New way to lose your drone

[With The Birds]

We need to find out if DJI set the RTH speed at the "sweet spot" or not. This should probably be on a thread of its own.

They didn't and there are numerous threads already.

 

[Paul Schulze]

Could you point out a few of the threads? I have never seen them although I admit I did not know there were discussions on this topic. Even a good search word or phrase would help. Thanks.

 

[With The Birds]

Could you point out a few of the threads? I have never seen them although I admit I did not know there were discussions on this topic. Even a good search word or phrase would help. Thanks.

Try this long range drone DJI Phantom 3 professional

 

[Paul Schulze]

Nice article. Result for a P3P (and P3A) puts the sweet spot speed at 14 m/s for 17 min.

 

[With The Birds]

Nice article. Result for a P3P (and P3A) puts the sweet spot speed at 14 m/s for 17 min.

Yes- and the theory is demonstrated in the real world performance of the AC.

 

[Paul Schulze]

I have read lots of posts and threads and never ran across this. This may be common knowledge to many but it certainly was new to me.

Thanks for the information.

 

[Pete Inorio]

This may not be new news but I have never seen a discussion of this before.

I was flying my P3A at an altitude of about 100 m and a distance of 3000 m when I decided to bring her home. I tapped what I thought was the return home button on the DJI GO app screen and instead I had tapped the land icon. The drone drop down to about 15 m before I noticed that it was landing but I was losing contact with the bird from the RC because of the altitude drop. I imediately initiated the return home and had to hope because there was no signal coming back to the RC.

I should have noticed that I had tapped the wrong icon because the slider appeared and I just automatically approved the request without actually reading it.

Yes, I did get the drone back with about 10% battery left, but I was lucky. I don't know if it's just me, but I would like to be able to place the icons on the screen where I wanted them and I certainly would not have the land button by the return home button.

 

[Pete Inorio]

I want to know how the heck you get 3000 meters from your drone??!! With my Phantom 4, I'm lucky to get 2500 feet (distance) in optimum conditions!

 

[sinxa]

i think it went back by the failsafe RTH due to lost signal on the very last seconds before it touched the land. . . .

yes, it did happen to me once, but i realize it that i pressed the wrong button right away, and cancel the landing process.

 

[sinxa]

Still can't wrap my mind around why people risk automated RTH instead of just flying back. RTH is for emergencies, not laziness.

is there any regulation about in what condition pilot allowed to do automated RTH?

 

[Russ43Phantom]

The good news is that it appears when you got to a low altitude, your signal was lost and the drone then automatically initiated a RTH (as it should have). The bad news is you were flying well beyond your visual line of sight. When a drone gets beyond 200m, I must admit, I can barely see it much less anything around it. You've got to be kidding yourself when you think flying at 3000m is within in the FAA Line of Sight ruling. Even if you are just a recreational flyer, when the FAA rules don't apply, they are a guideline everyone should follow. When you don't, the only thing at stake is that we will all lose our flying privileges.

 

[Paul Schulze]

From my house I fly down a wide "valley" which has no houses or power lines. I think it would be very easy to outfly the batteries of myP3A. All my long flights were flown at an altitude of 50 m.

There are some near trees which would block the direct line of sight signal and hence limit flight distance in those directions.

If you are just flying for distance, I would suggest flying outward from the side of a mountain or away from you across a landscape free and power line free flat prairie.

Also, the firmware versions affect distances as well. There are a lot of pilots out there who have experienced distance changes with firmware upgrades. I have a standard where I got ~3000m distances before upgrading. I have posted one of these flights along with a screenshot on PhantomPilots.

After downgrading to 1.5.7 it still would not go very far. My experience is that if it works don't upgrade even though you might be able to downgrade. Others may have different experiences with upgrading and downgrading.

 

[ArmyVet]

Interesting.... My very first flight. I wanted to land in my driveway. Was in a nice hover. Thought I hit LAND. YEPPP you guessed it. The phantom took off straight up went over the house. I ran around the house just in time to watch it land at home. Scared the crap out of me!!!!

 

[Paul Schulze]

Russ43 you are absolutely right, however 15X60 binoculars allow a spotter to follow the drone on rare distance flights. Nearly all my flights are close to the home point. I do not know if binoculars qualify for line of sight, but the rule does not state unaided eyes.

Personally, I think the FAA rule is rather vague in that the ability to see your drone is going to vary drastically from person to person as well as from weather condition to weather condition. Clear blue skies would give you one distance where as cloudy skies give you another distance. Yes, I realize the FAA rule is meant for control of the drone regardless of how far away it is from you.

Has anyone ever been cited for flying out of sight in the United States? I would say that most pilots lose line of sight somewhere in their flight or flying lifetime.

We all need to be responsible in our flying.

 

[jayeverts]

Everything is fine with the aircraft. It isn't the aircraft, but some of the pilots that need upgraded. Many forget these are not simple/safe toys, but can actually do some damage to people and property. Pay attention to to your telemetry and aircraft and then respond accordingly. Not, be complacent until there is a problem, that you created, then try and figure out what to do. Read what is on your screen, then perform your task, then watch telemetry to see if the aircraft is doing what you want. Finally, don't stop watching until the craft is either back under your control or on the ground. Line of sight rules don't allow you to lose sight of the aircraft PERIOD, except for short periods to look at your screen. Not fly, put it in auto, and then forget about it until it suits your fancy. People keep flying these with that mentality and they are either going to license them or price them out of our hands.

Most rc pilots respected their sport and it was because it took a lot of money and skill to get into. With UAV/drones it is soooo easy for anybody to get into. So easy that LITERALLY a blind person could fly one of these things (zero disrespect meant, just illustrating their ease). That opens the sport up to a lot of complacency, which leads to these types of situations.

Learn and fly these things correctly and safely or we will lose them.

 

[jwmcgrath]

...but the same can be said for planes, trains and automobiles.

 

[jcdxxx]

If you've been following the law and maintained VLOS you would've noticed your mistake immediately

 

[Paul Schulze]

The theoretical resolving power of a human eye is about 4x10^-4 radians in daylight and assuming light of 5000A. Assuming perfect vision a 1 foot object would become a point at about 2460 ft or 750 m.

Taking into account that most folks have reduced vision, once you take your eyes off the drone to look at your controller, your ability to visually reacquire the drone in 3 sec is only possible at much shorter distances. My guess is 1000 ft is probably the maximum distance for complete visual control.

I would suggest some experiments.

1) Fly your drone at an altitude of 50m.

2) Put drone at a horizontal distance of 100m.

3) take your eyes off drone and read distance on display screen. Reacquire drone visually in 3 sec or less.

4) Repeat at 100 ft intervals until you take longer than 3 sec to reacquire drone.

5) Report your maximum distance here.

I chose 3 sec because that is loss of signal RTH.

 

[Paul Schulze]

Jcdxxx, you are correct. I had to look it up. Although there seems to be lacking information about what the observer's real function is.

 

[apprentice]

I want to know how the heck you get 3000 meters from your drone??!! With my Phantom 4, I'm lucky to get 2500 feet (distance) in optimum conditions!

That's easy. My current longest distance with my P3P is 3250 meters (over 2 miles). And I could go even further away. I just turned it back because the battery was at 60-65% as far as I remember.