This made me chuckle
With this logic, just think of it as losing a helicopter... but at 1/100000 of the cost! Boy, you saved a lot of money
Yup, and even after Columbia, NASA got back on the horse.
Phantom 3 crashed into the ocean
- Thread starter DjiAdam
- Start date
Yup, and even after Columbia, NASA got back on the horse.
I can name several things that happened that you were not ready for unless of course you had more experience with your P3.
1. 7.7 km and 60% battery still left sounds like you were going with the wind to reach such far distances in little time.
2. The mph heading back was decrease because now you were going against wind. Something you should have tested before your last journey with it.
3. Perfect signal and no crashes at the beginning and then when you were heading back app crashing and choppy video feed or weak signal. Was most likely your device whether you were using a phone or tablet was probably getting too hot and now causing interference. My Samsung S5 does that all the time. The first 40% battery life goes very well. Then after the Samsung S5 starts to heat up it loses signal often and app crashes often.
4. You were extremely lucky to even have some type of control at 20%. If I'm not mistaken once your P3 reaches critical battery level (20% out of the box). It will automatic land and will not let you control it. You may have switched this setting or unaware of this setting, I'm not sure. Well you learned your lesson the hard way. Sorry to hear.
1. 7.7 km and 60% battery still left sounds like you were going with the wind to reach such far distances in little time.
2. The mph heading back was decrease because now you were going against wind. Something you should have tested before your last journey with it.
3. Perfect signal and no crashes at the beginning and then when you were heading back app crashing and choppy video feed or weak signal. Was most likely your device whether you were using a phone or tablet was probably getting too hot and now causing interference. My Samsung S5 does that all the time. The first 40% battery life goes very well. Then after the Samsung S5 starts to heat up it loses signal often and app crashes often.
4. You were extremely lucky to even have some type of control at 20%. If I'm not mistaken once your P3 reaches critical battery level (20% out of the box). It will automatic land and will not let you control it. You may have switched this setting or unaware of this setting, I'm not sure. Well you learned your lesson the hard way. Sorry to hear.
This is a really interesting thread - (CapnBob's responses most so) but my tuppence worth as a former private pilot, a yachtsman, a geographer and many years of living on planet earth:
The general rule I apply before launching the drone is to check the wind direction and strength. That includes grass bits dropped to gauge the exact direction of the wind so I take off and land facing into it, but also for tree movements.
OK, night flying makes wind direction observation difficult to impossible, but as far as flying at the coast is concerned, my experience / understanding is that there is an on-shore wind during the day and and off-shore wind at night - which may well be the basic issue with not reaching one's launch point even with 60% of battery on turning back. The wind strength effect tends to increase with height.
Reading Alex's 7.7km outward journey fills me with awe and trepidation - *gives nervous giggle* - cos my drone is set to 100m distant and 65m height. Oh to be 18 again!
The general rule I apply before launching the drone is to check the wind direction and strength. That includes grass bits dropped to gauge the exact direction of the wind so I take off and land facing into it, but also for tree movements.
OK, night flying makes wind direction observation difficult to impossible, but as far as flying at the coast is concerned, my experience / understanding is that there is an on-shore wind during the day and and off-shore wind at night - which may well be the basic issue with not reaching one's launch point even with 60% of battery on turning back. The wind strength effect tends to increase with height.
Reading Alex's 7.7km outward journey fills me with awe and trepidation - *gives nervous giggle* - cos my drone is set to 100m distant and 65m height. Oh to be 18 again!
Last edited:
One thing I forgot to mention. If filming or snapping photos of import, I will use Ground Station Mode, especially over water. I prefer Ken Argo's DJI Ultimate Flight App; he is very responsive to input. Whichever app you use, the main advantage is, the bird has all the info it needs to fly and return home before it lifts off. Transmitter range becomes a non-issue. As long as SAT lock is good, the batts are topped off and you have done due diligence in planning, I would say there is a 99% change of a successful mission, barring mechanical failure, a sudden squall, or other act of the Almighty... The vast majority of the horror stories I read have the same cause as most plane crashes - pilot error. Let the bird fly itself. If you have planned the mission well, she will come home. If you haven't seen it, check out Ken's app; I find it does all I need, and, now that dji has fixed a plethora of SDK issues, very stable. https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com.kenargo.djiultimateflight2
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2015
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 0
- Age
- 74
We as a group of folks who love to fly, whatever we fly, have a duty to not do things that bring grief to anyone else! If we who have chosen a hobby that already has a lot of scrutiny from Uncle Sam, don't follow our own rules, such as don't fly past the safe limits of our machines and do anything to jeperdise other people's right to privacy or anything that could interfere with law enforcment, firefighting or EMS activities, our right to own and fly our wonderful flying machines could vanish!!! Come on folks use common sence!! Just my thoughts from an old retired firefighter
Exactly right.. your Phantom is no more likely to fail if it's 1 mile away or 100 feet away. Either way if it fails and falls there is little you can do, so don't stress to much about distance. Just watch what you fly over and mind your battery levels.
Don't beat yourself up for not switching to ATTI mode--it wouldn't have helped you anyway... it doesn't let you fly faster, nor more efficiently--at least in cruise.
The only thing that could have potentially "helped" (once you realized you were in trouble--besides landing on the island you mentioned earlier); would have been to fly as low as possible to face potentially slower head winds. (Of course setting one's RTH altitude to 3m, [assuming calm seas] and engaging the RTH feature would have negated worries about losing reception at low altitude).
ATTI mode WOULD have made the Phantom fly faster. It's a well known fact and that could have made thew difference between him not making it back and making it back by the skin of his teeth. Either way it's water under the bridge and a learning experience. Don't put yourself out there unless you can afford the loss. It was risky and he lost.. now he's learned and hopefully will fly more responsibly / conservatively with his replacement Phantom.
Just trying to understand but why would ATTI mode be faster? RTH I don't think returns at full speed whichever mode your in but if he was in ATTI mode when the signal was lost wouldn't he have had no chance of returning?
I would have thought the only way to go faster would be to adjust the gain setting but then your going to drain the battery faster right?
I would have thought the only way to go faster would be to adjust the gain setting but then your going to drain the battery faster right?
I think the point is that if it is RTH , at some point in the return, signal will return.
I think ATTI mode may be faster as there is less position holding taking place which can impede momentum. Actually I don't know. I have tested it though and it does seem faster.
I believe when in ATTI the P3 will switch to P-GPS for a RTH, provided you had a home point set and still have Sat coverage. Otherwise I guess it would just land? Probably something to test out also.
The Phantom uses less corrections for flight in atti, it also pitches harder into the wind and uses extra thrust. You get more distance out of it vs any extra tiny bit of extra voltage you may use from further pitching into the sky. You will get at least an extra 5mph faster or more (depending on conditions) flying in ATTI vs P-GPS mode and that little bit can make all the difference in the world.
These distance records seem to just be asking for trouble. Yes, I'm guilty of doing it too, but when the bird is miles away, if something goes wrong it will probably not end well. As others have said, you probably went downwind going out which was the kiss of death. I was shaking scared when I flew my P3 15,100 feet (4.6km) away. Nothing went wrong and I was able to bring it home and land safely, but I was still nervous as a nerd on his first date.
i can feel your pain really. i would buy another one. because you paid a lot of bucks for this "experience" and next time you are prepared.
You should have bought a GetterBack and attached it to the leg. It's sends out it's 100 foot line to the surface if Phantom sinks. Then you just pull the Phantom back up.
I repeat. Those that are image-oriented, or abhor ugliness, move on.
If you want something that works, search no more, Most will not, and they are doomed to a watery grave.
http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/phantom-emergency-flotation-for-a-dime-redux.48125/
If you want something that works, search no more, Most will not, and they are doomed to a watery grave.
http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/phantom-emergency-flotation-for-a-dime-redux.48125/
How did you lose yours? I'm not sure if this is how it goes when DJI releases a new product. I had the P2 V+ 3.0 for a few months (didn't fly that much) and now have the P3P. I don't remember seeing so many lost/crashed postings when I initially purchased the P2
Well said Scotty.
On a side note, I wonder how many Phantoms or drones overall are in the ocean :/
Wouldn't it be cool if DJI had some automatic magic button that would have them all rise up from the dead with reserve battery and fly back to a predefined location. Heh
Similar threads
