Am I F'd? 1st day, slow landing on grass, disaster!

[Sfgiants24]

Scotts, congrats! First flight, crash, and a screaming drone. Awesome! You have no where to go but up. According to your post, you had nine minutes of flying .....read the manual and watched videos. I hope you didn't do things in that order, but it sounds like you did.
"Rotors too tight" message? What the hell is that? You got very lucky. Watch more video, read more here, fly responsibly, and enjoy.


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[Mako79]

Just to add to the hand catchers here...
Check you surroundings, especially your footing.
Keep it arms reach above your head and NOT at eye level.
Use a lanyard. This frees your right to catch.
Orient the Phantom so you can see the battery LEDs. This helps with orientation the case of emergencies.
Always catch downwind. Wind coming from behind you and the phantom in front of you. This helps prevents a new haircut if there happens to be a gust of wind.

 

[rene van der meer]

If you take off from a tilted surface I would recommend also to do hand take off.
Otherwise it can flip over.

 

[Kantcme]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned to check the motor temperature after a few minutes of idle (or flight since you're already flying it again). If your coils are dark and it smoked, you've lost some insulation on that motor and my guess is that it's getting pretty hot under load. If it gets too hot from extended flight you'll run the risk of warping or potentially melting the mount resulting in a catastrophic in-flight failure. If it's too hot to touch after running for a bit then it's best to just replace it and save yourself a bigger headache down the road.

Also, If you have access to a digital photo tachometer you could check for any major deviation in idle RPM's between motors.

 

[BayouBill]

To the guy that said newbies shouldn't hand catch.... You're so wrong... Hand catching is easy and safe. Bring it in top speed right at eye level, let go of the sticks about 4 feet in front of you, it coasts in maybe another foot, then just reach up and grab it out of the air. Works every time The goal is to stop it at full speed just a few inches from your head , the game is called Chicken The closest that I have came is about 16" from full throttle but I have it high enough that I can simply tilt my head out of the way if needed. I've never had it slide past me and it always stops within a couple feet. These birds are amazing and can be a lot of fun

Putting this kind of trust in a complex electro mechanical device is complete nonsense. Particularly when advising a relatively new pilot. DJI should provide a dedicated switch on the RC TX to immediately shut down the motors.

 

[Wibble]

Putting this kind of trust in a complex electro mechanical device is complete nonsense. Particularly when advising a relatively new pilot. DJI should provide a dedicated switch on the RC TX to immediately shut down the motors.

I am pretty sure he was joking!
I always say hand catch even for novices but maybe not quite like that!!!

 

[Jesse James]

Hand catch every time for me. First flight same thing happened also


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[Reed L]

Putting this kind of trust in a complex electro mechanical device is complete nonsense. Particularly when advising a relatively new pilot. DJI should provide a dedicated switch on the RC TX to immediately shut down the motors.

I am pretty sure he was joking!
I always say hand catch even for novices but maybe not quite like that!!!

What? Are You Chicken? Henny Penny's on every corner, cluck cluck cluck...
Yea I might be joking around just a bit hehe, Especially with the eye level, should be mouth level so you can catch it with your teeth like a real man lol

 

[DCDrone]

I've been flying in open unmowed fields, that typically have knee-high grass. I tried using my case as a landing pad, and only managed to chop up the surface of my case. I think I was doing CSC the first few times. I've learned to do the hand catch, and will probably stick with that unless the landing surface is exceptional. I realize there's not a lot of room for error, and the cost of failure is high. I keep it above eye level, and take the time to make sure the placement is good and the device is stable.

 

[Jeffro115]

Don't use CSC to turn off motors on landing. This is the cause of your flip-landing. Think about it, if you are pulling it directly to centre on both sticks, you are asking it to tilt back and roll left whilst throttling down and yawing right. The Phantom's have poor centre of gravity especially with the narrow landing skids and any input will cause it to flip.

Best method is to let it land by holding down the left stick until motors automagically shut off. You need to remember the CSC is for emergency shut off.

If you grow some tocklies, try hand catching. Read and watch examples on youtube before attempting.

First day that I had mine, I was on the ground - landed. Went to disarm the motors, and the thing went nuts, flipped over, and I got a 'motor obstructed' (or something similar) error. I guess that was because I landed manually and tried to kill the motors via CSC. Now, when I manually land, I continue to hold the left stick all the way down until the motors shut off completely. Haven't had this same problem since.

 

[DeeX]

The bird doesnt flip if u shut the motors off by just holding the throttle down.
I have landed my bird since day one. I just did a hand catch for the first time on July 4th.
I might start doing that. But not because Im worried about landing, because its cool.

 

[Jeffro115]

Auto land while hand catching is not a good idea...

I'm not sure exactly why, maybe someone can elaborate?

When I decide to start hand catching, my impression would be that by using auto land (which descends pretty slowly, and steadily) would free up two hands to catch the drone instead of just one, and also removes an additional step of shutting down the motors. Less activities to distract.

I guess the down side is that you'd not have complete control over the drone decent, but so far in my limited experience, it seems slow enough and descends at an even rate.

Is auto land unpredictable at times?

 

[Thomas Cole]

I never auto land unless it is a dead flat pad and definitely never around plant life! Best method is hand catch.

 

[DeeX]

I'm not sure exactly why, maybe someone can elaborate?

When I decide to start hand catching, my impression would be that by using auto land (which descends pretty slowly, and steadily) would free up two hands to catch the drone instead of just one, and also removes an additional step of shutting down the motors. Less activities to distract.

I guess the down side is that you'd not have complete control over the drone decent, but so far in my limited experience, it seems slow enough and descends at an even rate.

Is auto land unpredictable at times?

Im sorry but auto land just sounds like a bad idea lol.
Im sure in concept it sounds good but I personally would rather be in control during a landing.
with practice both a hand catch and a ground land are fairly easy.
In all situations never use CSC to turn off your drone.

 

[fastfed]

I would first hand spin the motors without props .. see if they all spin equally and smoothly. If not, you got a problem. Luckily, replacement motors are cheap and easy. Then, put in battery, load up DJI go and check that everything is okay, no errors reported. Then, again WITHOUT the props on, startup the motors and see how they sound. If one is bad, it should be apparent .. I'm assuming you know which one was smoking, so you can watch out for that one in specific. If all checks out okay, take a short flight and make sure everything works fine.

Learn from it ... we all screw up man, don't kick yourself too hard, cause its gonna happen again. Maybe not this, but something. I was at the coast the other day, I flipped the phantom trying to take off cause of the wind. I didnt decide to stop and go home, i came to fly .. I changed my style. Learned that i need to go hard on the takeoff, and fly straight into the wind with good power to get it up and prevent that. Worked perfectly after that Here's a video of that flip. Stuff happens.

turning the motors on without a prop? Is that ok with these things? I would think it would over rev or something

 

[Numone]

turning the motors on without a prop? Is that ok with these things? I would think it would over rev or something

Don't worry, they do not "Over-Rev"...

 

[DeeX]

Don't worry, they do not "Over-Rev"...

Yes they do.
There was someone on here that posted the RPM(s) with the props on and with the props off and they sped up quite considerably with no props on.
I will see if I can find that post again.

 

[flpholt]

I hit auto land every time and then just catch it with over 200 flights and different birds never had a problem one time

 

[Great_Lakes]

Because of the minimal ground clearance between the landing surface and the camera, I hand catch when the landing surface has obstructions like tall grass. Otherwise I manually land on a smooth hard surface. Rarely use auto land or takeoff. I don't think one method is "better" than another, just whatever suits you.

Also, the first day with my Phantom, I too tried shutting down with CSC after landing like the manual said, and flipped it over. DJI really should remove that as a recommended way to shut off the motors after landing!

 

[Matchlock]

Absolutely loved that video!!

Bud

I would first hand spin the motors without props .. see if they all spin equally and smoothly. If not, you got a problem. Luckily, replacement motors are cheap and easy. Then, put in battery, load up DJI go and check that everything is okay, no errors reported. Then, again WITHOUT the props on, startup the motors and see how they sound. If one is bad, it should be apparent .. I'm assuming you know which one was smoking, so you can watch out for that one in specific. If all checks out okay, take a short flight and make sure everything works fine.

Learn from it ... we all screw up man, don't kick yourself too hard, cause its gonna happen again. Maybe not this, but something. I was at the coast the other day, I flipped the phantom trying to take off cause of the wind. I didnt decide to stop and go home, i came to fly .. I changed my style. Learned that i need to go hard on the takeoff, and fly straight into the wind with good power to get it up and prevent that. Worked perfectly after that Here's a video of that flip. Stuff happens.