Crash from 80 feet, total destruction

[MystryBox]

Sorry but having a flight-stick combination that self-destructs your craft IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. I would be demanding a replacement if it were me as this is a flat out design flaw. Yes it is "nearly impossible" to happen but clearly it does happen as we have several examples in this forum. I nearly did it myself doing a corkscrew decent to avoid VRS (a move I commonly do on my smaller drone that descends fast). Luckily I caught myself but the point remains THERE CANNOT BE AN OTHERWISE HARMLESS FLIGHT-STICK POSITION THAT INSTANTLY DESTROYS YOUR CRAFT. This is like having a rare combination of steering wheel and brake position that instantly blows up your car!

I can't believe some people in here are defending such an asinine design! There is no argument for this.

For those that say "it's impossible to hit those stick positions in normal flight":
This thread (and others) prove that you are mistaken.

For those that say "read the manual":
It's largely irrelevant that the manual documents the bad design. A bad design is a bad design. Being aware of the bad design and actually always being able to avoid making a mistake due to the bad design are two different things. THE DESIGN IS BAD--thus mistakes are likely to be made (as this thread proves). There should be no way to destroy your craft by putting your flight sticks in a slightly odd position for a moment that would otherwise be completely harmless.

For those that say "there must be a quick shut off":
Yes, there should be. But it shouldn't be a position on the farking flight control sticks!

I've never used any of the CSC commands and I WANT A WAY TO TURN THEM OFF--THEY ARE A BAD DESIGN. Every time I fly, in the back of my mind I'm thinking about avoiding accidentally shutting off my drone and it does not make for a comfortable flight experience.

 

[ianwood]

That "bad design" has been part of 3 generations of product and countless others. You're worrying about something that will never happen unless you fly like an absolute lunatic.

 

[MystryBox]

That "bad design" has been part of 3 generations of product and countless others. You're worrying about something that will never happen unless you fly like an absolute lunatic.

It's irrelevant if the bad design has been around for a while, if anything that makes it worse. This thread and the others reporting similar problems show it can and does happen. As sales of this product increase and more people have to deal with this bad design there will be more and more accidental destruction reports. How many people have to accidentally destroy their drones before you would admit it's a bad design?

 

[Marlin009]

Nobody said it was impossible. Funny post though.

 

[ianwood]

Hundreds of thousands of flights have been done without any issues. I don't think the design will be changing anytime soon.

 

[MystryBox]

Hundreds of thousands of flights have been done without any issues. I don't think the design will be changing anytime soon.

It's not the successful fights that are the measure, it's the failures. It's a rare problem but still a problem as this thread and others like it show.

 

[ianwood]

It's not the successful fights that are the measure, it's the failures. It's a rare problem but still a problem as this thread and others like it show.

A few incidents of pilot error will not satisfy the criteria for a design change. You're worrying needlessly. Never once have I been concerned about an accidental CSC. Not when I first started flying and not now.

P.S. I don't say pilot error to be mean to those that this happened to. It sucks for them. I get it. But it's in the manual and it's all over the forums. And it's nearly impossible to do accidentally.

 

[MystryBox]

A few incidents of pilot error will not satisfy the criteria for a design change. You're worrying needlessly. Never once have I been concerned about an accidental CSC. Not when I first started flying and not now.

P.S. I don't say pilot error to be mean to those that this happened to. It sucks for them. I get it. But it's in the manual and it's all over the forums. And it's nearly impossible to do accidentally.

Speaking as a customer, shifting the blame to the customer by calling "pilot error" on this sort of thing is an insulting cop out. Yes, strictly speaking it is pilot error because the pilot did something they shouldn't have and it destroyed their craft. However what they did was not something anyone would expect should destroy the craft in any sane user interface.

Speaking as a software engineering director, this is a mission critical interface problem. In my business ONE of these sorts of failures could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and the end of the company. I realize DJI only makes toys but given there are actual failures happening here, if it were me I'd have the project lead in my office explaining how this was going to be prevented going forward.

 

[Meta4]

I've never used any of the CSC commands and I WANT A WAY TO TURN THEM OFF--THEY ARE A BAD DESIGN.
Every time I fly, in the back of my mind I'm thinking about avoiding accidentally shutting off my drone and it does not make for a comfortable flight experience.

This is a common response from new flyers but for some reason you don't get it from experienced Phantom owners.
It really isn't the big issue you imagine.

 

[Fyod]

That assumption is false. As you learn yaw, possibly slow it with a mod, you find that sticks toward the middle are for circling an object counter clockwise. In that shot you could choose to corkscrew down and back, thus shutting motors off in mid air.
I agree there should be an option to turn this off, at least in Naza mode.

 

[Accuracy One]

I am a new owner/pilot, and when the dealer was warning me not to descend faster than 2-meters per second or I could turn off the props and crash it. I instantly thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard of, I called it the "Buy A New Drone Feature". As soon as someone is smart enough to update this program or the controller I would be a customer. The drone is a hundred times easier to fly than I expected, and everything on it is beyond amazing, EXCEPT this feature. Why is it not a separate button that is only active when the throttle is at the lowest or idle setting or something?

 

[ianwood]

Speaking as a software engineering director, this is a mission critical interface problem. In my business ONE of these sorts of failures could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and the end of the company.

Nothing in the Phantom's design remotely meets any mission critical criteria. Zero redundancy, a minimal amount of exception handling and a light dusting of QA. That's all you get for $1,300. It's best effort.

The CSC is documented functionality as designed as it has been for 3 generations of product -- a safety measure to prevent personal injury using a stick combination so aggressive, no sane person would dare do it in normal flying.

I am a new owner/pilot, and when the dealer was warning me not to descend faster than 2-meters per second or I could turn off the props and crash it. I instantly thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard of, I called it the "Buy A New Drone Feature". As soon as someone is smart enough to update this program or the controller I would be a customer. The drone is a hundred times easier to fly than I expected, and everything on it is beyond amazing, EXCEPT this feature. Why is it not a separate button that is only active when the throttle is at the lowest or idle setting or something?

Your dealer is incorrect. You can descend at full throttle down if you like. To shut the motors off in flight, you need to descend at 100%, yaw at 100%, pitch at 100% and roll at 100% all at the same time.

Two full deflections at the same time is aggressive. Three is extreme. Four is not advised.

 

[fhk]

I love it. Do it both ways, and add little spares or holes so that you can block the bird in a certain slow rotation.

Just wow for the simplicity of this hack ☺

Good idea, Ill modify my design to incorporate stops for slow rotation and post!

 

[Meta4]

I am a new owner/pilot, and when the dealer was warning me not to descend faster than 2-meters per second or I could turn off the props and crash it. I instantly thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard of, I called it the "Buy A New Drone Feature". As soon as someone is smart enough to update this program or the controller I would be a customer. The drone is a hundred times easier to fly than I expected, and everything on it is beyond amazing, EXCEPT this feature. Why is it not a separate button that is only active when the throttle is at the lowest or idle setting or something?

Your dealer needs to read the manual himself.
What he told you is quite wrong.
I recommend reading the manual for yourself and not trusting him at all for important details.

 

[Ezookiel]

Your dealer isn't wrong. He's not talking about the csc, he's referring to locking the left stick into the down position, and in the assistant software that can be set to cut the engines, or to "intelligent" (or something like that) which will cut the engines only when no further descent is detected. If set to cut engines, instead of intelligent, my understanding is that 100% down (locked into the notch) can stop the engines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Meta4]

No .. the dealer is wrong.
There's no locking left stick on the P3 .. that feature is only on the late P2 models.
There's no assistant either for the P3.
Descending at full speed will not stop the motors.
It is quite safe and is the standard descent procedure.

 

[bbfpv]

There's something very similar to mid-flight CSC in nature. It's called natural selection.

 

[MystryBox]

Nothing in the Phantom's design remotely meets any mission critical criteria. Zero redundancy, a minimal amount of exception handling and a light dusting of QA. That's all you get for $1,300. It's best effort.

The CSC is documented functionality as designed as it has been for 3 generations of product -- a safety measure to prevent personal injury using a stick combination so aggressive, no sane person would dare do it in normal flying.

"Mission critical" as far as the function of the drone in concerned. Obviously a toy is not a plane or space craft.

As for the functionality being around for 3 generations of product... the function of the flight control sticks have been around a lot longer than that. The CSC shut down overlays a valid flight control command--flight commands that already have well defined meaning that go back farther than phantom drones have existed. You don't take a user interface control with very well defined meaning and give new, completely unrelated meaning to it. You especially don't assign meaning to it that can destroy the craft when it is used accidentally when the primary function was meant to be used! This design is so asinine it would make a great textbook example of bad UI design. That anyone tries to defend it is a reminder to me how most people have no concept of UI design.

 

[bbfpv]

"Mission critical" as far as the function of the drone in concerned. Obviously a toy is not a plane or space craft.

As for the functionality being around for 3 generations of product... the function of the flight control sticks have been around a lot longer than that. The CSC shut down overlays a valid flight control command--flight commands that already have well defined meaning that go back farther than phantom drones have existed. You don't take a user interface control with very well defined meaning and give new, completely unrelated meaning to it. You especially don't assign meaning to it that can destroy the craft when it is used accidentally when the primary function was meant to be used! This design is so asinine it would make a great textbook example of bad UI design. That anyone tries to defend it is a reminder to me how most people have no concept of UI design.

So if I drive 100mph and aggressively yank the steering wheel thus flipping my car, is the manufacturer to blame for poor UI design? After all, using a steering wheel to turn is a valid driving command.

 

[MystryBox]

So if I drive 100mph and aggressively yank the steering wheel thus flipping my car, is the manufacturer to blame for poor UI design? After all, using a steering wheel to turn is a valid driving command.

No, the drone steering command that is overridden by the CSC shutdown command is a valid command and not one that would endanger the craft. The failure is coming from from the alternate functionality added to steering that is accidentally getting triggered. So in your example it would be if you made a safe and valid (but rare) turn of the steering wheel and press of the brake and the car decided instead of turning while braking you will now shift into reverse and as a result blows out your transmission.

The car manufacturer might put in the manual that a rare combination of steering and breaking will put the car into reverse (even when it is driving forward which will destroy the car!), but it's still a stupid design.