P3 pro gone rogue in a canyon

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Hi guys,

I tried recently flying my P3 pro inside a gorgeous, but vertical and narrow canyon (the Trigrad gorge). I found a spot where the rocks were about 100m high and there was some opening of a circular space that was probably about 200m in diameter.

As it went up about 50m high, I left it hovering for few seconds, and then it started flying by itself fast towards one of the walls. It was hardly responding to my attempts to bring it back, and I thought I’d lose it forever (there are huge trees growing on those vertical rocks). However, I managed somehow to pull it back and land it safely.

The I also tried a more controlled flight at about 10m agl, but it kept pulling in the same direction.

Anyway, was this because of the lack of good GPS reception? I have flown it since on several occasions without any hiccups.

Thanks
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Anyway, was this because of the lack of good GPS reception? I have flown it since on several occasions without any hiccups
Probably
Flying beside a high cliff, you've blocked off half of the skyview and lost a lot of satellites.
It sounds like you might have lost enough satellites to leave you in atti mode without horizontal position holding.
That doesn't mean the drone has gone rogue or that it's out of control.
It just means that it has no brakes which tends to confuse flyers that have not experienced it before.

In any case, you can confirm exactly what happened by looking at the recorded flight data.
To do that, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
 
I agre with Meta4, there’s every chance you lost gps and the drone drifters off.
Pleased you recovered it.
 
Not windy at all - that was my first thought, but the trees weren’t even shaking. I have some footage, and will check the logs when I get back home
 
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I quite often fly a drone (toy or P3 etc.) in the house which means, for the P3, very few GPS satellite locks. I have noticed that if they get close to a vertical surface e.g. a wall, they seem to get 'sucked' towards the vertical surface.

I once tried to fly the P3 close to an exterior wall too and the same thing seemed to occur.
I am wondering if this might be analagous to the "squat effect" of a ship moving in shallow water?

Ditto the ceiling (with a toy drone), the toy drone actually 'stuck' to a ceiling at one point and I had to reduce the throttle to well below its hover setting to get the toy to 'unstick'.

I am not suggesting that the suggestions of a loss of GPS lock are wrong, rather, I am wondering if perhaps you encountered a similar situation in combination with a loss of GPS lock.

Beautiful place.
 
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Check for geological information there. Lots of iron ore in the rock could really screw up the compass.
 
I find that when my drone takes off with the base level of satellites (10) it can often drift. For that reason, I like to have at least 14 connected satellites interacting with my drone. Even then I watch it carefully. On the DJI 4 Go control panel, it also pays to see if/when the number of satellites goes below 14. If I see a dip, I bring the drone home ... just like when the battery life gets low.
 
It's not necessary to be much windy to make the drone to move. It can be only the slight air flow which makes the feeling of no wind. It wouldn't react to your stick inputs at all if it was a flyaway issue, but you brought it back. Nothing wrong with the drone. It only switched to atti (manual) mode. Flying in such situation is the same as normal only you must compensate the drifting. Go to an open area and prectice flying in atti. Not big deal. But people who suddenly fall in the situation which they don't expect become a little nervous and easy do the wrong thing - like hitting RTH which in atti can not work and then waits for the drone to come back and this never happened. Post the fly record here and I'm almost sure that this was the situation.
 
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