First Drone Flight. First Clash.

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My P3P was delivered yesterday. Spent some time getting it all set up. Over the last couple weeks I spent a lot of time reading and watching vids to familiarize myself with the quad.

Got it up without a hitch. I was trying to go slow and take it easy. Felt my 1 acre back yard was enough wide open space but the trees and power lines suddenly made it feel very small. I had it up for a good 10 minutes and as I was trying to bring it back to land, I panicked as I neared some trees, it went into some branches and came down. Luckily a smaller tree lent a hand and broke its fall. The battery popped out and it sustained a small "dent" in the shell. But I went though the recalibration process and I was back up and running just fine in 15 minutes.

Definitely shook me up, watching a $2000 investment tumble to the ground.

Lots to learn.
 
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I thought you meant a "clash" with a neighbor or police.
 
Unboxed mine yesterday and used last night to update firmware and play with the simulator.

Got 3 flights in today between battery charges. Flight #4 I went to a friend's house. Got distracted by his dog trying to jump up and bite the Phantom and I hit a tree. It flipped upside down and fell about 8 feet to the ground landing on the (still spinning) rotors. Initiated a shutdown immediately.

It knocked the IMU and compass out of calibration and caused the shell to come unseated very slightly. Popped that back in, cleaned off the dirt and grass, re-calibrated everything, and took it back into a hover. Did fine, but it started raining and I called it a day.

Which makes me wonder - what is a thorough check-up process one should follow post-crash? Surely more than just the "hover" test.
 
Definitely shook me up, watching a $2000 investment tumble to the ground.

Lots to learn.

We've all been there.... the key to remember is you can always take your hands off the sticks and it will just hover until you catch your breath :) Be thankful the damage wasn't worse... shake it off... and fly again as soon as possible.
 
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Unboxed mine yesterday and used last night to update firmware and play with the simulator.

Got 3 flights in today between battery charges. Flight #4 I went to a friend's house. Got distracted by his dog trying to jump up and bite the Phantom and I hit a tree. It flipped upside down and fell about 8 feet to the ground landing on the (still spinning) rotors. Initiated a shutdown immediately.

It knocked the IMU and compass out of calibration and caused the shell to come unseated very slightly. Popped that back in, cleaned off the dirt and grass, re-calibrated everything, and took it back into a hover. Did fine, but it started raining and I called it a day.

Which makes me wonder - what is a thorough check-up process one should follow post-crash? Surely more than just the "hover" test.

That's a good question. I flew mine low for another 10 minutes afterward just watching for any changes.
 
Unboxed mine yesterday and used last night to update firmware and play with the simulator.

Got 3 flights in today between battery charges. Flight #4 I went to a friend's house. Got distracted by his dog trying to jump up and bite the Phantom and I hit a tree. It flipped upside down and fell about 8 feet to the ground landing on the (still spinning) rotors. Initiated a shutdown immediately.

It knocked the IMU and compass out of calibration and caused the shell to come unseated very slightly. Popped that back in, cleaned off the dirt and grass, re-calibrated everything, and took it back into a hover. Did fine, but it started raining and I called it a day.

Which makes me wonder - what is a thorough check-up process one should follow post-crash? Surely more than just the "hover" test.


This dude started a pretty good checklist - check it out -- http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/post-crash-check-list.44461/#post-408466
 
Altitude is your friend - there's not much to hit in most neighbourhoods above 200 feet - and the neighbours will hardly notice it.
It flies so precisely that the small take of area shouldn't be a big problem, but get up above trees and powerlines ASAP

Strongly agree with this.

I try not to ever shoot below 200' if I can manage it.
 
My P3P was delivered yesterday. Spent some time getting it all set up. Over the last couple weeks I spent a lot of time reading and watching vids to familiarize myself with the quad.

Got it up without a hitch. I was trying to go slow and take it easy. Felt my 1 acre back yard was enough wide open space but the trees and power lines suddenly made it feel very small. I had it up for a good 10 minutes and as I was trying to bring it back to land, I panicked as I neared some trees, it went into some branches and came down. Luckily a smaller tree lent a hand and broke its fall. The battery popped out and it sustained a small "dent" in the shell. But I went though the recalibration process and I was back up and running just fine in 15 minutes.

Definitely shook me up, watching a $2000 investment tumble to the ground.

Lots to learn.
Send Maverick back up and keep him flying.
 
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Agree. I have trees all around and try and maintain at least 100-150 when flying around.
 
I would have thought more wise if its a
First Done Flight
To be in a wide open space and get the hang of the basics before going 200ft
just my thoughts
 
I would have thought more wise if its a
First Done Flight
To be in a wide open space and get the hang of the basics before going 200ft
just my thoughts
The learning curve is :
1: Learn to take off and Land manually, then hover 5-6 feet off the ground while moving left right, up down, and kepping the back of the aircraft pointing at you(Do this 2-3 batterys at least, or until you feel confortable with the controls at that orientation)
2: Go up higher then the highest obstacle in your area, and learn to do circles clockwise and counter clock-wise(5-10 batteries)
3: Not from that high safe altitude learn to do 8 figure, and hover with the drone facing you(5-10 Batteries)

After this you should have a good orientation of the quad and start to get used to all the basics in every orientation, if you ever loose orientation at longer range 200-500m, move forward, note the direction it goes then you know where it is facing and can act accordingly...

It is safer with those quads to stay high above the ground far from obstacles, then at street level and risk hitting, trees, houses, cars, humans, animals, etc...
 
Safer learning curve is to buy a cheap small quad to learn on before risking your $1000 bird.

<-- Hubsan x4
 
All great points about height. Should have been following that. Tomorrow I'm going to start working my way through the list isopro posted.

Definitely want to be a safe, responsible pilot. I think the thing that kept me from heading up to hundreds of feet is the fear of reading about all of the fly always and such. Need to build some confidence!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
One thing that helps me a lot when flying is looking at the radar. When the quad goes away too far to see, you can tell which way the quad is pointing. If the red arrow is pointing towards you and you move forward, you knows its headed back to you...
 
Another thing that has helped me with orientation is that when I purchased mine I installed the red and black prop guards which can be seen at quite a distance, even on a bright day and until you get use to looking at the radar map. Take it slow and best of luck!
 

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