Phamtom 3 Std lost.

[geoff270172]

G'day everyone.
Well today I lost my Phantom 3 standard. Everything was going well from the start, I did the calibration, was set in gps mode with 8 satellites and home point established. After flying around and taking my photos with 43% battery left I did as I always do and hit RTH which has never failed me until today. For some reason the home point changed and it landed high up in thick heavy bushland with virtually nill chance of finding it. I tried to cancel the RTH but it just came up with signal lost and kept on flying. I took a screen shot showing where i was (the blue dot ) and the where the new home point was, (in the thick scrub). when i got home I looked up the flight plan and for some other strange reason it set a home point out in the middle of the river which i didn't notice as i was busy looking at the drone flying before looking at the shot i was going to take, then in the flight plan it shows where i pressed RTH and it went to that point in the river then straight into the scrub to another home point.
Do you think I have a good case to file with DJI with this evidence as I have been told DJI can be pretty tough to deal with.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am so stressed out now.
Cheers
Geoff

 

[Meta4]

Well today I lost my Phantom 3 standard. Everything was going well from the start, I did the calibration, was set in gps mode with 8 satellites and home point established. After flying around and taking my photos with 43% battery left I did as I always do and hit RTH which has never failed me until today. For some reason the home point changed and it landed high up in thick heavy bushland with virtually nill chance of finding it. I tried to cancel the RTH but it just came up with signal lost and kept on flying. I took a screen shot showing where i was (the blue dot ) and the where the new home point was, (in the thick scrub). when i got home I looked up the flight plan and for some other strange reason it set a home point out in the middle of the river which i didn't notice as i was busy looking at the drone flying before looking at the shot i was going to take, then in the flight plan it shows where i pressed RTH and it went to that point in the river then straight into the scrub to another home point.
Do you think I have a good case to file with DJI with this evidence as I have been told DJI can be pretty tough to deal with.

DJi are easy to deal with unless you have a weak case.
To get an idea of what happened, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

 

[geoff270172]

DJi are easy to deal with unless you have a weak case.
To get an idea of what happened, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

I have found them on my phone as a txt file and there is a few of them, I'm going from android to apple MacBook .

 

[geoff270172]

I have found them on my phone as a txt file and there is a few of them, I'm going from android to apple MacBook .

I'm a bit confused on what to do now

 

[Meta4]

I'm a bit confused on what to do now

There are instructions on that page I gave a link to.
You point out which file you want to look at (it will be the last one) and click upload.
Then post a link to the report it gives you

Like this:

 

[geoff270172]

Here is the link to the flight log.
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[geoff270172]

As you can see in my first message it set a home point in the middle of the river then set a home point in the thick scrub

 

[Meta4]

For some reason the home point changed and it landed high up in thick heavy bushland with virtually nill chance of finding it. I tried to cancel the RTH but it just came up with signal lost and kept on flying.for some other strange reason it set a home point out in the middle of the river which i didn't notice as i was busy looking at the drone flying
then in the flight plan it shows where i pressed RTH and it went to that point in the river then straight into the scrub to another home point.

Looking at the flight data, it shows you launching from a spot where the northern half of the sky was blocked by Burleigh Hill and tree cover.
You launched with 6 GPS sats and flew toward the middle of Tallebudgera Ck while climbing.
24 seconds into the flight a new home point was recorded exactly where the Phantom was at that point.
It's not clear from the data whether you reset the home point or if the original was recorded under marginal GPS conditions and the Phantom updated this when it had a better quality GPS fix.
If the Phantom did this automatically, you should have heard your DJI copilot tell you that the homepoint has been recorded, please check it on the map.
You would also have been able to see that the Phantom's distance to home was was close to zero although it was 80 metres from you.

At 12:58 you initiated RTH with the Phantom 70 metres from the updated home point.
At about 13:20 it started descending to the new home point in the water and you started fighting the descent with the joysticks but did not cancel RTH.
You should have been able to cancel the RTH as you had signal and the Phantom was responding to your joystick inputs.
You could have cancelled by tapping the controller button or the screen button or flicking the flight mode switch out of P-GPS mode and back again.
But you continued to fight RTH - mostly with only the right joystick which allowed the Phantom to continue descending.

If you had disengaged the RTH you would have had full control but because RTH was still trying to control the Phantom control would have been difficult.
If you had pushed the left stick up, I think the descent could have been stopped.
The Phantom seems to have descended into the trees close to your launch point and is probably about 30 ft above the ground if it didn't fall from the tree.
There was no 3rd home point set.
The Phantom came down where the fight between you and RTH was ended by a tree.
The Phantom's home point was still out in the creek.

 

[geoff270172]

Thanks so much for looking into it, much appreciated . I don't know how to set the home point apart from when it's calibrated and i had the green light to start flying. I can't remember hearing anything about a new home point apart from hearing out of range returning to home and when i get signal back i always cancel the return to home and start shooting again. So overall does this mean it's my fault and i don't have a case with dji?

 

[Meta4]

Thanks so much for looking into it, much appreciated . I don't know how to set the home point apart from when it's calibrated and i had the green light to start flying. I can't remember hearing anything about a new home point apart from hearing out of range returning to home and when i get signal back i always cancel the return to home and start shooting again. So overall does this mean it's my fault and i don't have a case with dji?

I'm not sure how you'd go with DJI but you could try and see how it goes.
DJI would look at the same flight data and probably read it the same way.

 

[gingerbloke]

With my P2v+ and P3S I quickly developed a habit of hanging directly above launch point for a while - the #sats always seem to improve with a little altitude and often homepoint is updated. My P3A by comparison has always locked in solid.

 

[Honda_impreza]

Gday mate. Im from Brissie btw. Talebudgerra Creek sounds like a great place for a flight .

Sorry to hear about your drone. By the sounds of things you might not have much of a case here.

Two things i can suggest is that you should've just cancelled return to home on the phone or tablet. If it was out of range to cancel, then it sounds like you were pushing its limits, which IMO you should try to avoid. P3S is well known to have pretty shitty app reception past a certain distance (mine is around 400m) and not all p3s drones seem equal

Secondly, i recommend doing manual landings. I always do it (and many others do too) and that way you get better at controlling the drone. You can get it to land exactly where you want it. That's the case for my p3s as home point has a 30m radius. This is not good if you a launching from a spot with nearby obstacles.

 

[JohnRich]

It's not much help to Geof but once again can I suggest fitting a Tractive GPS tracker to the drone (1.2 oz or 35grams). You can then se exactly where the drone has landed. You can even make it "beep" or flash a white led. Cost is € 50 for the unit (warranty 1 year) and an annual cost of € 50 for the phone access. Check prices for your currency. www.tractive.com.

 

[FilmicDude]

Looking at the flight data, it shows you launching from a spot where the northern half of the sky was blocked by Burleigh Hill and tree cover.
You launched with 6 GPS sats and flew toward the middle of Tallebudgera Ck while climbing.
24 seconds into the flight a new home point was recorded exactly where the Phantom was at that point.
It's not clear from the data whether you reset the home point or if the original was recorded under marginal GPS conditions and the Phantom updated this when it had a better quality GPS fix.
If the Phantom did this automatically, you should have heard your DJI copilot tell you that the homepoint has been recorded, please check it on the map.
You would also have been able to see that the Phantom's distance to home was was close to zero although it was 80 metres from you.

At 12:58 you initiated RTH with the Phantom 70 metres from the updated home point.
At about 13:20 it started descending to the new home point in the water and you started fighting the descent with the joysticks but did not cancel RTH.
You should have been able to cancel the RTH as you had signal and the Phantom was responding to your joystick inputs.
You could have cancelled by tapping the controller button or the screen button or flicking the flight mode switch out of P-GPS mode and back again.
But you continued to fight RTH - mostly with only the right joystick which allowed the Phantom to continue descending.

If you had disengaged the RTH you would have had full control but because RTH was still trying to control the Phantom control would have been difficult.
If you had pushed the left stick up, I think the descent could have been stopped.
The Phantom seems to have descended into the trees close to your launch point and is probably about 30 ft above the ground if it didn't fall from the tree.
There was no 3rd home point set.
The Phantom came down where the fight between you and RTH was ended by a tree.
The Phantom's home point was still out in the creek.

I just wanted to say that I think it's great that Meta 4 took the time to read the log and explain it; someday we could be in this situation as well...it's nice to know there are people out there who are willing to help. Jeff

 

[geoff270172]

I'm not sure how you'd go with DJI but you could try and see how it goes.
DJI would look at the same flight data and probably read it the same way.

Thanks so much for all the replies, greatly appreciated.
I have been emailing back and forth with dji about this and there answer is airways the same, pilot error. They say i manually set the home point, which i didn't cause i didn't know how until they sent me s screen shot of where it is in the menu. Then in there report it said with the final home point it made by itself i tried to raise the drone which i did add i saw it was landing in trees but then loss of signal it went down.
No in there last response there exact wording is " pretty sure the pilot changed the home point manually ". Pretty sure!!!! Are they serious? So i asked to see there analysis/ report to show me where i set the home point manually and it doesn't show anywhere at all, so to say " pretty sure" is an absolute joke

 

[geoff270172]

I'm not sure how you'd go with DJI but you could try and see how it goes.
DJI would look at the same flight data and probably read it the same way.

Dropbox - Data Analysis【CAS-1474303-W6B5H2】.pdf

 

[Meta4]

Thanks so much for all the replies, greatly appreciated.
I have been emailing back and forth with dji about this and there answer is airways the same, pilot error. They say i manually set the home point, which i didn't cause i didn't know how until they sent me s screen shot of where it is in the menu. Then in there report it said with the final home point it made by itself i tried to raise the drone which i did add i saw it was landing in trees but then loss of signal it went down.
No in there last response there exact wording is " pretty sure the pilot changed the home point manually ". Pretty sure!!!! Are they serious? So i asked to see there analysis/ report to show me where i set the home point manually and it doesn't show anywhere at all, so to say " pretty sure" is an absolute joke

I explained in post #8 what caused the home point change if you didn't do it.
It's not clear from the data whether you reset the home point or if the original was recorded under marginal GPS conditions and the Phantom updated this when it had a better quality GPS fix.
But in the end, the home point change was not what caused the loss of the Phantom.

 

[geoff270172]

I explained in post #8 what caused the home point change if you didn't do it.
It's not clear from the data whether you reset the home point or if the original was recorded under marginal GPS conditions and the Phantom updated this when it had a better quality GPS fix.
But in the end, the home point change was not what caused the loss of the Phantom.

Thanks mate, but if they can't prove it and in there reply said i tried to raise the drone before it landed in the bush and it made a phantom home point there then loss of signal, how can they keep saying pretty sure pilot error.

 

[Meta4]

Thanks mate, but if they can't prove it and in there reply said i tried to raise the drone before it landed in the bush and it made a phantom home point there then loss of signal, how can they keep saying pretty sure pilot error.

DJI aren't always the best at communicating clearly.
The change of home point may have confused you but the reason you lost the Phantom is because you could have cancelled RTH at any time but didn't.
Had you cancelled the RTH, you could have flown the Phantom anywhere you chose to with full control.
You left the Phantom trying to RTH and fought with it.
That's the pilot error that caused the loss.

Read post #8 again if you aren't clear about what happened.