Another P2 on v3.0.4 lost at sea

[damoncooper]

I feel your pain....

Sana

Thanks. First post of empathy. I appreciate that

The issues with even "happy" users with drift, J-hook, compass, TBE etc are really unfortunate. DJI needs to expand their engineering and QA teams IMO and institute a world-wide beta program for any new software/firmware, or expand it if they have one.

It's only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured as a result of these defects and that will be bad for everyone and the hobby itself.

You are most welcomed, lol, btw damon, where you using propguards at the time of the accident?

Sana

No prop guards no.

 

[Gustavo10]

...to blame the firmware is baseless

...the 'death wobble', if you are trying to evoke such in the recent common vernacular for VRS, has NOTHING to do with firmware. Its more about understanding the physics of flight dynamics, judgement, and more importantly responsibilty.

Well, I was surprised to see so many reports of "death wobbles". Last May 16 I lost my P2 non vision in Brighton, the seaside town in the UK. It was a perfect day, clear sky, hardly any wind. Batteries fully charged, gyro set, did all my preflight checks, and took off on GPS with plenty of satellites acquired. I sent the P2 towards the Victorian pier, overflew it for a minute or so and made a turn that would bring it back to the edge of the seafront and the beach where I was. The P2 made the semicircle but I guess there was a little wind at that height of about 40 meters and it drifted some 150 or 200 meters inland. It was in sight and I applied a little more throttle to make it arrive sooner. All was fine until, suddenly, it started to wobble and fall, not like a stone but more like a leaf from a tree. Mi instinct was to throttle it trying to raise it, but it was to no avail. After perhaps three or four seconds it disappeared from view behind some buildings. My wife and I spent the next three hours looking for it, but no one had seen it fall. Some friends are still trying.
The important question is why did this happen. I have no clues. I've learned on these pages about the wobbling produced by incorrect settings of the firmware (I still had the original ones), but I never had any trouble in the previous two weeks. So something else must have occurred and I can't think what. The motors hadn't stopped, or it would have dropped much faster. And quadcopters can't glide.
The result is that now I have lost confidence in quads as these things can destroy property or even kill. After all, a quad is a machine and machines can fail. But I can't prove anything because my P2 is presumably lost.
Does anybody have any idea of the possible reasons, after--trust me--discarding wrong firmware settings, bad propellers and extremely idiotic pilot errors?
My deepest thanks in advance.

 

[ianwood]

Both of these sound characteristic of VRS to me. It is also possible there was an electro-mechanical defect. There is nothing in either of these two incidents that suggests anything firmware based is to blame. And pilot accounts are often too inaccurate and emotional to be useful. Video is the most useful evidence there is short of a CAN bus data log. It's a good case for a DVR if not a tracker.

 

[damoncooper]

Follow up: got a call the other morning from a guy who said "I found your drone".

He had been boating in the area that I lost my quad for many years he said and the other day he looked down and saw something at the bottom he hadn't seen before. He fished it out somehow and found my number on a sticker I had put on it.

It was pretty much a writeoff he said but I explained how I'd very much like to get the GoPro chip and the FlyTrex chip back to see if I could figure out what went wrong and sent him instructions on how to extract the memory chips.

I don't know if the cards will work after a week in the ocean but we'll see.

Closure is good

 

[wkf94025]

It's a good case for a DVR if not a tracker.

Got both for two reasons: (1) aid in lost model recovery; (2) crash post-mortem (DVR, not tracker).

Kelly

 

[N017RW]

It's a good story too!

Can you photograph the forensic process?

To be the optimist, the plastic pieces are OK, no?

Part it out or leave it as-is as an 'artifact' for future story telling.

 

[damoncooper]

It's a good story too!

Can you photograph the forensic process?

To be the optimist, the plastic pieces are OK, no?

Part it out or leave it as-is as an 'artifact' for future story telling.

Yeah, I told the guy to just junk it, but mail me the memory chips if he could get them out. I haven't received them back yet but I offered to send him $50 for his trouble and postage.

 

[N017RW]

I see.

I assumed you lost it close to home.

 

[Fyod]

Were you flying with prop guards by any chance?

 

[TodayTrader]

Follow up: got a call the other morning from a guy who said "I found your drone".

He had been boating in the area that I lost my quad for many years he said and the other day he looked down and saw something at the bottom he hadn't seen before. He fished it out somehow and found my number on a sticker I had put on it.

It was pretty much a writeoff he said but I explained how I'd very much like to get the GoPro chip and the FlyTrex chip back to see if I could figure out what went wrong and sent him instructions on how to extract the memory chips.

I don't know if the cards will work after a week in the ocean but we'll see.

Closure is good

LUCKY! I am still searching for mine. (See lost phantom 2 in the bay thread) I would love to have closure as well