Crazy game of catch...

[rbhamilton]

So my drone and I went to Lake Havesu's fireworks festival. I wasn't sure it would be welcome but there were at least 3 or 4 drones in the air at all time so what's one more, right?

I get some amazing footage and then suddenly the controls go dead. Up/Down nothing. I can't switch it to ATTI or even do a RTH. I've got full telemetry and on-screen display. So I'm thinking my TX has died. Or possible the Rx inside the drone? Still don't know. I'll be opening it up today. Hopefully it's the Tx because I want a new one with the fancy dial.

My good little drone decides to come home at this point. I see "Returning Home" on the screen. Awesome! I took off from inside a wide open baseball diamond so gigantic landing spot. But as I've been flying a crowd has gathered around me peppering me with questions and asking to look at the screen, etc. Which I don't usually mind but now I've got an out of control drone and they won't go away. The drone is on auto-land into a crowd of onlookers. Yikes.

When the drone is at about 30' I walked across the field and as I'd hoped the kids walk with me leaving the landing zone clear. But woops... the drone suddenly shoots up to 175' and it moves in my directions and starts to land again. Regardless of where I go, this process repeats and repeats. Just as it looks like it's about to land I move back and it shoots back up to 175'. Super frustrating game of "catch me if you can".

Suddenly I clue in. I've got dynamic home point turned on. My RTH height is 175' to make sure I clear trees. Every time I move enough feet my cell phone sends my new Home location up to the drone over the WiFi connection. D'oh! I'm constantly resetting the home point!! The drone does a fresh RTH including going up to 175 feet, move 10 feet over and start landing again. Geeez!

Rather than continue fumbling around or trying to figure out how to turn off Dynamic Home or whatever I switched off my WiFi and cell. The drone then descended into the gathered crowd of kids. You would think all those buzzing blades of death would scatter them but I guess not. Fortunately I'm tall enough to hand catch well above their heads. Good grief what a mess! But all's well that ends well.

The kids dispersed when a very large concussion shell smashed into a nearby car fracturing a window and blistering it's paint. So I guess I wasn't the only one having technical issues at the festival. But no injuries in either incident.

Here's a picture of an emergency worker taping up the shattered window - and to repeat - this was caused by a rogue fireworks shell NOT my drone:

 

[max]

Hahaha great story. Hope you can fix her up

 

[Jason in TN]

We need to see some video of those fire works if you got some. Glad you got it back and every thing turned out ok for you.

 

[justin00]

So controls still don't work?

Same thing happened to me... but problem was 'fixed' after turning Phantom off and back on again after it RTH by its self. Hasn't happened since.

Would of felt more comfortable if something was wrong that I could of pointed to..... been heeeaaappss of flights since so I am not concerned it will happen again.

 

[rbhamilton]

So controls still don't work?

Too busy unloading the car and dealing with the jet skis and stuff. All I had time for was to see if I could get it to fire up. The drone appears in perfect condition and powers up fine. Video works, telemetry too. But the drone doesn't respond to the remote at all. Can't get it to start the props. I'll have to open up the controller and see if something's come apart with the antenna mod. If that's not it I'll open up the case and see if the antenna leads are hooked up. Past that I have no idea what to do next.

The video turned out really well. 2 days on the Colorado river and Lake Havasu plus fireworks every evening. I had the GoPro and my Google Glass running plus the drone. Really awesome shots. I'll post a link when I have some time to edit it a bit.

One interesting thing... I did get a chance to preview the new DJI Phantom Jet Ski. Here it is doing a RTC Float Away.

 

[gfo315]

A little bit off-topic question - if you allow me.
How did you fly above fireworks?! I mean, what if one of these hit your baby (especially when it's RTHing and you don't have any control)

I know these fireworks do have a max height, but WHAT IF? You looked pretty close to them.

 

[general01]

Having the controller die has to be the worst feeling ever

 

[rbhamilton]

How did you fly above fireworks?

Well what kind of ***** pilot flies ABOVE the fireworks? You fly directly INTO the fireworks, hover and cross your fingers.

By the way this was the WPA show. Western Pyrotechnical Association show. More of a pyrotechnical enthusiast group. Drones were welcome. I wouldn't suggest you try this at your local 4th of July event.

As for the loss of control - I changed the batteries, tried rebinding the RC and copter. Then I opened the controller and drone cases but couldn't see anything wrong. Don't have any way to check for RF issues so I just ordered a new upgraded controller from Amazon. It's got 1 day delivery on Prime in Phoenix so I should have it tomorrow (Tuesday). If that fixes things - great - if not I guess it's a drone problem somewhere. I'll let you know tomorrow.

 

[MapMaker53]

A little bit off-topic question - if you allow me.
How did you fly above fireworks?! I mean, what if one of these hit your baby (especially when it's RTHing and you don't have any control)
I know these fireworks do have a max height, but WHAT IF? You looked pretty close to them.

Sounds like they are more likely to hit your parked car.

 

[rbhamilton]

Ok... here's the video. Filming was a bit jerky because... well I was scared silly flying my little guy into that mess AND I was fighting a failing Receiver board. But it still turned out reasonably well I think. I included commercial music so you may see Google ads along the bottom or "unavailable" messages depending on the deals Google has made to play the song in your country.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdatBzUKC2M[/youtube]

 

[Clipper707]

I really enjoyed that video. Thanks for posting!

 

[eseckinger]

Nice vid. Do you remember hover altitude by chance? I want to do this soon.

 

[max]

Ok... here's the video. Filming was a bit jerky because... well I was scared silly flying my little guy into that mess AND I was fighting a failing Receiver board. But it still turned out reasonably well I think. I included commercial music so you may see Google ads along the bottom or "unavailable" messages depending on the deals Google has made to play the song in your country.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdatBzUKC2M[/youtube]

Very nice! Love the the credits hahaha. I should post my fireworks video...

 

[phantomi]

Nice! You had the best Fireworks point of view, and we too. Thanks for share. Do you plan on keep the dynamic home on?

 

[dalebb]

cool

 

[dalebb]

very cool, but I want to know how you get clear night time video when I get white speckles in the dark spots?

 

[rbhamilton]

Lol... lots of questions.

K... dynamic home point is going away. I'm sure I'll turn it back on some day. Maybe when I'm in a boat or something.

Height was from 300 through 500 feet. That puts you in the thick of things for the 3, 4, 5 and most of the 6" shells but keeps you out of range of the big boys.

- 3 to 4 inch shells travel to about 300 - 400 feet.
- 5-6 inch shells travel 400 - 600 feet
- 8 inch shells travel 800 -1000 feet
- 10 - 12 inch shells travel 1000 - 1300 feet.

Fireworks is bright enough to show up well. I'm sure yours would look just as good.

Part way through filming on night #2 the drone became totally unresponsive and did a RTH. It might have been a coincidental failure or it could have been hit. I think a concussion shell might have done it some harm. Anyway it's all fixed now.

 

[Joeg1937]

Terrific video ....