Have you crashed?

[African wildlife]

My wife thinks I’ll never crash our drone. I’m not sure, even if “I hope not”.

I’ve read comments like “Most people crash at least once”.

Apologies if someone else has recently done a survey, but I thought it might be interesting to know - and perhaps act as a reminder that we all need to be cautious.

 

[Yooper]

Been flying about a year. Crashed once. It is avoidable until it is to late

 

[chrismatthewssr]

Been there done the crash thing

 

[K Henry]

Humans will always crash almost anything, only natural. We must! Men must do it regularly, we've got to know our limits! "Clint Eastwood"
FLY LESS = CRASH LESS!
THE MORE WE DO, THE MORE WE HAVE ERRORS! CARVED IN STONE!!!!
Nothing to do with being careful at all, unfortunately.

 

[turfstuf]

From someone who had 2 drones in for repair last week...
Keep an eye on your collision avoidance sensor settings whenever your Go 4 app is updated. Somehow my side sensors got turned off. Not an excuse but it seems like all the settings aren’t always saved during updates.

Also, my P4P was really messed up...gimbal snapped off, broken landing gear & antennae, not under warranty. I figured it was totaled. But it was only about $230 to fix.

 

[Dirby]

been flying drones sence the phantom 2 vision came out.
onlt crashed once that was my p4p.
went straight up and came straight down.
dji could not determine what made it crash.

 

[Clockman]

I'm not saying anything. I don't want to jinx myself.

 

[African wildlife]

I hope the mods are going to vote/comment - including Ian Wood, whom I’m guessing is a good pilot because he knows how to film/edit well.

And, Clockman, it’s 2017 (just). As Stevie Wonder sang many years ago: “Superstition ain’t the way!”

 

[African wildlife]

And a quick thought: Is any forum member a commercial pilot, past or present? If so, my guess would be “No, never” -drones, that is, as well as aircraft - based on the training to keep calm in an emergency situation, when the vast majority of us panic to some degree and so make a fatal error.

 

[With The Birds]

When you can just let your sticks centre and the AC waits in a hover for the next command it’s oretty much impossible to crash. Even in ATTI mode these things are very docile and predictable compared to other AC. 3D heki’s on the other hand are pretty much impossible not to crash- I have a shed half full of broken bits for them.

 

[jryser]

I have been an RC freak from childhood. We used to say that all airplanes have numbers of flights on them, we just don't know what that final number is. My guess is it is true with these as well. I WILL say that the more we practice fundamentals as well as understanding flight dynamics, etc., the better off we will be at preserving our gear. I have hundreds of hours on my two P3Ps. Have brought one to the ground for flying to close to a paper balloon. Lots of near misses. And both of my P3Ps still have their numbers on them / just hope I either stop one before it or someone else owns them when they are up! Human nature = error.

 

[Ghost2508]

Crashed mine 2 months after buying it. My fault. Inexperienced. Used a gimbal guard for the first time. Flew to 50 metres. Would not come down. By attempted to come down drone thought it was approaching ground and switched of. In hindsight I should have switched downward sensors off. Gimbal guard £1.99. Repair cost £190. Ouch.

 

[OOO]

At first flight.

 

[Clockman]

Well.....I don't crash. I did inadvertently land in a place that I hadn't planned on landing at...........just once.

 

[African wildlife]

Clockman: I’m assuming that aircraft pilots would call that an emergency landing rather than a crash. Better an “inadvertent”, eh, than a catastrophe?!

OOO: If you’re going to crash, then that’s the place to do it (so long as the Mavic was retrieved). I’m guessing you’d flown a different drone before? Thankfully, our mountain kloofs are a bit wider.

Ghost & jryser: Self-honesty and “practice, practice, practice” are definitely important for learning.

WithTheBirds: Whereas I’m not brave enough to use your word “docile”, the act of simply stopping and hovering hasn’t been lost on me at times of “What now?”Those 3D heki drones sound worse than a belligerent chicken!

 

[OOO]

African Wildlife: It was my first drone and first flight. I love to fly through narrow canyons and thanks God we have several such places here. I accepted associated risk and I love to do that again. Actually I have already done that:

 

[turfstuf]

OOO— very impressive flying and editing. Can’t imagine a RTH happening from down there due to a loss of signal. Or GPS getting confused.

Did you fly all the reverse shots as shown or did you reverse them in post? They look great either way.

 

[turfstuf]

When you can just let your sticks centre and the AC waits in a hover for the next command it’s oretty much impossible to crash.

That’s how I had one crash— modified my remote so the spring on the forward/backward stick was removed and could be set at a constant cinematic speed. First flight on a job site with it, forgot about the mod at the end of the flight and watched in amazement as it flew smoothly over my head right into a tree.

 

[With The Birds]

That’s how I had one crash— modified my remote so the spring on the forward/backward stick was removed and could be set at a constant cinematic speed. First flight on a job site with it, forgot about the mod at the end of the flight and watched in amazement as it flew smoothly over my head right into a tree.

That probably would not happen to you now with more stick time, your first instinct would be to pull back on the elevator without even having to think about it.

 

[OOO]

OOO— very impressive flying and editing. Can’t imagine a RTH happening from down there due to a loss of signal. Or GPS getting confused.

Did you fly all the reverse shots as shown or did you reverse them in post? They look great either way.

Thanks. Flight mode was ATTI (no GPS, zero satellite). In tight spots where no GPS signal available ATTI mode is the only option to fly. But in this mode the aircraft is very unstable and difficult to control especially in windy conditions. In addition, with active OA and VPS it is almost impossible to fly in such spots. I turned OA and VPS off even before the flight. RTH was set to hover. The aircraft was in VLOS at all times. Some of the shots reversed in post.