My DJI P3A Flew away just now :( what to do?

it is showing it was travelling to me but it is up to GPS signal problem, after the GPS signal problem AC shows it is towards to me but actually it is travelling to the opposite direction with high speed.
i tried to draw its possible direction on the map after the GPS signal lost. This is my possibility 1.
I need another drone to find it :(:(
If the battery died at the video transmission cut point. it should be around here. farming fields are there and crops are 60cm tall :(



View attachment 60815
Did you have video transmission for most of the time is was out of control?
Did you see the craft lowering itself during auto land?
If yes, did you see the craft stop horizontal (other than drifting in the wind while in ATTI mode) motion to initiate the auto land? Presumably once it reached 10% it stopped motion and landed somewhere.
Do you still have the 720 downlinked video on your iPad to review? If yes that might help with clues.
 
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Great ! Thanks for taking the time to explain everything. I learned a lot about this system from you. Sounds like a good plan to find a missing bird. Good idea playing hide and seek too. I guess a good place to mount the transmitter would be on one of the rear legs? I've got a P3S.

Either way it sounds like a good investment. Thanks again for all the info John.[emoji106][emoji3]


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When mounting it, try to string the wire antenna vertical, up one of the legs. The odds are best that the antenna orientation will be perpendicular to the ground if crashed or lost, which is ideal orientation for reception.

FYI, I recall others saying they experienced interference with the Phantom video when in beacon mode. So make sure you fly only in sleep mode. In that mode the device is only listening, to be enabled into beacon mode. I've never confirmed the interference report since I never fly in beacon mode. It's simply wrong to fly in beacon mode.
 
When mounting it, try to string the wire antenna vertical, up one of the legs. The odds are best that the antenna orientation will be perpendicular to the ground if crashed or lost, which is ideal orientation for reception.

FYI, I recall others saying they experienced interference with the Phantom video when in beacon mode. So make sure you fly only in sleep mode. In that mode the device is only listening, to be enabled into beacon mode. I've never confirmed the interference report since I never fly in beacon mode. It's simply wrong to fly in beacon mode.

Cool, thanks. [emoji3]

Back on topic, (sorry OP).....did you see the OP's flight logs (post # 17)
I don't think he saw it when it was coming back. The flight logs are really crazy, being lost with 19 satellites, and doing 233mph, etc. if you get a chance, check them out.

Btw, he's in London and it's about 1am over there now.


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Thanks for your advise.
I did it yesterday, I checked around and I was hoping to get signal but no luck.
I will post signs around but as you may see from the area (trent park, enfield, london) it is a huge area with many trees.
If you can see from the video, after last point, flight distance is increasing too much as the drone is going to the other way.
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So if you believe the telemetry data in the flight replay, it traveled for about 4 minutes at about 25mph, or 40kph. That calculates to about 1.6miles (~2574m) away from the last recorded location. Does this jive with where you think it is?
 
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Ok so I ran the file through the converter I use which displays over 175 data categories. This is speculation because I don't have factual data, but to begin with this appears to happen to those the use the app's Auto Launch feature and especially those that enable it right away, like the OP did on this flight.....

The app is the reason for the loss as it corrupted the flight. Problem is we don't know what is causing the app to mess up. Stay away from using the auto features is the best advice I can share at this point.

Btw, there a number of red flags throughout this flight, but the oddest for me was it showed Battery Cell #5 as having 8.19 volts start to finish.
 
That's not a good idea. Taking the antennas off the RC could potentially blow the RF circuitry from having no antenna load. Besides, you cannot remove them very easily without destroying them, almost impossible, and it requires splitting the RC case.

SenginUK, if you get it back, consider a Marco Polo beacon for tracking. That's what I use on my P3P, good for 2mi, and it works anywhere, any country, it doesn't need cellular to work.
They are super easy to remove. I have removed a couple and did not break or destroy anything. Unplug the wires, cut the white silicone securing the wires, feed the wires out so they are free, grasp the antenna at the base and pull straight out. They will pop out. I have taken mine out and replaced them. Super simple. Takes twenty minutes tops.
 
It was 35% when I brought it back close to me but suddenly GPS signal lost and it started to drift to the opposite way with maximum speed.
It was 50 meter far from me but after loosing the GPS signal it went 3 km away and when the battery went to 12% video transmission lost.
A mode did not work, horizontal managing was not working.

Sorry man I know this must suck. I hope you find it soon.


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Ok so I ran the file through the converter I use which displays over 175 data categories. This is speculation because I don't have factual data, but to begin with this appears to happen to those the use the app's Auto Launch feature and especially those that enable it right away, like the OP did on this flight.....

The app is the reason for the loss as it corrupted the flight. Problem is we don't know what is causing the app to mess up. Stay away from using the auto features is the best advice I can share at this point.

Btw, there a number of red flags throughout this flight, but the oddest for me was it showed Battery Cell #5 as having 8.19 volts start to finish.

So Frank are you saying don't use auto launch at all? I rarely use it anyway but now I won't at all.


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Did you have video transmission for most of the time is was out of control?
Did you see the craft lowering itself during auto land?
If yes, did you see the craft stop horizontal (other than drifting in the wind while in ATTI mode) motion to initiate the auto land? Presumably once it reached 10% it stopped motion and landed somewhere.
Do you still have the 720 downlinked video on your iPad to review? If yes that might help with clues.
I was having the video transmission till 12% then it is cut, and what I did, I told my wife to take video of my screen which she already did.
but after 12% battery I did not receive any video transmission. If it landed at the last seen place, it is in the middle of wheatfield, 60-70 cm tall crops are there.
I walked there but could not find.
I will visit the owner on the farm today, I am preparing some signs, lets see if they can find it but my question is they may cut the crops with a Farming equipment which may destroy my bird there.
if it travelled after 12%, i do not have any idea where it is.
 
So if you believe the telemetry data in the flight replay, it traveled for about 4 minutes at about 25mph, or 40kph. That calculates to about 1.6miles (~2574m) away from the last recorded location. Does this jive with where you think it is?
it was not travelling straight, that is the problem. Let me visit the farming fields again. Lets see.
 
Ok so I ran the file through the converter I use which displays over 175 data categories. This is speculation because I don't have factual data, but to begin with this appears to happen to those the use the app's Auto Launch feature and especially those that enable it right away, like the OP did on this flight.....

The app is the reason for the loss as it corrupted the flight. Problem is we don't know what is causing the app to mess up. Stay away from using the auto features is the best advice I can share at this point.

Btw, there a number of red flags throughout this flight, but the oddest for me was it showed Battery Cell #5 as having 8.19 volts start to finish.
I started with Auto Launch on that flight. I did not know that it may cause a problem. Then, DJI should remove it from the app.
 
So Frank are you saying don't use auto launch at all? I rarely use it anyway but now I won't at all.


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That is what I'm suggesting, yes. It seems to be a common link between those that have experienced the same type of loss.
 
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I started with Auto Launch on that flight. I did not know that it may cause a problem. Then, DJI should remove it from the app.

I don't know exactly what it is that is causing this to happen. But I have noticed that the auto feature is a common link as I have mentioned. I brought this up several times now going back the last 2 months. Nobody pays it any attention until after the fact.

That way your flight reads, you enabled auto launch instantly. In that case it's possible that the app didn't have time to set itself up. The only way I would know for sure would be to go over the DAT Flight Log that is downloaded from the aircraft to the pc. What I can also see in the DAT file is your process of calibrating the compass. I can go by the flight pitch, roll, and yaw to see how precise you were.

As for your aircraft, one positive thing is, with the aircraft being at 12% it was likely only a minute from beginning to descend at the 10% setting. By using google earth you should be able to come very close to where the aircraft is located.

You mentioned the a/c (aircraft) was drifting at the time of video loss. Use the line of travel and extend beyond point of video loss. You can then time the distance to drain under 2% and add that to the point of video loss. Take notice if there is any tree's or other obstacles along the drift path and take note of them.

You need to know that 2% battery will actually drain faster the closer it gets to being drained. So in other words, the a/c will drift less when draining down from 12% to 10% then say from 22% to 20%.

Can you share if you remember roughly the amount of wind speed for that day?
 
I don't know exactly what it is that is causing this to happen. But I have noticed that the auto feature is a common link as I have mentioned. I brought this up several times now going back the last 2 months. Nobody pays it any attention until after the fact.

That way your flight reads, you enabled auto launch instantly. In that case it's possible that the app didn't have time to set itself up. The only way I would know for sure would be to go over the DAT Flight Log that is downloaded from the aircraft to the pc. What I can also see in the DAT file is your process of calibrating the compass. I can go by the flight pitch, roll, and yaw to see how precise you were.
That doesn't sound likely.
If for some strange reason, using auto-takeoff caused flight difficulties, you would expect the problems to be there from the start ... not 16.5 mins into the flight.

with the aircraft being at 12% it was likely only a minute from beginning to descend at the 10% setting. By using google earth you should be able to come very close to where the aircraft is located.
Except that we have no idea where the Phantom was or what speed and direction it was traveling for the four minutes before it hit 12%
 
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That doesn't sound likely.
If for some strange reason, using auto-takeoff caused flight difficulties, you would expect the problems to be there from the start ... not 16.5 mins into the flight.


Except that we have no idea where the Phantom was or what speed and direction it was traveling for the four minutes before it hit 12%

I just looked over another one that crashed and used the auto feature. However, it was a P4 and had much different set of circumstances. I never mentioned or brought up any part of using the auto feature because it didn't match flights like this one.

I was able to find issues with this flight from the get-go, and the 16.5 mins mark. But to say there should be problems expected from the start just because......is just being contradictory. If you journey back to anytime in the past and look over your post anywhere, you will see your main approach has been to tell others they are wrong.

I had just posted in another thread about this auto feature, and none of it made here yet. As I stated there that because I have no facts on what is actually taking place with this auto issue, it will need to be viewed as speculation. I also pointed out the this auto feature was the only common denominator in situations like seen in this flight.
 
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I don't know exactly what it is that is causing this to happen. But I have noticed that the auto feature is a common link as I have mentioned. I brought this up several times now going back the last 2 months. Nobody pays it any attention until after the fact.

That way your flight reads, you enabled auto launch instantly. In that case it's possible that the app didn't have time to set itself up. The only way I would know for sure would be to go over the DAT Flight Log that is downloaded from the aircraft to the pc. What I can also see in the DAT file is your process of calibrating the compass. I can go by the flight pitch, roll, and yaw to see how precise you were.

As for your aircraft, one positive thing is, with the aircraft being at 12% it was likely only a minute from beginning to descend at the 10% setting. By using google earth you should be able to come very close to where the aircraft is located.

You mentioned the a/c (aircraft) was drifting at the time of video loss. Use the line of travel and extend beyond point of video loss. You can then time the distance to drain under 2% and add that to the point of video loss. Take notice if there is any tree's or other obstacles along the drift path and take note of them.

You need to know that 2% battery will actually drain faster the closer it gets to being drained. So in other words, the a/c will drift less when draining down from 12% to 10% then say from 22% to 20%.

Can you share if you remember roughly the amount of wind speed for that day?
Thanks for the advices.
Wind speed was 5-6 knots.
 
That is what I'm suggesting, yes. It seems to be a common link between those that have experienced the same type of loss.

This implies you know of others with this same failure, correct? How many have you heard about?

Did you get a request from DJI asking you to test a GO app version that may have it fixed? Is that how you know about it?
 

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