P4P near flyaway

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Agoura Hills, Ca
I was flying a P4P in the hills behind my house, taking the opportunity to film the verdant foliage afforded by the recent deluge of rains in Southern California. The flight nearly ended in a flyaway due to two main factors: 1) carelessness and 2) arrogance.

I was flying in an area that I had flown many times before without incident. However, there is an array of cell towers close by that I had been told had been inactivated. At the end of my 2nd flight, I pushed the Return to Home button and the bird suddenly shot to the right, climbed in altitude and headed off into the wilderness. I immediately shut off the RTH function but still had no control of the unit. It was a tiny fleck in the sky and continued to head 'to the coast'. In spite of a good measure of panic, I decided to just let it fly for 30 seconds more, to allow it to fly far from the cell towers. I then pushed up all the way on the left stick, and much to my relief, regained control. I flew it home far from the towers and landed without incident, with wet palms and shaking fingers and with almost no battery remaining. I could here my wife's voice in the back of my head saying, 'You lost what, costing how much money!'

1) Carelessness- I had flown and used up one battery and had installed the second battery and took to flight again. However, I did not wait long enough to allow the home point to be reset. Lesson learned- replacing batteries requires a complete flight check again before taking off.
I have since made a small laminated card with a pre-flight checklist, and swore I would use it before every flight

2) Arrogance - flying close to cell towers in spite of all the warnings on this site. I am not sure this was a contributing factor but will never fly close to towers or electric lines again.
 
If you can't avoid flying near a cellular tower you might try locking the unit on 5.8 GHz, this band should be much less affected. I have my doubts that interference from cell towers was the real cause of your problem though.
 
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Glad you were able to get your bird back!
Sounds like a "wet moment" for sure!
These kind of events really tame a person's arrogance! AND what the wife/husband/better half would say!
 
I was flying a P4P in the hills behind my house, taking the opportunity to film the verdant foliage afforded by the recent deluge of rains in Southern California. The flight nearly ended in a flyaway due to two main factors: 1) carelessness and 2) arrogance.

I was flying in an area that I had flown many times before without incident. However, there is an array of cell towers close by that I had been told had been inactivated. At the end of my 2nd flight, I pushed the Return to Home button and the bird suddenly shot to the right, climbed in altitude and headed off into the wilderness. I immediately shut off the RTH function but still had no control of the unit. It was a tiny fleck in the sky and continued to head 'to the coast'. In spite of a good measure of panic, I decided to just let it fly for 30 seconds more, to allow it to fly far from the cell towers. I then pushed up all the way on the left stick, and much to my relief, regained control. I flew it home far from the towers and landed without incident, with wet palms and shaking fingers and with almost no battery remaining. I could here my wife's voice in the back of my head saying, 'You lost what, costing how much money!'

1) Carelessness- I had flown and used up one battery and had installed the second battery and took to flight again. However, I did not wait long enough to allow the home point to be reset. Lesson learned- replacing batteries requires a complete flight check again before taking off.
I have since made a small laminated card with a pre-flight checklist, and swore I would use it before every flight

2) Arrogance - flying close to cell towers in spite of all the warnings on this site. I am not sure this was a contributing factor but will never fly close to towers or electric lines again.
So you say you did not let the home point initiate on your 2nd flight? So was the bird heading in the direction of your last recorded home point? Because if not, i'm wondering what actually did cause this. I would think you have to have been very close the cell towers to be affected by them. Your thoughts?
 
So you say you did not let the home point initiate on your 2nd flight? So was the bird heading in the direction of your last recorded home point? Because if not, i'm wondering what actually did cause this. I would think you have to have been very close the cell towers to be affected by them. Your thoughts?
No, the bird initially headed in a direction 90 degrees away from the previously set Home Point and then gained altitude and then headed 180 degrees away from me.
 
she just shook her head and smiled! Cut me to the bone!
Wonder what she was REALLY thinking! Bet you can pretty much guess?
Still glad to hear you didn't loose the bird!
 
1) However, I did not wait long enough to allow the home point to be reset.
It's most likely that your home point was recorded unless you took off before getting green.
If you did launch early, the home point would have been recorded soon after launch when enough sats were acquired - not at some distance point.
The flight data would show what happened.
2) - flying close to cell towers in spite of all the warnings on this site. I am not sure this was a contributing factor but will never fly close to towers or electric lines again.
I doubt that the cell towers had any effect at all.
At worst you might have had interference and a fuzzy picture or glitchy controls but it would not cause the Phantom to zip away n its own.
I'd be looking for another explanation like .... was the RTH in the direction of a low sun?
There have been cases of the object avoidance doing strange things like that to avoid the sun.
 
Shot in the dark but would you be using Go3 3.1.2 on Android?
Unlikely I know since you should be on Go4, and the forced upgrade to 3.1.3 for Go3 on Android.
 
You can take the cell out of the the tower equation and still get a nasty compass error from a mass of steel alone, never mind cells on it. It sounds like you had a compass error. And you can save the laminate and checklist card. Those lessons loom large every flight thereafter and normally, you never ever make those mistakes a second time. Glad it worked out!
 

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