Hello everyone, I'm new here on the forum and glad to be among fellow Phantom Pilots. 
TLDR;
Flying slow and steady, my P4 crashed into a tree branch that I didn't see due to bright daylight conditions. The Obstacle Avoidance system didn't detect it either, so the P4 continued to fly straight into the tree branch. The resulting crash has cracked the rear right arm of the P4, and now at times it flies unpredictably, drifting left and right, and not maintaining steady altitude.
Does DJI treat Obstacle Avoidance as a failsafe method to avoid oncoming obstacles? Is this something that they would consider for a case for a replacement or a warranty repair?
Long version:
A couple weeks ago I was out flying my P4 in a massive national park outside Melbourne, Victoria. There is an old decommissioned trestle bridge that is now part of a short hiking loop. I wanted to get some footage flying the path over the trestle bridge and continuing on into the bushwalk. It was a clear and sunny hot summer day (here in the Southern Hemisphere), and there isn't any restricted airspace for nearly 80km.
During my preflight, everything checked out okay, except it took a little while for my P4 to pick up enough satellites for GPS flight. Once it locked onto about 10 satellites, it was good to go. Once I got the bird up in the air, it seemed to be drifting a bit like it had a couple pints. I thought that maybe it was the wind and so I proceeded with caution to fly over the bridge path.
*I must emphasise that it was VERY very bright*
After a little bit of course correction while flying over the bridge, it began to fly normal. I figured that it must have been from something on the bridge, or maybe some wind over the top.
About 50m past the bridge, the path continues on down a hall of trees. I proceeded forward at a slow-medium pace.
All the sudden the view on my iPad from the P4 starts going spastic and it appeared that there was a large tree branch that it became tangled with.
Much to my dismay, neither myself or the P4 had seen a large pine bough and flew straight into it, eventually crashing to the ground. It was so bright out that I couldn't see anything on the screen in front of the drone that looked like an obstacle.
I ran like hell to try to save it from the tree, but by the time I got to it it had fallen out of the tree and crash landed from about 2m up (6ft). The battery had popped out and the right rear propeller had broken. I was really surprised that this had happened, and when I had seen the broken propeller I got really stressed out. I brought it back to my car and gave it a good look over and discovered that the right rear arm took the entire weight of the impact, and it has a compression crack on the right rear arm at the location of the air vent on the bottom side.
Needless to say, I'm extremely distraught by this.
Is the Obstacle Avoidance system something that DJI will guarantee to warranty malfunction damage? Or is it just a novelty that sometimes works or doesn't, and a crash resulting in its inability to spot an obstacle is something I'm stuck paying for?
Thanks in advance.
Kevin
TLDR;
Flying slow and steady, my P4 crashed into a tree branch that I didn't see due to bright daylight conditions. The Obstacle Avoidance system didn't detect it either, so the P4 continued to fly straight into the tree branch. The resulting crash has cracked the rear right arm of the P4, and now at times it flies unpredictably, drifting left and right, and not maintaining steady altitude.
Does DJI treat Obstacle Avoidance as a failsafe method to avoid oncoming obstacles? Is this something that they would consider for a case for a replacement or a warranty repair?
Long version:
A couple weeks ago I was out flying my P4 in a massive national park outside Melbourne, Victoria. There is an old decommissioned trestle bridge that is now part of a short hiking loop. I wanted to get some footage flying the path over the trestle bridge and continuing on into the bushwalk. It was a clear and sunny hot summer day (here in the Southern Hemisphere), and there isn't any restricted airspace for nearly 80km.
During my preflight, everything checked out okay, except it took a little while for my P4 to pick up enough satellites for GPS flight. Once it locked onto about 10 satellites, it was good to go. Once I got the bird up in the air, it seemed to be drifting a bit like it had a couple pints. I thought that maybe it was the wind and so I proceeded with caution to fly over the bridge path.
*I must emphasise that it was VERY very bright*
After a little bit of course correction while flying over the bridge, it began to fly normal. I figured that it must have been from something on the bridge, or maybe some wind over the top.
About 50m past the bridge, the path continues on down a hall of trees. I proceeded forward at a slow-medium pace.
All the sudden the view on my iPad from the P4 starts going spastic and it appeared that there was a large tree branch that it became tangled with.
Much to my dismay, neither myself or the P4 had seen a large pine bough and flew straight into it, eventually crashing to the ground. It was so bright out that I couldn't see anything on the screen in front of the drone that looked like an obstacle.
I ran like hell to try to save it from the tree, but by the time I got to it it had fallen out of the tree and crash landed from about 2m up (6ft). The battery had popped out and the right rear propeller had broken. I was really surprised that this had happened, and when I had seen the broken propeller I got really stressed out. I brought it back to my car and gave it a good look over and discovered that the right rear arm took the entire weight of the impact, and it has a compression crack on the right rear arm at the location of the air vent on the bottom side.
Needless to say, I'm extremely distraught by this.
Is the Obstacle Avoidance system something that DJI will guarantee to warranty malfunction damage? Or is it just a novelty that sometimes works or doesn't, and a crash resulting in its inability to spot an obstacle is something I'm stuck paying for?
Thanks in advance.
Kevin
