Describe Your Worst Near Disaster

[FrankB]

Was experimenting yesterday with the Phantom on a big field when suddenly, it headed into some trees. Before I could correct, it hit the top of one fir tree and started to tumble down through the branches.

Then suddenly, much to my amazement, it came into an open area, flipped itself over, stabilized, and then just stopped there and hovered. Couldn't believe it! Now I do have the prop guards mounted, so the initial hit didn't damage the propellors- which I think was the biggest factor that prevented a disaster.

 

[boat chaser]

That's awesome! I had my first scary moment and also quite embarrassing. I went away on a camping trip 3 hours out of town and shortly after I got there I decided to give it a go infront of a couple of ladies who had never seen anything like it. So I did a quick calibration and all seemed good, when ready to go I planted it on the takeoff to impress the ladies and to my shock the phantom went into some sort of possessed thrashing around and then slammed off the brick paving infront of the now laughing ladies. Ends up I didn't import the parameters correctly which I fixed using my mobile as a wifi hotspot. Then proceeded to take a heap of footage which I edited and posted in the video section of this site labelled wakeboard boat chase.

These things certainly take a good beating.

Do a test flight after any firmware updates before trying to impress.

 

[Roadkilt]

Two days ago I shot a day of gold panning in a nearby river, the gopro was on the quad and held for underwater shots. My last shot was up high, I got disorientated and flew back into trees. Long story short, the phantom got shook out, smashed on some rocks, flung the gopro into the river and floated downstream held up by the floats I attached to the skids. By a miracle I grabbed the phantom before it disappeared downstream, I fished out the gopro from the bottom. I dried out the phantom with a blow dryer on low for an hour, fixed two lost screws on the skids, reset the IMU three times, compass etc. fresh props, rebalanced, motors looked ok and the quad was back in the air! Well built and tough!

Here's the video I shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET04WFOjwPo&sns=em