Flying Next to Metal Roofs

[eurorv]

I was having a nice little Sunday afternoon fly-about over a Valley with a cpl minutes left on battery and coming in for landing in Church Parking lot. I usually reset Home 100 ft above take-off point to avoid possible issues on RTH, but was flying over a valley so thought "I don't need that today". Next thing I know, off goes the P2V. The rest was real scary, but what great video !! lol

And now looking back, I have to figure that the Metal roofs on the Church, the adjoining house, and 2 close by Storage garages must have squewed the signals. Any body have a better idea??

http://youtu.be/5my19x9qQE4

 

[EMCSQUAR]

There's a number of possibilities - (this is one of the reasons I have a DVR to record IOSD) RF from the Church itself (wireless microphones, internet wifi and some of those bells/chimes are now digitial.) Metal roof(s) are a possibility.

At least you brought it back safely.

 

[Happyflyer]

That is about as close I got to a water tower the other day. Scares the c-wrap out of you.

 

[EMCSQUAR]

That is about as close I got to a water tower the other day. Scares the c-wrap out of you.

Funny thing about towers (water/high voltage, etc..) you can **** near fly right up to many and not have an issue, but get a couple hundred feet away and things can go "south" in a hurry. Alot of towers and repeaters create an arc or umbrella effect for signal. We have a golf course here that has water tower you can literally land on it. But go 300 meters in any direction of it and aircraft has a mid air seizure.

 

[4wd]

It's pretty odd, is there a chance the church tower has cell phone antennas inside?
This does seem to show an interference in the control rather than loss of signal.

There's a bit of urban myth about anything made of metal affecting them, I don't think flying near or taking off from a metal surface it is normally an issue at all but you shouldn't calibrate your compass near metal objects - and that includes hidden metal rods in concrete.
There may be a caveat that some large metal structures have an unusual effect on the local magnetic field.
Not clear how that would cause it to zoom off, but might make precise control tricky.