Frozen altitude after takeoff from balcony

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Took off in P mode Opti from 3rd story balcony. Drone was automatically in Opti because only had 4 satellites. Please I don't want to visit the legal, moral, ethical issues I violated. Ascended 3 ft, flew over railing flew out 20 feet and phantom would not gain altitude with full up on left stick (mode 2). It just seemed to sort of drift around. Switched to S mode, worked fine, switched back to P mode and everything was back to normal. Left stick controlled altitude properly.
Can't recall if the right stick was not controlling pitch and roll or not.
I feel everything was probably working but would like to know what Mr. Phantom 4 was thinking. I.e. What algorithms were at work.
Saw a video of this happening to a Mavic in China but no explanation as to why.
Thoughts?


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Balcony take offs can result in Compass error after some time which can switch your AC to OPTI/ATTI mode and produce some wierd tilting or drifting due to rebar under the balcony floor. Never heard of non responsive throttle stick.
 
Casey whats s face did the samething, But, he never gained control , bird just hovered out of reach off his balcony until battery depleted to the point it self landed, in an alley behind hotel,
Last I heard, its still there!
 
Balcony take offs can result in Compass error after some time which can switch your AC to OPTI/ATTI mode and produce some wierd tilting or drifting due to rebar under the balcony floor. Never heard of non responsive throttle stick.

Thanks. There was no compass error warning and it didn't behave like this error (flying all over and uncontrollable). Flew in a manner like Mavic's Tripod mode, only with no throttle response.


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This behavior is likely the Phantom complaining to you about your use case. These drones are smarter than I thought! :D

Funny, I didn't see that. I stated I didn't want to "visit" the legal, moral, and ethical arguments, and the phantom was doing it anyway.
Thanks for the reply, and I appreciate the humor.


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Thanks. There was no compass error warning and it didn't behave like this error (flying all over and uncontrollable). Flew in a manner like Mavic's Tripod mode, only with no throttle response.

Is it possible that you started with switch in F possition and you accidentally executed one of inteligent flight modes? Is there inteligent mode that would act like that? I know flipping switch would cancel it.



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Is it possible that you started with switch in F possition and you accidentally executed one of inteligent flight modes? Is there inteligent mode that would act like that? I know flipping switch would cancel it.



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The Phantom 4's controller support three flight modes: P-S-A
P-mode (Positioning), S-mode (Sport), A-mode (Attitude)
 
So which one is used for inteligent modes (waypoint for example)?


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With the Phantom 4, intelligent flight modes can be accessed in the DJI GO App directly from the screen in P mode. No need to switch to F mode, like in the Phantom 3.
 
Took off in P mode Opti from 3rd story balcony. Drone was automatically in Opti because only had 4 satellites. Please I don't want to visit the legal, moral, ethical issues I violated. Ascended 3 ft, flew over railing flew out 20 feet and phantom would not gain altitude with full up on left stick (mode 2). It just seemed to sort of drift around. Switched to S mode, worked fine, switched back to P mode and everything was back to normal. Left stick controlled altitude properly.
Can't recall if the right stick was not controlling pitch and roll or not.
I feel everything was probably working but would like to know what Mr. Phantom 4 was thinking. I.e. What algorithms were at work.
Saw a video of this happening to a Mavic in China but no explanation as to why.
Thoughts?


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
Not a very smart or safe thing to do.
 
Funny, I didn't see that. I stated I didn't want to "visit" the legal, moral, and ethical arguments, and the phantom was doing it anyway.
Thanks for the reply, and I appreciate the humor.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

Then you shouldn't have posted something you already knew was unsafe & irresponsible to do in the first place. Lesson learned. [emoji53]


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Then you shouldn't have posted something you already knew was unsafe & irresponsible to do in the first place. Lesson learned. [emoji53]


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Wow. Guess there's nothing to learn from this. Similar to a car misfiring at 66 mph and since maximum speed limit is 65 mph ignoring the problem?
Yes, lesson learned here.
Thanks for your reply.


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This thread got me to wondering, what does the Phantom 4 use for altitude information? I have seen mine display 16 feet when it was really just a few feet off the ground.
 
It's supposed to use VPS for altitude when under 30', however I have noticed these same erroneous numbers myself. I think VPS has a flaw that started appearing about 4 months ago in one of the firmware updates. Above 30' it uses a barometer sensor to estimate AGL in relation to launch point.
 
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