Thanks for posting what will occur to many here as a rather gripping little drama -- with an unexpectedly happy ending. It's a tribute to the P3 and I enjoyed it.First let me say,I didn't set up my Litchi mission to record! I can't believe it but I don't have video but I'm dying to know if this has happened to anyone else here. I'm hooked on Litchi GS and I've been running missions like crazy for a week or so. Earlier today I designed a mission locally in an area I'm extremely familiar with. I had the altitude set to 98ft and, although close to a couple of trees, I know it clears. The majority of the mission heads downhill.
The mission was set to take 9min17sec @ 20mph and extend less than a mile from my position. It's over two golf courses and concludes flight over few expensive homes, the Equinox Hotel, and a church. I hadn't flown it yet, but I am confident in my P3A and Litchi, I have no reason not to be. For 6+ minutes I watched the bird and my live feed as it flew(still with astonishment at this Litchi app), when on the return loop (at the furthest point from me) the video started to shutter and skip then blank. No big deal. After about 5 seconds I see a single frame of video. It looked like a tree maybe 100ft ahead, hard to tell how high it was. I was sure I had set enough altitude, I know all of these trees.... Then. Totally blank, the female voice telling me I had lost signal. I had been testing the Litchi app and I know it continues the mission even once the signal is lost. So I held the TX up high in the air and slowly walked toward the line I expected to see the bird emerge from in less than a minute or two. Nothing. Checked my watch. Should see it any second now. Nothing. I've never had much luck with Litchi or DJI regaining signal once lost so I restarted the app. Nothing. I hadn't quite entered full panic yet because I knew there were no people around my flight path, it's 15 degrees and they're old, they're not outside. Worst case, as I said before, I get what I deserve, a busted up Phantom. I waited plenty long enough to see my Phantom and when I didn't, controller in hand, I got in my truck and headed to the last place I had confirmed video. About a 10th of a mile up the road at the stop sign, the screen flickered and Litchi started beeping. "RETURN HOME" she said. The feed showed the bird still rising on it's way back up to 98ft, then high-tailing its way toward the golf course I just left. I made a U-turn and arrived just in time to see my P3A attempting to land where it had launched from.. I flip the switch, take control and land manually.
Several minutes are unaccounted for. The props all have brown markings, presumably from tree branches. The battery had dropped 10% from time I lost contact until I regained it. I checked my logs and see that there are two separate flights logged for today. The total flight time of the two missions is 9min40sec but the total time the bird was "in flight" was just over 12min.
I can only presume that I struck a tree and plummeted but the P3A righted itself before hitting the ground, hovering there until I drove close enough to regain connection at which point it headed back to the home point. What I don't understand is why didn't it return home immediately after recovering and does the it usually start a new log every time it loses connection?
I'm so lucky.
Lucky? Oh, boy!
