I find it very interesting reading about everyone's crash specifics so I'm posting mine in case anyone is like me. This is really part 2 of an ongoing saga, part 1 of which you may have seen not that long ago title "P4P lost today, I'm unclear what happened, need diagnostic help". That was close to a couple weeks ago. That day I was flying a DroneDeploy mapping mission. All of a sudden the screen went black, aircraft disconnected appeared, and I could not regain connection to the drone using either DroneDeploy or DJI Go 4. I had no idea if the drone crashed or kept flying and flew away. I searched and searched, never did find the drone. All signs pointed to a power loss, like maybe a poorly seated battery that popped out, or some hardware disconnection. The place I figured it crashed, if it did, was unreachable; too overgrown and thick. I did not know there were still logs available even when the drone is gone, so never looked to see what logs could tell me. 2 days later, I got a call from one of the crew at the job site saying they found my drone. Huh? It was about 1/8 of a mile from the site where it disconnected, completely intact, nothing visibly wrong, just sitting along a fence line. Looking at the memory card showed that it kept flying and collecting images. I guess it landed when the battery emptied. Sure didn't think that was possible, thought it would maybe just hover with no inputs from flight controller apps, or maybe land. Weird. I flew the bird for quite a while to test it, all seemed well, so I put it back in service.
Oct. 31, yesterday, same drone. This time flying manually, snapping pics of the same construction site. History seemingly repeated itself. All of a sudden the screen went black, aircraft disconnect warning appeared. Nothing I could do would let me re-connect. Now I'm thinking bad drone or bad battery. A difference this time is that I happened to make note of the radar indicator at the bottom left with the triangle that represents the drone's position. I could have sworn that I had seen the triangle going crazy out of the corner of my eye, like it was tumbling and falling, or spinning or something. In a split second that was done, but I sure felt like the drone crashed this time, unlike last time when I could not tell for sure. I spent a couple hours yesterday and a couple today searching for the drone, but it's a BIG area almost completely overgrown and unreachable. Definitely needle in a haystack stuff, and I never found it. Then tonight I discovered that I could get logs out of the controller. I grabbed the flight record txt file and uploaded it into Phantom Helper, and what an eye opener. I did not understand most of what it was telling me and still don't, but what I did discover is they have a map with the flight route overlaid on it, with notations for different warnings and such. And you can put the little drone indicator in motion with the scrubber knob and you can move the drone through its flight. Well low and behold, the flight shows exactly where the drone went down! And sliding the scrubber proves me right, the drone icon goes haywire just before crash. Also visible is a little false horizon that actually represents the attitude of the drone. As you move the scrubber the false horizon moves too corresponding to drone movement. THAT SUCKER STOOD UP ON END, meaning it rolled sharply left then sharply right. But why? I then on a whim uploaded the txt file to Airdata, and got a little more IMPORTANT info: First, I was able to get the GPS coordinates of where the drone is. Second, here's the first warning that gets notated on the flight path in Airdata: "Detected side shock / possible collision, aircraft is rolling sharply to the left". Whoa!! So...bird strike? I was at 225 feet, WELL above the tree line. This likely isn't the fault of the drone or the battery according to what I'm learning. If you care to look at the Phantomhelp log, here's a link: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com. I learned of the drone's position after dark tonight so have to wait until tomorrow to go see if I can retrieve it. Wild. I was so exasperated when I thought the same nightmare situation was unfolding twice. It's interesting to see that it's a new set of circumstances.
Oct. 31, yesterday, same drone. This time flying manually, snapping pics of the same construction site. History seemingly repeated itself. All of a sudden the screen went black, aircraft disconnect warning appeared. Nothing I could do would let me re-connect. Now I'm thinking bad drone or bad battery. A difference this time is that I happened to make note of the radar indicator at the bottom left with the triangle that represents the drone's position. I could have sworn that I had seen the triangle going crazy out of the corner of my eye, like it was tumbling and falling, or spinning or something. In a split second that was done, but I sure felt like the drone crashed this time, unlike last time when I could not tell for sure. I spent a couple hours yesterday and a couple today searching for the drone, but it's a BIG area almost completely overgrown and unreachable. Definitely needle in a haystack stuff, and I never found it. Then tonight I discovered that I could get logs out of the controller. I grabbed the flight record txt file and uploaded it into Phantom Helper, and what an eye opener. I did not understand most of what it was telling me and still don't, but what I did discover is they have a map with the flight route overlaid on it, with notations for different warnings and such. And you can put the little drone indicator in motion with the scrubber knob and you can move the drone through its flight. Well low and behold, the flight shows exactly where the drone went down! And sliding the scrubber proves me right, the drone icon goes haywire just before crash. Also visible is a little false horizon that actually represents the attitude of the drone. As you move the scrubber the false horizon moves too corresponding to drone movement. THAT SUCKER STOOD UP ON END, meaning it rolled sharply left then sharply right. But why? I then on a whim uploaded the txt file to Airdata, and got a little more IMPORTANT info: First, I was able to get the GPS coordinates of where the drone is. Second, here's the first warning that gets notated on the flight path in Airdata: "Detected side shock / possible collision, aircraft is rolling sharply to the left". Whoa!! So...bird strike? I was at 225 feet, WELL above the tree line. This likely isn't the fault of the drone or the battery according to what I'm learning. If you care to look at the Phantomhelp log, here's a link: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com. I learned of the drone's position after dark tonight so have to wait until tomorrow to go see if I can retrieve it. Wild. I was so exasperated when I thought the same nightmare situation was unfolding twice. It's interesting to see that it's a new set of circumstances.
