Humbled by Ground Station

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With 5 successful flights under my belt, I was feeling pretty comfortable. So this afternoon, I thought I'd start out with a 4 waypoint course, with the furthest point only 600 feet away. Programmed the course, hit go, then strapped on my goggles. On the first waypoint, it rotates for a bit until it finds its course. This seemed normal based on my other flights. Course found and off it goes with good reception through my goggles. It gets to the 3rd waypoint and the video starts getting choppy, real bad, then barely viewable, then out. I look down at the GS and my waypoints disappear. I had read a post in which someone had experienced the same, but his Phantom came back into range and all was fine. I was thinking the same. Then nothing...I'm trippin' balls now. I flip the failsafe and start waiting. Nothing. I had a general idea where it was last and drove over there. AS I approach, I could see my Phantom hovering. My ******* left the remote, so I gunned it back to go get it. I rush back and my Phantom is still hovering. I flip it into ATT mode, but my ******* flips the switch too far into MANUAL. The Phantom starts dropping quick, I flip it to ATT mode give it a bunch throttle, then back to GPS mode. I take a second to compose myself, then take her down for a landing.

I'm not sure what happened and I'm not too proud to rule out user error. Not sure if it's a factor, but the one thing I did do differently from my last flights was I took control of the gimbal in flight. I'm just happy she came back to fly another day.
 
Mav456 said:
Diesel31 said:
With 5 successful flights under my belt, I was feeling pretty comfortable. So this afternoon, I thought I'd start out with a 4 waypoint course, with the furthest point only 600 feet away. Programmed the course, hit go, then strapped on my goggles. On the first waypoint, it rotates for a bit until it finds its course. This seemed normal based on my other flights. Course found and off it goes with good reception through my goggles. It gets to the 3rd waypoint and the video starts getting choppy, real bad, then barely viewable, then out. I look down at the GS and my waypoints disappear. I had read a post in which someone had experienced the same, but his Phantom came back into range and all was fine. I was thinking the same. Then nothing...I'm trippin' balls now. I flip the failsafe and start waiting. Nothing. I had a general idea where it was last and drove over there. AS I approach, I could see my Phantom hovering. My ******* left the remote, so I gunned it back to go get it. I rush back and my Phantom is still hovering. I flip it into ATT mode, but my ******* flips the switch too far into MANUAL. The Phantom starts dropping quick, I flip it to ATT mode give it a bunch throttle, then back to GPS mode. I take a second to compose myself, then take her down for a landing.

I'm not sure what happened and I'm not too proud to rule out user error. Not sure if it's a factor, but the one thing I did do differently from my last flights was I took control of the gimbal in flight. I'm just happy she came back to fly another day.

If there's no video, it didn't happen

Are you ever going to post anything decent? You define troll.
 
Lol.

It was a doomed flight from the beginning. I thought I pressed record, but for some reason I did not.

As I mentioned, there was the possibility of user error. Upon further investigation, I've been able to determine it was user error. When I got the Phantom back within range of the GS, my flight plan was showing again. Looking over the waypoints, I didn't connect 5 to 1, so when it got to 5, it came to the end of its flight plan and began to hover. Since I didn't have it on loop, it stopped at waypoint 5 as it should. I know I was tempting fate, but I couldn't leave it alone. I needed to confirm there was nothing wrong with my Phantom. I plotted another 5 waypoint course and kept it relatively close within 700 feet. Before transmitting the data, I triple checked myself. Fired her up, then watched her fly away and watched her come home. She performed as expected. :D
 
Diesel31 said:
Lol.

It was a doomed flight from the beginning. I thought I pressed record, but for some reason I did not.

As I mentioned, there was the possibility of user error. Upon further investigation, I've been able to determine it was user error. When I got the Phantom back within range of the GS, my flight plan was showing again. Looking over the waypoints, I didn't connect 5 to 1, so when it got to 5, it came to the end of its flight plan and began to hover. Since I didn't have it on loop, it stopped at waypoint 5 as it should. I know I was tempting fate, but I couldn't leave it alone. I needed to confirm there was nothing wrong with my Phantom. I plotted another 5 waypoint course and kept it relatively close within 700 feet. Before transmitting the data, I triple checked myself. Fired her up, then watched her fly away and watched her come home. She performed as expected. :D

Good to hear you've got it working. Any mistakes we make that don't end with losing a Phantom are ok mistakes to learn from haha
 

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