I Experienced Someone Else's Flyaway

[MikeTess]

I became friends with some guy I meet almost everyday at the field we fly at during lunch break from work. He always flys planes, I fly a P2V+ V3. So, a few days ago he says to me that he has a P2V+ V2 that he crashed and he doesn't fly it and would I look at it. Next day he brings it and sure enough the shell it slightly askew and one motor pitched, one chipped up prop, slight gimbal separation, camera twitching, generally an unhappy Phantom. In conversation he tells me he's never read the manual, never watched a single video, or asked a question on a forum, never did an IMU or RC stick calibration. He hates to read manuals and doesn't like the computer. He did seem to know about the compass calibration though. He said the Phantom just took off on him and smacked into a tree about a quarter mile away. I do give him some credit because he already had a new shell on order. So, the best part is he wants to try and fly this thing there and now with me there. I'm strongly advising him to take it home and change the shell first, download the drivers, assistant and RC programs and to call me and I'd walk him through it. Nope, he wants to fly it NOW. Ok, so we do the compass cal and he has 9 satellites and he takes it up to about 20 feet and hovers. Surprisingly the Phantom hovers quite well even with all the defects. So he takes it up to about 200 feet and about 50 feet out. This is when the fun begins. The Phantom takes off like a rocket due west! I swear I didn't know these things could fly that fast. The poor guy is standing there not touching the sticks and the Phantom is probably doing 30 and about 1000 feet out by now. So I said to him PUT IT IN ATTI, PUT IT IN ATTI, and he looks at me like I'm speaking Latin. So I grab the controller and put it in ATTI and sure enough the Phantom slides into a hover and we turn it around and bring it back for a catch. The guy says what did you do? LOL. He got lucky it responded to ATTI mode. So again I'm telling him to read the manual. I know I'm going to wind up giving this guy private lessons but that's okay. He's a good dude. And I got to experience a genuine flyaway. Probably about the most thrilling experience I've had with a drone in months. Cheers!

 

[cjmwales]

I became friends with some guy I meet almost everyday at the field we fly at during lunch break from work. He always flys planes, I fly a P2V+ V3. So, a few days ago he says to me that he has a P2V+ V2 that he crashed and he doesn't fly it and would I look at it. Next day he brings it and sure enough the shell it slightly askew and one motor pitched, one chipped up prop, slight gimbal separation, camera twitching, generally an unhappy Phantom. In conversation he tells me he's never read the manual, never watched a single video, or asked a question on a forum, never did an IMU or RC stick calibration. He hates to read manuals and doesn't like the computer. He did seem to know about the compass calibration though. He said the Phantom just took off on him and smacked into a tree about a quarter mile away. I do give him some credit because he already had a new shell on order. So, the best part is he wants to try and fly this thing there and now with me there. I'm strongly advising him to take it home and change the shell first, download the drivers, assistant and RC programs and to call me and I'd walk him through it. Nope, he wants to fly it NOW. Ok, so we do the compass cal and he has 9 satellites and he takes it up to about 20 feet and hovers. Surprisingly the Phantom hovers quite well even with all the defects. So he takes it up to about 200 feet and about 50 feet out. This is when the fun begins. The Phantom takes off like a rocket due west! I swear I didn't know these things could fly that fast. The poor guy is standing there not touching the sticks and the Phantom is probably doing 30 and about 1000 feet out by now. So I said to him PUT IT IN ATTI, PUT IT IN ATTI, and he looks at me like I'm speaking Latin. So I grab the controller and put it in ATTI and sure enough the Phantom slides into a hover and we turn it around and bring it back for a catch. The guy says what did you do? LOL. He got lucky it responded to ATTI mode. So again I'm telling him to read the manual. I know I'm going to wind up giving this guy private lessons but that's okay. He's a good dude. And I got to experience a genuine flyaway. Probably about the most thrilling experience I've had with a drone in months. Cheers!

Cool story (bro!).

It just proves the common suspicion that a lot of these 'fly-aways' are actually plain, simple user error or a failure to react correctly through lack of knowledge. My Parrot Bebop - now refunded - did genuinely fly-away though, and it was pretty terrifying,

The guts of the Phantom 2 are well proven in in other UAVs, and the software seems to be well written. The fact that they are so easy to fly and ultra stable in GPS mode surely lulls some users into a false sense of security.

I just hope that I don't end up posting a 'P3 runaway thread' in a few weeks time

 

[MapMaker53]

I think it is probably very common for new owners to take it out of the box, slap the batteries in, and try to fly it -- ending in disaster. Good luck with your mentoring sessions.

 

[dirkclod]

@MikeTess for helping a brother out

 

[marg2]

Guess is not safe to fly here by 4:30 bet i get a flyaway with no sat

bet a lots of pilots font have any idea

 

[landmannnn]

No. Below 6 satellites the phantom goes into ATTI and doesn't flyaway.

 

[RoyVa]

The best prevention to help prevent fly a ways.... Calibrate. Calibrate and Calibrate.... That's the IMU number one most important. Compass 2nd and the RC sticks third. After those it wold be due to pilot error or a hardware failure of sensors.

 

[marg2]

Yep land but if un experiece pilot on 10 m wind is going crash almost 90% of time key is prevention and using all tool an calibration

 

[volito]

Guess is not safe to fly here by 4:30 bet i get a flyaway with no satView attachment 22323 bet a lots of pilots font have any idea

The available GPS satellites shown there is dependent on your settings (elevation mask). You will find that there will be more sats shown as available with a lower mask setting. Bottom line: when you take off and gain some altitude there will normally be enough sats for a good lock. Try lowering your elevation mask setting, then through trial and error you'll get a feel for the correct setting.

If I left the default mask setting I never would have seen enough sats to attempt to fly. For my location and area of flight the appropriate setting turned out to be 5 degrees.

Best of luck.

 

[marg2]

set at 15 here Houston will ck thanks