Another Fly Away

[Count]

I have to add mine to the long, sad list of fly aways. I had a very large investment in time and cash in my P2v. Between the graphics, carbon fiber props (balanced), carbon fiber prop guards, upgraded motor bearings, carefully installed exterior lighting, and dozens of hours of careful training flights, I went to film a large condemned building in town which has some local interest. I did several practice flights in the parking lot, NO abnormal antennas or EMF or cell towers. Everything was double checked and ready to go. I took off, flew around, and everything was go. I approached the building, and notice a lack of response. I still had a video connection, but I lost control of the P2V.It just continued to fly away, with no apparent response to any input. I finally in a last ditch effort turned the power off hoping for a return to home. Nope. It finally hit the building, fell 20-30' and crashed into a roof. Being the building is condemned, there is NO ACCESS to the roof for recovery. It is scheduled to be demolished soon, and there is NO possibility of recovery, even knowing it is probably in pieces anyway. Interestingly, the camera was ejected and fell 5 stories to the ground. The camera is quite dented, and I do not know if it is operable. I tried to view the video, but the file is corrupted. I tried a very sophisticated recovery program, but it only gives me a choppy video which ends well before the initial impact, and no video of the fall and crash.

I have read that some people are getting replacement P2V's from fly aways. I purchased from B & H in December. Does anyone know if and how to apply for a replacement, and how others are apparently getting them?

 

[rfernandez]

if you read my story below you may get an insight i had purchased my P2V from Amazon and i am glad i did because after the shock of watching mine go in the drink and cruise line channel i contacted them got with a customer service and after a 20 minute call i was told they would send me a replacement at no charge Overnight. So big kudos for them and their customer service dept. Now for the possiblebad news.. i have read in other post of dealers basically telling people ( sorry for your Loss not much to do) routine.
DJI customer and support has quite a bit to be desired they are slow in responding , I finally got a response from an email I sent a few days ago. and basically said.. Dear DJI Customer,

Thank you for your email.

We apologize for the delay in our response and would like to ask you to contact our live team. Please call 818 235 0789, M- F 9AM to 5PM.
Best regards,

DJI US support
[email protected]

Dont know that I will get the right answer i want to hear..
AS for B&H ... I feel your pain .of seeing $1200.00 just go up in flames.
good luck brother> i hope they do you right.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7021
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7185

 

[BenDronePilot]

You never know what the cause of your problem could have been. It may have even been related to the work you did on your Phantom. Alternately it could have been major radio interference temporarily disrupting transmitter communication. There are fail safes in the firmware to stop your Phantom in the event of this happening but only after a few seconds which could be too late. Cause aside, the reason for my post is to give you some suggestions for recovering your lost Phantom as it is most likely intact, these are very durable machines. At most you may have minimal and fixable damage. On a side note getting CF props are a waste and only make your Phantom dangerous if it should go out of control near people.

These are some steps you can take to recover your lost Phantom from the roof of the building.

1) You should first try to find out who owns the building or who is in charge of the demolition. Since you already know that there is going to be a demolition there has to be a company in charge of it that can help you gain access to recover your Phantom.

2) The next thing you might try is contacting your local fire department, explain your plight, they may be willing to use a ladder truck to access the roof for you. I know this was done for someone else.

3) Another more exotic measure you can take is try to make some posts in forums to see if anyone with a suitably equipped copter can help use their copter to recover your own. Here's a youtube video with one example of quad copter saving another quad copter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQsG-xauAg

Best of luck in your recovery efforts.

 

[iDrone]

Great vid BendronePilot, people think we're crazy but that's what it's all about!

iDrone :lol:

 

[Migmon]

That sucks, do we have any attorneys here that can see if we can pursue legal action against dji?

 

[Shrimpfarmer]

That sucks, do we have any attorneys here that can see if we can pursue legal action against dji?

I don't know but if you contact Colin Guinn he can advise..........

Sorry, its my poor sense of humour leaking there :roll:


Sorry for your loss of the drone. I think the tips given for recovery are well worth pursuing. If your going to try the fire service why not take a video (anyones video) on your phone to show them what the quad is and does. That normally peaks an interest. You could always offer to make a film of them and their truck (grab a camcorder and film the rescue) etc. Who knows the whole things might feature on the local news. They would look at it as a rescue practice. Imagine had a kid injured themselves in the same spot climbing where he shouldn't. The worst they can say is no.

Good luck getting it back.

 

[Tonyray]

You never know what the cause of your problem could have been. It may have even been related to the work you did on your Phantom. Alternately it could have been major radio interference temporarily disrupting transmitter communication. There are fail safes in the firmware to stop your Phantom in the event of this happening but only after a few seconds which could be too late. Cause aside, the reason for my post is to give you some suggestions for recovering your lost Phantom as it is most likely intact, these are very durable machines. At most you may have minimal and fixable damage. On a side note getting CF props are a waste and only make your Phantom dangerous if it should go out of control near people.

These are some steps you can take to recover your lost Phantom from the roof of the building.

1) You should first try to find out who owns the building or who is in charge of the demolition. Since you already know that there is going to be a demolition there has to be a company in charge of it that can help you gain access to recover your Phantom.

2) The next thing you might try is contacting your local fire department, explain your plight, they may be willing to use a ladder truck to access the roof for you. I know this was done for someone else.

3) Another more exotic measure you can take is try to make some posts in forums to see if anyone with a suitably equipped copter can help use their copter to recover your own. Here's a youtube video with one example of quad copter saving another quad copter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQsG-xauAg

Best of luck in your recovery efforts.

I was thinking the same thing. The company in charge of the demolition is going to have to go through the entire building from top to bottom even the roof before any demolition can be done to make sure no one is inside alive, injured or even dead.

 

[BenDronePilot]

Great vid BendronePilot, people think we're crazy but that's what it's all about!

iDrone :lol:

Yeah, but you know what would be crazier? If someone tries the same thing here and we wind up with two crashed drones on a roof :shock: :?

 

[donniew]

As somewhat of a new owner, is there something *other* than turning off the transmitter that he should've tried while it was still in "fly away" mode and before the impact/crash ?

 

[themosttoys]

As somewhat of a new owner, is there something *other* than turning off the transmitter that he should've tried while it was still in "fly away" mode and before the impact/crash ?

Easy to Monday morning QB. In the heat of the moment I don't know if I would react any differently, but if I could keep my wits about me, I'd switch into ATTI mode. I'd do this to take control away from the GPS. Don't know if it would have made any difference, is just the only other thing I would try. I say this because unless there is a mechanical failure, something is flying the P2V. In my close call experiences (Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc_BSTPyOxA) RTH takes over pretty quickly, if for some reason the home position was not recorded properly or became corrupted, the P2V will take off in an unpredictable direction.

 

[Pull_Up]

There is some anecdotal evidence that switching to atti mode, or if that fails, switching to manual mode may arrest a flyaway. As manual mode offers a rather "adventurous" flight experience you would probably crash anyway, but it might be closer to you than otherwise would be the case.

There have been few full-on flyaways (i.e. not possibly attributable to human error or environmental factors) documented with the Vision, so I wouldn't get hung up about it. Just make sure you always do your best to pre-flight thoroughly and check you haven't cut any corners in terms of waiting for full home lock, always flying with 6+ satellites and landing at the very first sign of unusual behaviour from your aircraft.

 

[Count]

Thanks for the responses, and the condolences! I have contacted the owner by mail, hoping there may still be some possibility of getting into the building. The city will be doing the demo soon, and I plan to contact the Fire Chief to see if He might possibly have it looked for prior to demo. Lastly, I think there is value to some of the HVAC compressors I see on the roof, so it may be possible that the building will be salvaged before demo'd. I will offer a C-note to someone. In the mean time, I ordered another just in case the Colin injunction does limit supply. Regarding the carbon props, I understand them being more dangerous (being more stiff), but why would you not use them? I have not spent much time evaluating them... By the way, here is the building, a rather iconic former showplace, now a dilapidated, hurricane damaged, mold and rat infested eyesore: https://www.google.com/search?q=gla...wYDIBA&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ9QEwAQ&biw=1280&bih=627

 

[OI Photography]

By the way, here is the building, a rather iconic former showplace, now a dilapidated, hurricane damaged, mold and rat infested eyesore:

Wow, I know the glass bank! My family used to have a timeshare condo right across the street on the beach! (Ocean Pines) This was over 20 years ago now, and that bank was well known long before that. Isn't that where the guy who owns (owned?) FLToday/USAToday got started?

 

[Migmon]

check out the thread where i had a successful recovery during a "fly away" situation. my situation may not be at all similar to yours but pretty sure i know what caused it and how to avoid it in the future. basically anytime you land shut it off and reboot b4 take off on a level surface so the sensors know which way is up level and down.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6389&p=48789#p48789