$1500 just flew away and kept going

Sorry to hear.. That's crazy that you went that high with it.. I wouldn't go that high with fear of that same thing happening..


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
Yeah, I usually don't go that high but this big, jagged, crazy rock mountain stuck up out of nowhere and it was probably only 100ft off of it.
 
From a brief look at that it seems clear why you lost contact - it flew behind the hill at an altitude lower than the peak. That should have initiated an RTH, but since it was already at 789 ft above home point, then unless you had the RTH altitude set very high then it may have simply crashed into the back of the hill trying to return.
That's very possible. Maybe we saw something else? Even still??.... oh...eeeeeeeffff. sport mode.
I think you're right. It's probably smashed into the back side.
 
Totally forgot I was in sport mode and sport mode lacks the avoidance and I believe my RTH was set to 500ft :(
 
when the aircraft gets disconnected, does it "fly" to wherever it thinks home is?
The default settings will initiate RTH 3 seconds after the remote controller signal is lost. The Phantom will first ascend to the RTH altitude and then return back to the home point with the assistance of GPS. In your case, your Phantom did not ascend because your RTH altitude was set to 30 meters. It appears that it started to return home and flew right into the back side of the mountain.

Mountain1.jpg


It probably crashed somewhere in this area:

Mountain2.jpg
 
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Obstacle avoidance system doesn't work in Sport mode. So next time you fly, when the quad is out of sight, switch to P mode and make sure to turn on all settings for OA. If the quad initiates RTH, it can avoid crashing on its way back.
 
Very sorry for your situation.

And so this begs the question: should one adjust the altitude the drone ascends to before doing a RTH before each flight base on the environment?
I have mine set to 30m and I rarely change it which is prob. a mistake. :(
 
should one adjust the altitude the drone ascends to before doing a RTH before each flight base on the environment?
Yes. And, keep in mind the altitude is an estimate. Add a little extra just in case it's not accurate.
 
Yeah, and the mistake I made was thinking that the RTH altitude was 30 meters above the drones current altitude, when it's actually only 30 meters above the actual home point.
 
Very sorry for your situation.

And so this begs the question: should one adjust the altitude the drone ascends to before doing a RTH before each flight base on the environment?
I have mine set to 30m and I rarely change it which is prob. a mistake. :(
Correct me if I'm wrong, if you are higher than the RTH set altitude, it'll RTH at the altitude that the signal was lost, it did not help Dr.Tones unfortunately, good luck finding the wreckage. We're all learning from our own and others mistakes in these forums..
 
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Correct me if I'm wrong, if you are higher than the RTH set altitude, it'll RTH at the altitude that the signal was lost
That is correct.
 
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there's Stop Flyaway system which prevents flyaways. google for it
costs nothing, works perfect
 
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there's Stop Flyaway system which prevents flyaways. google for it
costs nothing, works perfect
I guess you're referring to the parachute system? Do you own it?
 
how could you see it flying away at 787 feet high and 9823 distance away a mile and half out and you can see it doesn't compute
Not true, I sent mine up to 1360 ft and had no problem seeing it.
 
Sorry for your lost. Call DJI and see if they can help you .. Something wasn't right and I have no idea.
 
Something wasn't right and I have no idea.
Check out my Google Earth screenshots above. You can see the OP flew behind a mountain (breaking the remote controller signal) and the Phantom most likely crashed into the back side of the mountain when it was trying to return back to the home point.
 
I usually fly in the same place all the time and I'm accustomed to not worrying about my RTH altitude because I know it's good for that location. This habit could get me in trouble if I went flying somewhere else. After reading this thread, I just added another 25 meters to my already more than enough just to be extra safe.

This is a good reminder to always remember our RTH altitude setting. It should be a part of our preflight checklist. This isn't the first thread I've seen with this scenario.

It would be nice if the RTH altitude was included on the Aircraft Status checklist that comes up on the display at start up, or better yet if it was displayed somewhere on the main screen all the time so that we could include it in our scan of the important bits of information on the display during flight.
 

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