]

I'd be curious what else the map shows

The travel line just stopped in the middle of a field. I assume that was the moment the aircraft disconnected from the app/remote. Not much else and believe me, I can tell you where it's not, in that area. I am going to try one more thing before I officially burn the box on a Viking barge on my lake. I do not believe it did RTH. But in case it did it may have overflown the RTH point and came down in the fields (or pond) behind the launch point. I will check the area tomorrow while Wonder Woman stacks the wood on the barge .............

 

[nattieman]

I know of a friend who had a much less expensive drone and it doesn't have a camera etc... It went lost in the wind and he found it at night due to the lights flashing. Might help.... I'm so sorry to hear of this fly off and it scares the crap out of me as I too have a lot invested.

 

[heydave23]

My new phantom 3 pro hasn't even arrived yet and reading these stories are (bad english) making me wish I had just bought the standard instead. That way I could have some money left over for another one. WTH how common is this issue?

 

[GodFear17]

Sorry for your loss! it's just so dang hard for me to hear about these fly-aways. I've flown so many times with pilots with all 3 of the versions, and my standard, I have clocked 16hr16m total flight time and 89.7 flight miles in 133 flights. I have lost signal I don't know how many times, purposely flown it out of signal range at least 10 times, I have tested RTH and it's landing precision dozens of times, heck about 60% of the time when I'm out .5 to 1km, I don't even fly it back I just RTH because it does a better job and I'll get distracted lol

I've seen my own bird fly flawlessly so many times, when I hear of this the first thing I think of something had to be set wrong, interfering with GPS or something. I mean out of the box these things just rock.

Sorry for your loss, it had to be something, these things are just rock solid otherwise. I can't wait to get my hands on an advanced, I have a P3 standard I'm selling with 3 batteries for $625 in the classifieds thoroughly tested and is in perfect condition. For you I'll do $590. Well it does have one mod, I put a sma port where the 5ghz antenna goes so you can attach whatever antenna you want and I have a right hand clover on it now and control signal is a lot better.

 

[GodFear17]

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[Mediacj]

@Providian623 sad you have lost it. Is it possible that the Trackimo is interfering with the Phantom?

@GoodFear17
Interesting mod, can you tell us where you bought that antenna?

Does it also help with the signal warnings when your Phantom is not so far away although you have full bars on signal?

 

[Tony Cowan]

My new phantom 3 pro hasn't even arrived yet and reading these stories are (bad english) making me wish I had just bought the standard instead. That way I could have some money left over for another one. WTH how common is this issue?

Not common. If you followed all steps. Calibrating etc.


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