I have done hundreds of flights during the past nine years, but there are still new experiences. I have done numerous flights from boats (including ships in the Arctic). I often use Litchi to send Phantoms off on missions. Last week, I launched several missions from a boat on a small river (a convenient place to launch due to the lack of open spaces in the surrounding forest). At the end of the mission, the drone re-established a connection with the controller (as usual during the end of such missions) but then became disconnected. It drifted sideways toward the trees on the bank, and it seemed that it was going to be lost for sure. However, the obstacle avoidance kicked in, and it hovered near the edge of the trees. I rebooted the controller and was able to bring it in for a landing.
P4P disconnected after Litchi mission -- almost lost it
- Thread starter cinclodes
- Start date
This image is from the location where it stopped when the obstacle avoidance kicked in. It hovered in that spot for nearly a minute while I was rebooting the controller. The entire incident lasted for about two minutes.
I have read about drones "flying off" never to be seen again. I wonder if some of those cases are due to the drone becoming disconnected from the controller. When this incident occurred, I was focusing on the drone that was coming down and then heading toward the trees, without responding to my attempts to stop it. I didn't initially look at the screen and notice that it had become disconnected. I wonder if it would have reconnected if I hadn't rebooted the controller. It would be really bad news for this to happen when the drone isn't close enough to reconnect. I'm not sure what the drone was doing after it became disconnected. It wasn't returning to home. It went off to the side from where it was launched (after the home point had been established). A lot can be learned from an incident like this. Over the years, I have been very fortunate to have never lost a drone (although one was damaged after the wind caused it to drift into some trees).
A few more thoughts. If the drone had become disconnected while it was still above the trees, it probably would have flow off never to be seen again. I was fortunate that it was low enough that the obstacle avoidance stopped it from moving horizontally until I was able to reboot the controller. It initially seemed to be returning home. By that point, the boat had drifted a short distance from the launch point. It was descending toward the water. Then it leveled off and started drifting to the side.
Thanks, Capt KO. The log for that flight is here. The "Downlink Lost" message during the mission (when the drone was far away) is to be expected. It's the one that occurred after the drone returned to the launch area that caused the problem. I don't understand why it lost the downlink when nearby. I never had that happen before. I don't understand what the drone was doing when in "Auto Landing" mode, which I have never used. Why didn't it keep descending to the water? I'm glad it didn't. Why did it fly to the side? Perhaps it can detect water and it was looking for a dry place to land.
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