Fly Aways

jp_flkeys · Jan 30, 2016

I had a friend just recently lost his drone over the Gulf of Mexico. He is a experienced operator not someone new, calibrated it & all looked good. Flew it up & hovered it approx 15' to make sure all controls worked properly etc... as he flew upwards approx 80' it took off over the water never to be seen again. There is however a FM radio station close by, I'd say within 1/2 mile or less that might have contributed to his lose. That made me question, how far away should you be from a radio station tower or high power transmission lines as so it does not interfere with your Phantom. DJI says stay clear of flying near these but does say anything about a safe distance. I would like to hear your thoughts &/or experiences.

robbie4200 · Jan 30, 2016

Good question. I've also been wondering about this. Hope to hear from some veteran about this

ianwood · Jan 30, 2016

Fly aways are not caused by RF interference. Unless you have a P1.

Fly aways can be mechanical. They can be software issues. And they can be operator fault. Even the occasional experienced operator doesn't how and when to calibrate their sensors properly.

Meta4 · Jan 30, 2016

jp_flkeys said:
I had a friend just recently lost his drone over the Gulf of Mexico. He is a experienced operator not someone new, calibrated it & all looked good. Flew it up & hovered it approx 15' to make sure all controls worked properly etc... as he flew upwards approx 80' it took off over the water never to be seen again. There is however a FM radio station close by, I'd say within 1/2 mile or less that might have contributed to his lose. That made me question, how far away should you be from a radio station tower or high power transmission lines as so it does not interfere with your Phantom. DJI says stay clear of flying near these but does say anything about a safe distance. I would like to hear your thoughts &/or experiences.

It's impossible to gibe a simple distance - different sources - different distances.
Stay clear is about as good as you'll get.

Regarding your friend's Phantom, the theory about the FM station is probably not right.
If it was a factor what you'd expect to see would be that the controller signal would get swamped and the Phantom would RTH rather than fly to somewhere else.
He can go to HealthyDrones.com and follow the instructions there to upload his flight record from the app and that might show what happened.
Post a link here and some experienced users might be able to comment.

jp_flkeys · Jan 30, 2016

ianwood said:
Fly aways are not caused by RF interference. Unless you have a P1.

Fly aways can be mechanical. They can be software issues. And they can be operator fault. Even the occasional experienced operator doesn't how and when to calibrate their sensors properly.

jp_flkeys · Jan 30, 2016

This is true.

jp_flkeys · Jan 30, 2016

Meta4 said:
It's impossible to gibe a simple distance - different sources - different distances.
Stay clear is about as good as you'll get.

Regarding your friend's Phantom, the theory about the FM station is probably not right.
If it was a factor what you'd expect to see would be that the controller signal would get swamped and the Phantom would RTH rather than fly to somewhere else.
He can go to HealthyDrones.com and follow the instructions there to upload his flight record from the app and that might show what happened.
Post a link here and some experienced users might be able to comment.

He's not a member of the forum, in fact I think he is going to buy another one. A little gun shy right now to pull the trigger.