Well, today I had an incident with my Phantom 3 Pro. I have been flying this particular P3P for about 2 1/2 years now. But today it gave a little scare. I took off in the open desert with about a 92% battery charge. I then headed out on a long flight. I maneuvered around a bit and then went out about 5,000 feet while still show about 80% battery left. I flew around out there until the battery was down to about 40% and then hit the RTH button to let the drone come home on its own. I was up to about 100 feet in altitude as the drone set a direct course for home. I verified that the telemetry was showing a decreasing range, so I knew it was coming home okay. I decided to manually lower the altitude a little and went down to about 50 feet. About half way home I saw the "Low Battery" warning flash on the tablet, but I did not hear the verbal warning. A quick check of the monitor showed the drone at altitude and coming home. No need to hold the controller in my hands, so I set it down on my Quad and just waited for that familiar sound of bees coming at me. However, after a short time I realized that the drone should have been home by now. So I picked up the table and looked at the display. I was shocked at what I saw. Instead of bushes passing by below, I was looking at a still shot of bushes above the drone and flowers directly in front of the drone. It was on the ground!
Here is what happened. By mistake I had the volume turned all the way down on the Tablet and did not hear or see the "Critical Battery" warning. The battery had reached the 10% critical level and the drone landed on its own. Fortunately, I was recording the flight and I had the Prop guards on. It narrowly missed a bush when it landed still about 2,000 feet from home, but otherwise made a perfectly safe landing. I was able to follow the GPS tract on the Tablet and was able to quickly find and recover the drone without any trouble. I will be more careful next time. Below is the flight video of the whole incident from the Drone's point of view.
https://youtu.be/kW2MjKSpfOQ
Here is what happened. By mistake I had the volume turned all the way down on the Tablet and did not hear or see the "Critical Battery" warning. The battery had reached the 10% critical level and the drone landed on its own. Fortunately, I was recording the flight and I had the Prop guards on. It narrowly missed a bush when it landed still about 2,000 feet from home, but otherwise made a perfectly safe landing. I was able to follow the GPS tract on the Tablet and was able to quickly find and recover the drone without any trouble. I will be more careful next time. Below is the flight video of the whole incident from the Drone's point of view.
https://youtu.be/kW2MjKSpfOQ