Just lost my P4 this evening.

[DronerLee]

I will def be purchasing a GPS tracker for sure in the very near future. Which one do you have? Thanks for the help too!

If you're going to be purchasing a new Inspire check out this link. Flytrex - Quadcopter and Multirotor Pilots Network It doesn't need cell phone towers like Trackimo which is great for keeping track of your dog, kids or wife.

Sent from my LG-H810 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[KevMo Photog]

If you're going to be purchasing a new Inspire check out this link. Flytrex - Quadcopter and Multirotor Pilots Network It doesn't need cell phone towers like Trackimo which is great for keeping track of your dog, kids or wife.

Sent from my LG-H810 using PhantomPilots mobile app

Def appreciate the help on tracking device link. Wonder why they don't have one on their site for the P4? Just curious. Def check into this with a new Inspire though.

 

[Fatcat1]

Don't give up hope dude it might turn up but if you had it in sport mode the object avoidant doesn't work or it's turned off


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[JTE]

Thanks for your friendly advice John. And I appreciate it with no disrespect intended too. But come on, at some point you have to be a little bold to get some great stuff! Everyone flies right over towns and cities eventually if they are wanting to get good stuff. Trees and farms get boring after a while. LOL. Totally agree that this was absolutely my fault for sure though. Def a lesson learned. I am just a hobbyist as of now btw. And money is an object for sure. I am a very serious photog that is always gonna push things to get a freaking rocking shot! So I was ready to get into the Inspire with bigger sensor anyway. Novice! I don't think that's very accuarate. Flying record?? Not sure about flying records, but I have never had a crash ever with over 250 flights on the P4. And a ton of flights with a Blade Chroma as well. But seriously thanks for the help again and can't wait to see what the new Inspire brings to the game.

I think a lot of folks learned something from your flight and I do appreciate you sharing the experience - even if you did take some knocks there from others. I'm studying for the FAA drone test on Monday and after all the info I've read this past month about line of sight, interrupted signals, airspace classification, sectional charts, risk management, METARs, weather I'd be too scared to fly over a mile away. Not to mention my registration # is on the drone. If it goes down, I'm toast. FAA is going to want my records and I have 10 days to produce them (not to mention a lawyer if someone is injured.) They can take my UAS Certificate away. The airspace is going to drastically change on Aug 29th and it you want to fly in the National Airspace you have to play by the rules. Are you flying in class C airspace or an Alert area? You need to know how to read a Sectional Chart - you'd be surprise at all of the stuff going on up there. I was - like geez, I just want to fly the dang thing. But it's all about safety. If you loose line of sight and it falls out of the sky on top of someone . . . well that's one of these things FAA is trying to avoid. And you can tell by the practice questions the FAA has given out to study. #18) "Identify the hazardous attitude or characteristic a remote pilot displays while taking risks . . ." well, in this case it could have been "Invulnerability". Look at that sunset! I can pull this off and get back with plenty of battery. I don't have the skill to pull off a flight that far out and I'm just too plain scared to try. FAA scared. Thanks again for sharing your story, it's brave to share the painful loss of a nice drone on a forum.

 

[John Locke]

Thanks for your friendly advice John. And I appreciate it with no disrespect intended too. But come on, at some point you have to be a little bold to get some great stuff! Everyone flies right over towns and cities eventually if they are wanting to get good stuff. Trees and farms get boring after a while. LOL. Totally agree that this was absolutely my fault for sure though. Def a lesson learned. I am just a hobbyist as of now btw. And money is an object for sure. I am a very serious photog that is always gonna push things to get a freaking rocking shot! So I was ready to get into the Inspire with bigger sensor anyway. Novice! I don't think that's very accuarate. Flying record?? Not sure about flying records, but I have never had a crash ever with over 250 flights on the P4. And a ton of flights with a Blade Chroma as well. But seriously thanks for the help again and can't wait to see what the new Inspire brings to the game.

I'm close to an Inspire purchase too, likely in Oct. The bigger sensor is compelling, however for the work I do with inspections and construction progress photos, the new Z3 camera is a nice tool to have, I'm hearing good things about it. 3X optical zoom would make things easier, and for $900, not too bad. I have an Inspire RC already, so here are my 3 options:

1. Inspire CRAFT ONLY for $1400 + zoom Z3 camera $900 + battery TB48 $200 = $2500 ($500 more than Inspire with X3, RC, TB47)

2. Craft with RC, TB47 battery and X3 camera $2000 + zoom Z3 camera $900 = $2900 Sell X3 camera ~$400, sell new Inspire RC ~$400 = $800 or $2100 net for craft (or maybe keep the second RC, hmm)

3. Inspire Pro (craft, TB47 battery, X5 camera) $3500 + zoom Z3 camera $900 = $4300 With this I have everything I need for a while, including my second RC for a cameraman.

This is what's been going through my mind for a few days. Decisions decisions, but it be a month till I pull the trigger.

Lets see what the Inspire 2 brings into the "picture" next week, I'm sure we'll have more to consider.

 

[r62ewa]

So many options. I am still in the start up phase of my business and I'm looking into other UAVs to include to add more depth to Phantom 4. I was thinking of the Matrice 100 but now I'm going to have to wait for the reveal of the new birds. The Wind 1 looks awesome but apparently the price tag is going to be 'awesome' as well. Rain and Force 6 winds is what it can handle during flight.

 

[Michael Sepesy]

Here is the flight record. But it's all just scribble chinese stuff.

Same thing just happened to me. But involving a tree line. All my other flight records were normal. Not this one! All in Chinese or Japenese and no one can read it.

 

[Suhail78]

Same thing just happened to me. But involving a tree line. All my other flight records were normal. Not this one! All in Chinese or Japenese and no one can read it.

Your about the 3rd or 4th person i've seen talking about a crash and getting unreadable (chinese) flight records. Whats up with that? is there some kinda bug in the latest firmware, or could DJI be purposely doing this so we cant read them after a crash and are forced to go through their support channels?

 

[Michael Sepesy]

Your about the 3rd or 4th person i've seen talking about a crash and getting unreadable (chinese) flight records. Whats up with that? is there some kinda bug in the latest firmware, or could DJI be purposely doing this so we cant read them after a crash and are forced to go through their support channels?

Maybe we should share our serial numbers and where we purchased from. Maybe there is a common denominator here. All I know is I am not really happy losing the $1700.00 I put into it. Not too mention I was running a successful business with it. Now am at a standstill.

 

[r62ewa]

That's my fear. I use my Phantom for my business as well but love to just fly it for recreation. I am waiting until after the September release to decide on a new UAV for my business but this is always on my mind.

 

[neven]

Your about the 3rd or 4th person i've seen talking about a crash and getting unreadable (chinese) flight records. Whats up with that? is there some kinda bug in the latest firmware, or could DJI be purposely doing this so we cant read them after a crash and are forced to go through their support channels?

Is it possible that you are mistaking broken binary file characters for Chinese? Those flight records aren't really .txt


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[Suhail78]

Is it possible that you are mistaking broken binary file characters for Chinese? Those flight records aren't really .txt



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That's a great point!!! i bet you people are trying to open the files directly in a text editor and that they are thinking its Chinese. I work in IT and i see this all the time, but i guess i didn't put 2 + 2 together!

 

[Stolenvw]

That's a great point!!! i bet you people are trying to open the files directly in a text editor and that they are thinking its Chinese. I work in IT and i see this all the time, but i guess i didn't put 2 + 2 together!

The .text flight record files on your phone are encrypted if you open them in any kind of editor there going to look Chinese. They need to be decrypted to be able to read them

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk

 

[Aussieranger]

I agree, with Litchi you don't have to worry about signal loss.

Hi Johnny, I have just bought Litchie for my P4, is that right if you're on a mission and you disconnect it will continue to fly the mission?

 

[John Locke]

Yes, after you upload and start the mission it will continue to fly the mission, even without a connection, unless you stop it, but you need to be in range to stop it.

 

[Aussieranger]

Yes, after you upload and start the mission it will continue to fly the mission, even without a connection, unless you stop it, but you need to be in range to stop it.

Amazing, although somewhat disconcerting at first. I did my first small mission within view the other afternoon and after pushing the play button and seeing it zoom off...I had that "set it free, if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't then it never was" feeling lol

 

[air borne again]

I guess I pushed it too far this evening with my P4. So I'm flying across the Ohio River directly across from Louisville Kentucky. I'm on Indiana side of river and it's about a mile across the river to get to the buildings. ******* me got lined up to go between two 500ft tall buildings in town. Started driving right between them and totally lost connection almost instantly. Had 70% battery left so I thought no problem should be coming home. But return altitude was set at 120 meters. Not tall enough if it has to go over the tallest building. But it should not have hit it because of Object avoidance right? It should have just stopped and tried to go around or just hover there until battery ran out right? I was using Windsurfer's too btw. Which I don't think I would have got as far over the city as I did without them. But they did not help when it ducked behind 500ft tall building at over a mile out. My stupidity for sure
But anyway, it never came back at all. So I drove over to downtown Louisville and walked the streets and even talked to two security guards and gave them all my info. All of my info was on the bird too. So hoping I get lucky and get a call on it. I'm almost more pissed because of the nice footage I had of barges going up and down river and the awesome sunset on the skyline was cool too. I will also never set my maximum altitude to 400ft ever again either. I was trying to climb to get just above those bulidings which may have kept my RC control. But with max altitude set at 400 it would not let me climb as I was driving it forward. This def my fault and I should have known better than to try flying these buildings and being so far away from me. Lesson learned I guess. Be glad to upload the files from my Ipad if I knew how. Help on that if possible? Now what to do next? I was ready for an Inspire anyway. As much as I freaking love the P4, I'm ready for a little better sensor with better stills too!

Darn, I feel bad for you. It is so easy to go around the back side of an interesting object when in first person. I've done it a lot but have been lucky. Once it went behind a mountain for a full minute of blank screen--then appeared as if nothing happened. Watching the video--it landed on side of mountain for a few seconds as if thinking--then took off and came home! I now adjust my "return to home" altitude higher than any object around. I hear you--if you only got the sd card back. Good luck

 

[KevMo Photog]

Darn, I feel bad for you. It is so easy to go around the back side of an interesting object when in first person. I've done it a lot but have been lucky. Once it went behind a mountain for a full minute of blank screen--then appeared as if nothing happened. Watching the video--it landed on side of mountain for a few seconds as if thinking--then took off and came home! I now adjust my "return to home" altitude higher than any object around. I hear you--if you only got the sd card back. Good luck

Thanks so much Airborne! Yeah it sucks. But I def learned a good lesson here for sure! Would love to have that SD card for sure!

 

[johnny21]

Hi Johnny, I have just bought Litchie for my P4, is that right if you're on a mission and you disconnect it will continue to fly the mission?

Yes, that's the beauty of Litchi, you only have to be carefull about GPS signal, I completed a mission in which I had no connection with the aircraft for about 8 minutes...

 

[Michael Sepesy]

The .text flight record files on your phone are encrypted if you open them in any kind of editor there going to look Chinese. They need to be decrypted to be able to read them

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk

Definitely Chinese. All my other previous flight's are normal coded. Will show you example. The file dated 8/17/2016 was my last flight when drone went nuts. The other one attached is like all my other 74 flight's. Normal.