Phantom 4 Advanced flyaway

[sar104]

We certainly don't want to help someone like this and give our general audience the impression this flight mission is acceptable behavior. If OP really got permission, he should have stated that knowing that we'd be hammering him for his mission if he didn't. If he knew to ask for permission, he's smart enough to know we're going to question his judgement on such a flight. IMO, the omission of this info invited the sanity of this forum to criticize. The OP's post is similar to saying he shot his neighbor, without including the fact that he was attacked by his neighbor with a knife. You invite people to question your sanity when you leave out critical details, that's what humans will do, rightfully so.

There may also have been a bit of a language barrier, and a better response from me would have been to ask the question rather than assuming the answer.

 

[With The Birds]

Well said. It's true to note that the guy is new and like any of us.. When we get the drone for the first ever time we seem to get to excited and just fly. Also the guy may not even be aware of the strict rules.

Your on the money Mate- I remember giving you a bit of a rev up when you were green and you might say testing the limits of your new toy in all dimensions. It could have been the OP’s first flight.

 

[Neon Euc]

Your on the money Mate- I remember giving you a bit of a rev up when you were green and you might say testing the limits of your new toy in all dimensions. It could have been the OP’s first flight.

Thanks mate. That was my mistake to be honest... I just wanted to see how high my bird would go on the first flight, just so I can watch the footage when it comes down, and also test it to it's max limit as I have 30 days to exchange it if anything is not working.

It really could be the same case here, and yet sadly a lot of people here are just giving him a hard time. I know when I first started I must have broken so many rules... Wasn't meant to be rebellious or intentionally breaking the law, but I broke the law at first as I 100% forgot every single rule, regulation, etc... With the excitement of having the drone.

A year later... I can't even remember when I broke any rules. Once the "honeymoon" phase is over, then I went to carefully skilled shots which is legal and I bet this guy will do the same.

So for anyone here giving the OP (or any new member) a hard time, just remember... We all been their ourselves. May not be drone related... But we all got over excited at some point and done things we shouldn't have done. It's just human nature [emoji4]

 

[With The Birds]

Thanks mate. That was my mistake to be honest... I just wanted to see how high my bird would go on the first flight, just so I can watch the footage when it comes down, and also test it to it's max limit as I have 30 days to exchange it if anything is not working.

It really could be the same case here, and yet sadly a lot of people here are just giving him a hard time. I know when I first started I must have broken so many rules... Wasn't meant to be rebellious or intentionally breaking the law, but I broke the law at first as I 100% forgot every single rule, regulation, etc... With the excitement of having the drone.

A year later... I can't even remember when I broke any rules. Once the "honeymoon" phase is over, then I went to carefully skilled shots which is legal and I bet this guy will do the same.

So for anyone here giving the OP (or any new member) a hard time, just remember... We all been their ourselves. May not be drone related... But we all got over excited at some point and done things we shouldn't have done. It's just human nature [emoji4]

You summed up my point beautifully....

 

[Slickvolt]

Hi.
My friend lost drone. It flew away.
Can you help me to define approximate area of drone landing?
Data from latest flight can be found here:
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I honestly can’t tell you where the drone went...but I looked at the data, and your friend had three significant issues within a minute of take off. Excessive voltage deviation across the battery cells, IMU compass failures, and a stuck controller control dial.
First observation..if u see these faults...land immediately. Not joking. Your aircraft cannot find its way home.

Now, I suspect something was amiss, causing an intermittent extreme power draw periodically. Whatever it was, and I have my suspects, I’ll speak to a little later...it may have caused such an internal power spike that the dc power conditioners specs were exdeeded causing Compass/IMU failures.

So this explanation to this point covers two of the three error messages...The las warning message was the stuck right control disc...this could have been the source of the power spikes causing the excessive out of spec periodic battery cell voltage deviation. Can’t know for certain...but definately a suspect. Two other possibles, or even coconspirators, could be a motor was acting up or a transmitter, or both...reason is , it was such a high over spec, I’m likely to think it was something with some real amperage draw, genetically speaking, your RF transmitters, motors and camera gimbal are the obvious suspects...the right control disc has gimbal involvement.

Now, only the operator knows when the drone became unresponsive and how many times, but it looks like there was ample warning to put it down within 1 minute of takeoff...even if your friend didn’t know what was wrong. My personal takeaway from this will be, quite simply...never ignore the warnings. Sorry I get to learn that from your friends bad experience, but in a small way her loss is going to help me, that’s for sure.

 

[Slickvolt]

Unfortunately the flight data doesn't give us a lot to go on.
It does not have any data to show where the Phantom may have landed or if it crashed.
All I can see is that the Phantom was flown with a full battery, for 5:40 at an altitude of 730 feet and the record just stops.
There are a number of compass errors at times that are concerning, but these don't explain the loss of the Phantom.
There was a very strong wind but the Phantom was flown into the wind so the return should have been easy.
There are two short loss of downlink messages near the end of the flight record which suggest that the Phantom may have been getting close to losing signal.
Once signal was lost, the Phantom should have gone to RTH and it would be normal for signal to be reconnected.
This did not happen but there is not enough information to see why or suggest what happened where the Phantom might have landed.

If the compass failure messages were true...RTH was never going to happen.

 

[Slickvolt]

First point, the person ask for help. Some people here didn't give him any help, quite the opposite.

Second point, why assume everyone is in the USA and start quoting FAA rules.

Third point ,Are we a friendly forum where a person can ask anything?

My point, Look into what a person is asking. They need help. It is not the time to quote FAA rules. People many times come to this forum for the first time looking for help. We are the experts, Phantom Flyers. Most people are ignorant of rules, because they are new. So tell them of how stupid they are. When they need help lets make them feel worse. We will alienate them from caring at all about the rules and see if that helps our cause in general. Show people you care and guide them in the right direction. I can't understand why people are so quick to attack someone? Does it make you feel Good? Is this a friendly forum?

Ya, I agree, person was looking for help, not self righteous bs

 

[Slickvolt]

I'm not pissed off - I just disagree with your basic premise. There is a world of difference between not knowing and/or not completely following all guidelines versus the reckless flying that we see far too much of, here and on YouTube. The former, you may have noticed, gets given a pass much of the time. The latter needs to be regarded as unacceptable by the community as a whole.

I’m going to remain neutral on this, but if this persons Compass was failing, it’s IMU was lost, and TRUE SITUALTIONAL AWARENESS of flight was gone..period. You can get upset with altitude and all that, but at some point in this flight the drone was no longer in anyone’s control..that’s a fact...go easy on the victim..there was a real HW failure here your overlooking.

 

[Slickvolt]

He get permission from airport stuff and also from nissan factory, because he shoot for a newspaper. He has been flying for more than a year. In Russia there is no restriction on flight altitude for drones. The permission to fly from the supervisory authority was received. The security service of the Nissan factory has already conducted searches on its territory. They did not find anything.

Data shows a hardware issue...what it doesn’t show is location data, trajectory after last data rcvd before loss, so Locating drone won’t be easy...suggestion: pet stores sell gps tracking dog collars...buy one cut it down to size attach to drones...NEVER LOSE A DRONE AGAIN...HINT HINT HINT

 

[Slickvolt]

It should not require knowledge of the exact rules to realize that flying that close to an airport at that height is reckless and dangerous. People like that are endangering others, and endangering the continued existence of relatively lax rules and rule enforcement in relation to recreational flight. They do not deserve your sympathy and the stupidity of their actions should, and likely will, be called out if they are then clueless enough to publicly advertise their actions.

Back in early 2000s I worked with military drones, several of them had the same features the P4P today...I would not be exaggerating at all if I told you we lost drones every single day...every single day...let that sink in...all had the RTB feature (return to base)..but we still lost drones every single day...and they didn’t cost $1499..some , just the optics alone cost $70000.
Why do I say this?
Perspective. I waited almost 20 years to buy a drone, thinking in that time all these issues would be solved...nope. Drones really are a danger to aircraft, we still lose them, because the technology is still flawed...IMUs have magnetometers and e-compasses. The military ruled out any IMUs having these for one very good reason..they lose calibration from magnetic waves...that’s why warnings about flying close to large metal structures, especially iron or cast iron...huge magnetic fields. Instead the gold standard IMU uses real gyros...but costs near $50,000 -$70000 and fits in a breadbox...hence why we have these cheap IMUs. We are going to lose drones guys..hate to be the one who tells you. One day a lost drone will take down an aircraft you mark my words...it will happen.

 

[Meta4]

If the compass failure messages were true...RTH was never going to happen.

While the compass errors may be cause for concern, there's nothing in the data to show they had any effect at all on any aspect of the flight.
Whenever there were compass error messages, the flight remained straight and stable.
I would expect that RTH would have worked properly.

Compass was failing, it’s IMU was lost, and TRUE SITUALTIONAL AWARENESS of flight was gone..period. You can get upset with altitude and all that, but at some point in this flight the drone was no longer in anyone’s control..that’s a fact...go easy on the victim..there was a real HW failure here your overlooking.

I looked closely at the flight data and can't find anything to suggest there was any problem with the IMU and I've already explained why the compass was not a problem.
Compasses and IMU units may cause a flutter in flight but the don't make a Phantom shut down and fall from the sky.
Are you sure there was a hardware error?

 

[sar104]

I’m going to remain neutral on this, but if this persons Compass was failing, it’s IMU was lost, and TRUE SITUALTIONAL AWARENESS of flight was gone..period. You can get upset with altitude and all that, but at some point in this flight the drone was no longer in anyone’s control..that’s a fact...go easy on the victim..there was a real HW failure here your overlooking.

I completely agree that there appears to have been a hardware or software failure. The only reasonable candidates are sudden power loss, permanent downlink loss, RC failure or app crash/disconnect. The log file contains little of real value for assessing those. The compass error message is too generic and common. It would not cause or indicate imminent power failure, downlink issues, RC issues or app problems. The stuck right dial message is one I've not seen before; it could indicate an RC problem, but that's a stretch. The high wind warnings are real - the estimated windspeed at 500 ft was nearly 30 mph.

If I had to guess, and it would be a complete guess - the most likely explanation (since it was not found in the parking lot under the last recorded point) is that there was a complete disconnect for some reason and the aircraft went into RTH. RTH height was set to 30 m, so it would have returned home at it's current altitude of 730 ft. On arriving home, it would not have been able to hold station in a 30+ mph wind from the south, and would have been blown to the north while descending.

 

[Slickvolt]

While the compass errors may be cause for concern, there's nothing in the data to show they had any effect at all on any aspect of the flight.
Whenever there were compass error messages, the flight remained straight and stable.
I would expect that RTH would have worked properly.

I looked closely at the flight data and can't find anything to suggest there was any problem with the IMU and I've already explained why the compass was not a problem.
Compasses and IMU units may cause a flutter in flight but the don't make a Phantom shut down and fall from the sky.
Are you sure there was a hardware error?

You’re missing the obvious..the IMU works with sensor data generated from the compass, magnetometer and gps to function. If a compass failure occurs there is a compass reboot, because it’s an electronic compass, during that time no heading control data can be followed, until corrected compass data is restored. RTH would also fail under this circumstance and quite frankly the home location in all likelihood was lost on compass failure.
Second point is it appears something REAL caused these errors in the drone, the OUT OF SPEC battery cell deviation is indicative of a sudden huge power demand..or spike...if far enough out of tolerance it could very well be what kept causing the compass to fail...but what caused the sudden power draw spike? Haven’t a clue, but it would be something significant that could draw lots of power and only a few systems on the drone do that, motors , transmitters and/ or gimbal. Now we don’t know if it just fell from the sky or flew off as you yourself pointed out there is no real telemetry data after lost contact..also indicative of a transmitter issue. There is plenty in the data to suggest hardware failure, but what exactly is the mystery.

 

[sar104]

Back in early 2000s I worked with military drones, several of them had the same features the P4P today...I would not be exaggerating at all if I told you we lost drones every single day...every single day...let that sink in...all had the RTB feature (return to base)..but we still lost drones every single day...and they didn’t cost $1499..some , just the optics alone cost $70000.
Why do I say this?
Perspective. I waited almost 20 years to buy a drone, thinking in that time all these issues would be solved...nope. Drones really are a danger to aircraft, we still lose them, because the technology is still flawed...IMUs have magnetometers and e-compasses. The military ruled out any IMUs having these for one very good reason..they lose calibration from magnetic waves...that’s why warnings about flying close to large metal structures, especially iron or cast iron...huge magnetic fields. Instead the gold standard IMU uses real gyros...but costs near $50,000 -$70000 and fits in a breadbox...hence why we have these cheap IMUs. We are going to lose drones guys..hate to be the one who tells you. One day a lost drone will take down an aircraft you mark my words...it will happen.

While you are sort of preaching to the choir, the issue is not that the technology is not perfect, which it isn't, but rather than even when the technology works there are people who will do reckless things with it.

And, just to be clear, flying in areas of local magnetic disturbance has no detrimental effect on magnetometer calibration - the magnetic fields are far too weak to cause any signifcant change in the magnetic state of the aircraft, which is what the calibration is correcting for. It may cause compass errors, driven by the resulting anomalous magnetometer readings in comparison to the integrated rate gyro data (we see that often in the DAT files), and that may result in the aircraft dropping into ATTI mode, but it won't make it crash and it won't make it lose uplink or downlink.

The miniaturized solid-state strapdown rate gyro / accelerometer / magnetometer sensor packages are actually very good. They will drift more over time compared to a three-axis floating gyro but the modern Kalman filter implementations do an excellent job of correcting for that and I've not seen them ever turn out to be the cause of a crash or flyaway.

 

[Slickvolt]

I completely agree that there appears to have been a hardware or software failure. The only reasonable candidates are sudden power loss, permanent downlink loss, RC failure or app crash/disconnect. The log file contains little of real value for assessing those. The compass error message is too generic and common. It would not cause or indicate imminent power failure, downlink issues, RC issues or app problems. The stuck right dial message is one I've not seen before; it could indicate an RC problem, but that's a stretch. The high wind warnings are real - the estimated windspeed at 500 ft was nearly 30 mph.

If I had to guess, and it would be a complete guess - the most likely explanation (since it was not found in the parking lot under the last recorded point) is that there was a complete disconnect for some reason and the aircraft went into RTH. RTH height was set to 30 m, so it would have returned home at it's current altitude of 730 ft. On arriving home, it would not have been able to hold station in a 30+ mph wind from the south, and would have been blown to the north while descending.

I’m new to the P4P, but you said something that really helped me..you said compass failures are common....that is indicative of a design flaw, in SW and or HW...I have noticed on mine, and I’ve only flown it 3 days for now 15 flights... a surging of motor noise, like it suddenly loses power for instant then regains it...oddly, I be watched altitude and never saw a corresponding loss in altitude, but I can clearly hear all the motors get very quite for an instant then ramp back up...in fact I had decided I was going t try to replicate it at low altitude (like 4 ‘ off the ground) to see if I can visually see it as I hear it. It’s really started to bother me somewhat, because I’ve heard it occur during autonomous flight...meaning I wasn’t controlling it. That to me says software. But it also to me could be “normal” for this platform. I am impressed with its station holding capabilities, very impressed, in fact it’s the biggest surprise to me is how stable this drone is in a hover in fairly high winds..now I lol go read the rest of your comment..lmao

 

[Slickvolt]

While you are sort of preaching to the choir, the issue is not that the technology is not perfect, which it isn't, but rather than even when the technology works there are people who will do reckless things with it.

And, just to be clear, flying in areas of local magnetic disturbance has no detrimental effect on magnetometer calibration - the magnetic fields are far too weak to cause any signifcant change in the magnetic state of the aircraft, which is what the calibration is correcting for. It may cause compass errors, driven by the resulting anomalous magnetometer readings in comparison to the integrated rate gyro data (we see that often in the DAT files), and that may result in the aircraft dropping into ATTI mode, but it won't make it crash and it won't make it lose uplink or downlink.

The miniaturized solid-state strapdown rate gyro / accelerometer / magnetometer sensor packages are actually very good. They will drift more over time compared to a three-axis floating gyro but the modern Kalman filter implementations do an excellent job of correcting for that and I've not seen them ever turn out to be the cause of a crash or flyaway.

Well just so you know I specifically tested magnetometers and they ALL get impacted by metal buildings, bridges, power lines, etc. I can personally attest to this, it was my job.

 

[sar104]

You’re missing the obvious..the IMU works with sensor data generated from the compass, magnetometer and gps to function. If a compass failure occurs there is a compass reboot, because it’s an electronic compass, during that time no heading control data can be followed, until corrected compass data is restored. RTH would also fail under this circumstance and quite frankly the home location in all likelihood was lost on compass failure.
Second point is it appears something REAL caused these errors in the drone, the OUT OF SPEC battery cell deviation is indicative of a sudden huge power demand..or spike...if far enough out of tolerance it could very well be what kept causing the compass to fail...but what caused the sudden power draw spike? Haven’t a clue, but it would be something significant that could draw lots of power and only a few systems on the drone do that, motors , transmitters and/ or gimbal. Now we don’t know if it just fell from the sky or flew off as you yourself pointed out there is no real telemetry data after lost contact..also indicative of a transmitter issue. There is plenty in the data to suggest hardware failure, but what exactly is the mystery.

I think that you have misunderstood a number of things here. The IMU uses magnetometer, rate gyro and accelerometer data, not GPS. The "compass" is the magnetometers. There is no such thing as a "compass reboot", and the FC can fly perfectly well with the rate gyro data in the absence of valid magnetometer data, at least for a while. It can certainly hold stability. What the FC will do when the magnetometer data and the rate gyro data disagree, more than transiently, is switch to ATTI. If that had happened before the downlink failed it would have been recorded in the log. If it happened afterwards then yes - RTH would not have been possible - but that would require two independent, near-simultaneous failures, so that's not a high-probability hypothesis compared to hypotheses that only require a single failure.

I don't see the out-of-spec battery cell deviation that you referred to. When did that happen?

 

[sar104]

Well just so you know I specifically tested magnetometers and they ALL get impacted by metal buildings, bridges, power lines, etc. I can personally attest to this, it was my job.

That's correct, but you are still confusing anomalous readings with invalidated calibrations. The readings will go back to normal after the aircraft leaves the area of local field distortion.

 

[sar104]

I’m new to the P4P, but you said something that really helped me..you said compass failures are common....that is indicative of a design flaw, in SW and or HW...I have noticed on mine, and I’ve only flown it 3 days for now 15 flights... a surging of motor noise, like it suddenly loses power for instant then regains it...oddly, I be watched altitude and never saw a corresponding loss in altitude, but I can clearly hear all the motors get very quite for an instant then ramp back up...in fact I had decided I was going t try to replicate it at low altitude (like 4 ‘ off the ground) to see if I can visually see it as I hear it. It’s really started to bother me somewhat, because I’ve heard it occur during autonomous flight...meaning I wasn’t controlling it. That to me says software. But it also to me could be “normal” for this platform. I am impressed with its station holding capabilities, very impressed, in fact it’s the biggest surprise to me is how stable this drone is in a hover in fairly high winds..now I lol go read the rest of your comment..lmao

No - I said that compass errors are relatively common. The FC is continually comparing the magnetometer data with the time-integrated rate gyro data. When they disagree it throws a compass error. The disagreement can be due to external or internal factors, such as a local field distortion or a bad compass calibration. Neither of those indicates a design fault.

 

[Slickvolt]

While you are sort of preaching to the choir, the issue is not that the technology is not perfect, which it isn't, but rather than even when the technology works there are people who will do reckless things with it.

And, just to be clear, flying in areas of local magnetic disturbance has no detrimental effect on magnetometer calibration - the magnetic fields are far too weak to cause any signifcant change in the magnetic state of the aircraft, which is what the calibration is correcting for. It may cause compass errors, driven by the resulting anomalous magnetometer readings in comparison to the integrated rate gyro data (we see that often in the DAT files), and that may result in the aircraft dropping into ATTI mode, but it won't make it crash and it won't make it lose uplink or downlink.

The miniaturized solid-state strapdown rate gyro / accelerometer / magnetometer sensor packages are actually very good. They will drift more over time compared to a three-axis floating gyro but the modern Kalman filter implementations do an excellent job of correcting for that and I've not seen them ever turn out to be the cause of a crash or flyaway.

I don’t put this person in that box of wreckless , they might have been, but not based on the post or the data, there is far and away enough data to show something bad was happening to this drone...now ignoring the messages makes more sense to me after hearing you say compass failure messages are not uncommon. That is where I would have said they were reckless..but if I saw compass messages routinely and never had a n incident I might ignore them too..but what if they are REAL? That drone was a goner.