So, third flight with the iPad ground station app def not a success. At one point when it was also out of visual range it exceeded the range on the iPad, and apparently went nuts? This was in a field (or maybe the trees or a house next to it or a field next to it at this point) and the iPad never found the drone again and I certainly can't either.... so there goes my drone life. Was it a fly away? I assume so but I couldn't see it.
Sorry to hear it. Did you have your contact details on it? Impossible to tell what happened without more detail. How do you know it "went nuts"? We need a better description of what that was.
Can someone else with ground station confirm whether or not the mission continues as normal when it loses touch with the ground station.
I have flown extensively with GS and the only time I "lost" my Phantom was user error. I failed to program a return home. It got to its third waypoint and just hovered there. It fell off the iPad and I lost video transmission as well. I got in my car and found it hovering over my neighbor's house.
Once you upload your course, it will follow the waypoints, so I can't really see a "fly away" in the traditional sense. I have noticed that's when I've programmed waypoints 20-30 feet from one another, my Phantom gets confused and has trouble moving on to the next waypoint.
Sorry to hear of your failed flight. As far as finding it I would follow the route you set for it, for starters.
A little late for this but - if I plan a fairly long flight and one that's taking it out of site, I attach my Garmin GTU 10. I've had to use it to locate one that went down on a GS flight pattern.
A note to GS owners - when setting your waypoints, don't forget to set your turn settings (stop & turn, back turn, or adaptive) The default is "NONE" and if you forget to set turn(s) - it will try to hover. I say try because a friend sent his on a short around the block run and forgot to set turns - it went to first way point, sat there then raced to next one where it stopped, hovered then came straight down from 200ft like it was caught in it's own vortex (for 200ft)
A note to GS owners - when setting your waypoints, don't forget to set your turn settings (stop & turn, back turn, or adaptive) The default is "NONE" and if you forget to set turn(s) - it will try to hover. I say try because a friend sent his on a short around the block run and forgot to set turns - it went to first way point, sat there then raced to next one where it stopped, hovered then came straight down from 200ft like it was caught in it's own vortex (for 200ft)