Biggest Tips to Avoid Flyaways/Crashes

[Ratfus]

Hey guys,

This topic, like my last one, may already exist, but I was wondering what were the biggest tips you could provide to avoid flyaways/crashes?

I've been blessed that despite the battery being ejected from my drone, during a crash, only the legs were smashed (at least to my knowledge)-probably could have been much worse. I've ordered new ones. My misstake was not trusting the return to home feature and flying in the wind. Can the return to home feature be trusted? I get leary trusting it, but i've heard DJI will replace the drone if it fails.

I also wasn't sure if the crash caused my drone to sway out of position more frequently than it did before or if that was a result of the low light. I would suspect the low light was causing that because I didn't get any error messages on it.

 

[FL_Mike]

Hey guys,

This topic, like my last one, may already exist, but I was wondering what were the biggest tips you could provide to avoid flyaways/crashes?

I've been blessed that despite the battery being ejected from my drone, during a crash, only the legs were smashed (at least to my knowledge)-probably could have been much worse. I've ordered new ones. My misstake was not trusting the return to home feature and flying in the wind. Can the return to home feature be trusted? I get leary trusting it, but i've heard DJI will replace the drone if it fails.

I also wasn't sure if the crash caused my drone to sway out of position more frequently than it did before or if that was a result of the low light. I would suspect the low light was causing that because I didn't get any error messages on it.

I'm new to this whole thing, only 2 hours of flight so far, so take my answer with that in mind.

From everything I've read about DJI and their warranty, crashes and assistance.... Don't depend on them. Ive had a good online experience so far, but it cost them nothing.

I picked up State Farm insurance for $75 for the year. Unlike the dji care program I can renew the sf insurance. It covers total loss, theft, or damage with full replacement value with no deductible. That has given me a good deal of comfort.

 

[Meta4]

What were the biggest tips you could provide to avoid flyaways/crashes?

It takes about 5 minutes to learn to fly a Phantom - but a lot of practice and experience to become proficient.
Don't let the simplicity make you get too adventurous too early.
There are many things that can go wrong and you need to understand what they are and how to make sure they don't happen to you.

Do your early flights in a large open area, well away from trees, buildings and obstacles.
Be afraid, very afraid of trees, buildings etc. They are involved in most incidents.

Read up on return to home procedures, practise using RTH and cancelling it so you understand how it works and how you can resume control in an RTH situation.
Never launch from a steel or reinforced concrete surface.
Never fly away downwind in strong wind conditions, the return may be difficult or worse.
The wind up high is stronger than what you feel down below.

Can the return to home feature be trusted? I get leary trusting it, but i've heard DJI will replace the drone if it fails

RTH is very reliable - more reliable than a lot of flyers.
There are 3 pages on RTH in the manual and it's probably the most important section to learn.
Not understanding how it works has caused several crashes.
The day you need RTH or find your Phantom in RTh is not the day to learn how it works.
Read the RTH section of the manual and practice.

 

[NM_Quad]

Underestimating the wireless environment is a biggie, especially when flying in cities, over houses, etc. As you fly along, you never know what strong wireless device you will encounter and a strong signal on the same channel as your Phantom will quickly swamp it. No wireless, no control. The average house these days has wireless internet, wireless printers, wireless security systems, the internet-of-things (refrigerators, etc.). The strongest signal wins. Those messages "Strong Interference" or "Loss of Signal" are telling you something. Don't ignore. Bring it home.

Additionally ...
* always fly with fully charged batteries on everything
* learn to fly in ATTI mode before you're forced to
* avoid trees, power lines, etc. like the plague
* never fly in high winds; it's windier the higher you go, often
higher winds than your Phantom can fly.
* rain, snow, fog absorbs your control signals.
* learn to handcatch
* pay attention to your flying; don't get distracted
* plan your flight; familiarize yourself with the area

In short, know your bird, the capabilities and limitations, and always fly conservatively. Good flying to you.

 

[Ratfus]

How can I avoid losing my orientation with the drone (ie. front vs back)? I've had a flyaway with a much cheaper drone and managed to crash my phantom this time because I lost control directional orientation. I was stupid and tried to fix the return to home, not realizing the drone was facing the opposite direction. I corrected at the last second, which likely greatly reduced the damage taken, but not soon enough to avoid damage. Had I just let the drone do its thing, i probably wouldn't be buying/replacing $30 legs now.

I guess smaller movements are probably safer? Maybe lay off the controls, if I fear hitting something. I'll likely stay away from wind altogether, after this last incident. Watching the drone drift, gets me leery (which is the reason I jumped in trying to fix the RTH).

 

[Meta4]

How can I avoid losing my orientation with the drone (ie. front vs back)? I've had a flyaway with a much cheaper drone and managed to crash my phantom this time because I lost control directional orientation. I was stupid and tried to fix the return to home, not realizing the drone was facing the opposite direction. I corrected at the last second, which likely greatly reduced the damage taken, but not soon enough to avoid damage. Had I just let the drone do its thing, i probably wouldn't be buying/replacing $30 legs now.

I guess smaller movements are probably safer? Maybe lay off the controls, if I fear hitting something. I'll likely stay away from wind altogether, after this last incident. Watching the drone drift, gets me leery (which is the reason I jumped in trying to fix the RTH).

Learn to use the radar display.
It shows you exactly which way the Phantom is facing.
Wind isn't a problem - trees, buildings and other obstacles are.
If there's nothing to hit, it's hard to get into trouble.

 

[Fordie]

To regain orientation the best thing to do is to slowly apply forward motion and observe the direction of travel. If the drone moves to your right then apply right yaw slowly until the drone stops moving right. The drone is then travelling towards you. If the drone moves left then apply left yaw until it stops moving left. It then is travelling towards you.
As long as you are flying within visual line of sight (which you should be) then this will always allow you to regain orientation.
I also have a red high intensity led strobe on the rear of mine partly as a warning for other aircraft and secondly to assist on seeing the drone at a distance.
I regularly practice Atti mode in strong winds and use a check list when I fly.
Pre start checklist and post launch check list which includes battery temperature and sensor check.
Anything unusual I shut down and problem solve before I fly again.
A good practice flight is to practice flying a descending box in atti mode and GPS.
It helps to learn orientation and control. Start flying the box at say 20 mtrs height and slowly descend on each leg of the box until you are back where you started but at only 5 meters in hight. Hover at each corner for a few seconds.
If practicing in atti mode, i always hover in position and then allow the drone to drift in the wind to see which way and how fast it drifts initially. Then practice just holding position with the drone facing you, facing away from you and side on etc. Lots of practice in low wind speed until it becomes second nature.
Hope this helps.

 

[Fordie]

To prevent fly aways I would suggest developing a pre flight checklist.
Write one out.
Include things like sensor check, (compass etc) battery temperature and voltage check.
Switch position check (GPS or atti) . Prop security check. Return to home height set and ensure return to home position set.
Number of satellite locked, signal strength, wind speed check.
Once you have actually launched, hover in position and check the sensors and batteries again, check the controls work as expected, look for any signs of instability from the drone. Then and only then start the actual flight. Check return to home position has been recorded again along with the correct height for where you are flying.
Monitor the display during the flight note and deal with warnings.
Any loss of connection then return immediately to deal with it.
Hopefully this helps.

 

[FL_Mike]

How can I avoid losing my orientation with the drone (ie. front vs back)? I've had a flyaway with a much cheaper drone and managed to crash my phantom this time because I lost control directional orientation. I was stupid and tried to fix the return to home, not realizing the drone was facing the opposite direction. I corrected at the last second, which likely greatly reduced the damage taken, but not soon enough to avoid damage. Had I just let the drone do its thing, i probably wouldn't be buying/replacing $30 legs now.

I guess smaller movements are probably safer? Maybe lay off the controls, if I fear hitting something. I'll likely stay away from wind altogether, after this last incident. Watching the drone drift, gets me leery (which is the reason I jumped in trying to fix the RTH).

Meta4 had a great answer, but it was the tech answer.

Stop, make sure you are in p mode. This forces your bird to hover in place. Now, you can yaw right/left or fly forward/back in small increments. Watch your AC, not the screen. This visual line of sight technique is critical. Once you know how a single input moves the AC you can make adjustments to fly in the intended direction.

 

[With The Birds]

Meta4 had a great answer, but it was the tech answer.

Stop, make sure you are in p mode. This forces your bird to hover in place. Now, you can yaw right/left or fly forward/back in small increments. Watch your AC, not the screen. This visual line of sight technique is critical. Once you know how a single input moves the AC you can make adjustments to fly in the intended direction.

Your a technophobe -or- providing some instruction as to how to fly out of a scenario where the tech fails and you only have the RC link absent telemetry? With respect to the later this he great advice. If it gets smaller and doesn’t appear to move sideways your flying in the wrong direction.

 

[FL_Mike]

Your a technophobe -or- providing some instruction as to how to fly out of a scenario where the tech fails and you only have the RC link absent telemetry? With respect to the later this he great advice. If it gets smaller and doesn’t appear to move sideways your flying in the wrong direction.

 

[msinger]

How can I avoid losing my orientation with the drone (ie. front vs back)?

Here are a few videos that explain how to use the attitude indicator in DJI GO:

 

[Wilbur]

I recently played around with seeing what happens when you turn off the app/smartphone, then saw what happens when you turn off the controller. I think it's important to not freak out if your screen goes black. The first time it happened to me, I panicked a little bit. But now I realize that even if that does happen, I still usually have a strong controller signal.

 

[Sagebrush]

Don't take a long flight downwind and expect your bird to have enough battery to get home with a headwind. (And assume the wind is nearly double at elevation.)

I see this situation again and again on this forum.

SB

 

[Ratfus]

I kept the drone in my line of sight, so I had plenty of juice to get home. In fact, the drone was overhead with 30% remaining.

I ended up seeing it veer away a bit (probably from the wind) and so tried to manually adjust it overhead again. Also, I was 30-40 yards away from any trees; the field was one of the largest around. Unfortunately, I flew off because I lost my orientation. In a situation like that, is my best bet to lay off the controls and allow the drone's return to home click?

I think I just freaked out because it was so high up and it drifted a bit from the gust of wind and overcompensated in the wrong direction. Also, should I re-calibrate everything after the crash, even though it doesn't prompt me to do so?

Sorry for all my questions, just really trying to avoid another accident.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

HOT TIP: If you get any kind of magnetic warning on take off, LAND Do not continue to fly even though the message went away as there is a chance you will slip into Atty Mode. So find another spot to take off from or do it by hand if need be but do not continue to fly .

This will save you a lot of problems.
Phantomrain.org
Approved Vendor

 

[Meta4]

In a situation like that, is my best bet to lay off the controls and allow the drone's return to home click?

It's important to have practiced with RTH to understand what it's doing and how it does it.
Get some practice in a large open area.
You can cancel RTH at any time and resume manual control.

Also, should I re-calibrate everything after the crash, even though it doesn't prompt me to do so?

If the Phantom hovers in place without wanting to slowly rotate and if it flies straight and stable, everything is fine and no recalibration would be needed.

 

[skiptv]

You spent $500 to $2000 or more on your drone. Here is a tip, take lessons and learn how to fly correctly and safely. There are some very legitimate flying schools and instructors around the USA now. Charging from $500 to $3000 depending on what you want to do with your drone and how proficient you want to be. No disrespect to any of the other post here, but you can't learn how to "fly a drone in 5 minutes" Just look at all the "newbie" videos on youtube and watch all those 5 min. pros fly their drone into a house or their face. Additionally when you ask 20 different people you get 20 different answers, all you have to do is review all the posts here to see how scattered across so many topics your question becomes, which just creates a bunch of noise for you to sort through.

 

[ikopta]

Hey guys,

This topic, like my last one, may already exist, but I was wondering what were the biggest tips you could provide to avoid flyaways/crashes?

I've been blessed that despite the battery being ejected from my drone, during a crash, only the legs were smashed (at least to my knowledge)-probably could have been much worse. I've ordered new ones. My misstake was not trusting the return to home feature and flying in the wind. Can the return to home feature be trusted? I get leary trusting it, but i've heard DJI will replace the drone if it fails.

I also wasn't sure if the crash caused my drone to sway out of position more frequently than it did before or if that was a result of the low light. I would suspect the low light was causing that because I didn't get any error messages on it.

All about pre-plan and have a check list. Wrote this, it may help.
Top 5 Ways to Prevent DJI Drone Flyaways - ikopta

 

[Neon Euc]

Best tip

*Keep asking questions here
*Keep flying your drone
*Test RTH, press that button. Nothing to fear BUT if your too close (20 metres I think) to the drone, the RTH feature doesn't work
*Don't be afraid to test every button on the app (if it's risky then DJI wouldn't put it there as it will cost them millions in claimed drones being broken due to their app)
*If you have trouble picturing what people are explaining to your questions, then YouTube it. I do find that way more easier to understand rather then reading about it
*Always give "likes" when people help you out, it cleans the soul and makes you a better flyer *cough cough* [emoji6]

But in truth, the best way to fly... Is to go out and fly. Oh.... One thing tho...

Make sure you know your distance in metres and feet. Believe me I didn't know if 90 metres was low or high. It's only flying near a tower block that I looked at the height and saw it was 90 metres. Use a landmark near you, see how high it is, then use that as a marker in your head so in future you will be better at estimating what height is in drone terms [emoji6]