First ever crash...

[Jack Mackinnon]

So tonight, I walked up to the top of the street I live on to the open field. It was a beautiful night, 31 Degrees Celsius, 3 KPH winds.

I calibrated the aircraft and I walked up to the fence that separates the dead end and the field. It is metal wire and has barbs at the top. I took the aircraft off using a CSC command and I hovered for a second, listening for any problems, I then gave it full throttle and forward at the same time, I though it was going to hit a tree so I let go of the sticks, noticing that I was a safe distance from the tree I gave it full forward pitch and I slammed into the fence.

As you can see in the photo that is the crash zone. It hit where the diagonal log is at the very top. The blades shattered immediately and flew everywhere, some hitting me. The aircraft then did a full front flip and slammed down upside down right next to the fence. My heart dropped. The thought that my prized possession just hit a fence sunk in and the emotion of knowing that I had saved every penny from December to March to buy this craft. I slowly walked over to the crash site where I saw the Phantom lying upside down with the gimbal resting. I set down the remote and jumped the fence, I picked up the Phantom and first checked the gimbal. It had no light on and was moving freely despite the aircraft still being powered on. I climbed up the fence and went down onto the concrete, I powered it on and the gimbal calibrated fine. I jumped with happiness. The propellers were all completely destroyed and covered in green. Other than that besides the phantom just being quite dirty it was fine. I took the slow walk home and I grabbed my spare propellers, I put them on and turned the aircraft on. I spun up the motors and all was working, I ran out the door and back up the street, where I caught an amazing sunset with the aircraft and no problems.

After 14 hours of flight time and 245 Total Kilometres of distance I had my first crash. I'm just totally glad she lives to fly another day because I would have never probably gotten back into this hobby with fear of destroying my prized possession.

The front left propeller.

After I put on new props and turned it back on for the first time after.

Thanks for reading and safe flying, I hope to never crash again.


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[DaveD]

Glad things worked out!

 

[Jack Mackinnon]

Glad things worked out!

Thanks man, boy did it give me a scare!


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[flpholt]

no harm no foul just glad it didn't break happy more flying

 

[Jack Mackinnon]

no harm no foul just glad it didn't break happy more flying

Thanks man! Love your posts. I was so happy to see I didn't harm my aircraft. Lucky I didn't hit at full speed or the gimbal would have probably flown.


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[Scott Gibson]

Jack,

I'm in the same boat as you, had my first crash yesterday after flying since September! I was helping some friends shoot a video, and was standing a little too far back from the tree line. I had another helping "direct" the video who kept saying, no go down further, further (I was around 120ft altitude at that point). What I failed to realize is that when I was flying along the tree lines, there was a section of trees that were hovering above the others, almost like a "hill" in a section of trees. Well oops, I slammed right into the top of the branches and I saw my bird hit them. It came tumbling down, several times. It actually got near the ground and I was able to start it climbing again, but, of course I had no depth perception and had no idea how many branches were around. Started climbing and hit a few more, this time the drone came crashing down, luckily onto a pile of leaves. I ran over to the drone and one of the other guy had picked it up. It was still on and of course in full power mode since he was holding it upright. He said it crashed and flipped upside down and was still spinning. 3/4 prop blades were destroyed, but I didn't notice any gimbal damage (thank god). I powered everything off and since I had been recording the whole time, I've got some nice footage of it. LOL

Took it back to home base, recharged batteries and did a test flight. Thankfully everything seemed to be ok, camera calibrated and seemed to have no issues. The only funky thing I had noticed was it would often start/stop recording within the DJI GO App all by itself. No idea what would cause this. It could be a software bug, or something could have happened during the crash itself to cause this.

I'll have to do some further test flights to see if keeps stopping recording all on its own (meaning, I would start recording, and then at any given time it would suddenly make that beep noise, and it had stopped recording. Strange).

 

[Jack Mackinnon]

Jack,

I'm in the same boat as you, had my first crash yesterday after flying since September! I was helping some friends shoot a video, and was standing a little too far back from the tree line. I had another helping "direct" the video who kept saying, no go down further, further (I was around 120ft altitude at that point). What I failed to realize is that when I was flying along the tree lines, there was a section of trees that were hovering above the others, almost like a "hill" in a section of trees. Well oops, I slammed right into the top of the branches and I saw my bird hit them. It came tumbling down, several times. It actually got near the ground and I was able to start it climbing again, but, of course I had no depth perception and had no idea how many branches were around. Started climbing and hit a few more, this time the drone came crashing down, luckily onto a pile of leaves. I ran over to the drone and one of the other guy had picked it up. It was still on and of course in full power mode since he was holding it upright. He said it crashed and flipped upside down and was still spinning. 3/4 prop blades were destroyed, but I didn't notice any gimbal damage (thank god). I powered everything off and since I had been recording the whole time, I've got some nice footage of it. LOL

Took it back to home base, recharged batteries and did a test flight. Thankfully everything seemed to be ok, camera calibrated and seemed to have no issues. The only funky thing I had noticed was it would often start/stop recording within the DJI GO App all by itself. No idea what would cause this. It could be a software bug, or something could have happened during the crash itself to cause this.

I'll have to do some further test flights to see if keeps stopping recording all on its own (meaning, I would start recording, and then at any given time it would suddenly make that beep noise, and it had stopped recording. Strange).

Sounds like yours was a tab bit nastier than mine. The actual crash of mine is more of a blur as I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, but to what I remember the motors shut off immediately after it landed upside down. I may have held the throttle down but I am not quite sure. I think the reason so many of your blades cracked was because they kept spinning. Super glad to hear yours is still flying. Quite a scare when it hits the dirt the first time. I was really impressed with the durability, but as you know I will try to never ever ever do that again.

Thanks for replying man.


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[Scott Gibson]

Yes no problem! Believe me I'm equally glad mine seems to have escaped unscathed.... Besides the propeller blades. Hindsight is always 2020 and of course depth perception is that the very minimum when you're using the app so I couldn't tell where I was once I was down inside those trees. From the looks of it after the first contact with the branches I could've just landed it and it would've been fine but I couldn't tell. I was panicking so I just tried to gain some altitude and get out of there and then as you can see that didn't turn out very well. LOL

 

[mdowney58]

I'd say there is some feline in your bird.....

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[Jack Mackinnon]

Yes no problem! Believe me I'm equally glad mine seems to have escaped unscathed.... Besides the propeller blades. Hindsight is always 2020 and of course depth perception is that the very minimum when you're using the app so I couldn't tell where I was once I was down inside those trees. From the looks of it after the first contact with the branches I could've just landed it and it would've been fine but I couldn't tell. I was panicking so I just tried to gain some altitude and get out of there and then as you can see that didn't turn out very well. LOL

Fly safe man, have fun


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[rashed.khan2222]

You should have used prop guards I that way you are going to be extremely safe and sound. Better luck next time


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