Sea crash P4P+ Obsidian

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So I lost my P4P+ in the sea the other day after launching on a boat.

Had a good flight for a few minutes and appeared to not respond to forward thrust after 10 minutes of good flying. Not 100% sure what happened - after a while it tried to smart RTH but it was launched on a boat that had now moved - so idiotic move from myself. But that's the only place we could launch it. I cancelled the RTH for the fear it may land somewhere terrible near the marina. It then ditched in the sea when on it's last 10%. Conditions were excellent with a very light breeze.

I take complete responsibility and I'm convinced something strange happened to my controller - having checked the logs there is a huge chunk of missing data in the middle. So flight records for the first 5 mins - nothing in the middle 10, and then records for the final ditch for the last minute or so.

Any ideas what could have happened here ? - I was only 1400 feet from the drone at the time. And within VLOS etc.

Anyway - this was a trial run for the Inspire 2 the next day which worked absolutely fine - and we launched from the shore instead. These things happen and I will proceed with my insurance - reports etc. It's my first hull loss in 4 years so I'm pretty okay with it but need to learn more about RTH and other corrections I could make next time.

Thanks.
 
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Hope you figure out what happened so it doesn't happen again I would hate to lose my P4P Obsidian drone and it's not even a plus model
 
Did you update your homepoint before attempting a landing on the boat? It sounds like the drone did an RTH to its takeoff location.
 
Yes it did. But I cancelled that as the RTH location was a serious ****-up. Should have refreshes it.

But why no flight records in the middle part of the flight?
 
Yes it did. But I cancelled that as the RTH location was a serious ****-up. Should have refreshes it.

But why no flight records in the middle part of the flight?

If you post the flight logs someone on the forum will be able to help you understand what happened. If you don’t know what happened, it could happen again.
 
Any ideas what could have happened here ?
Your recorded flight data is always the first place to look for an explanation of what happened.
Without seeing it, all anyone can do is make wild guesses with a high probability of being wrong.

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.
Or .. just post the txt file here.
 
Couple simple things when boat launch, ser RTH as Hover, not Return. Then go to it to retrieve. Turn off sensors so it won't stall when facing the sun and make hand catch easier. Not much to hit anyway. Landing in reverse also simplifies hand catch; controls match drone movements.
Good luck on you adventures. ?
 
In case you're not aware next time your bird acts up and is not responding to your sticks think quickly to put it in atti mode. This will usually save you. Of course this requires some skills/experience flying in atti mode but its known to save many qauds. Just an FYI.
 
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Why is it that so many ask for help but aren't interested enough to find out what actually happened?

Sorry is this aimed at me?

If so - I'm very much looking into and appreciate any help.

As I've explained the logs are broken - I only have the last minute and the first five. Nothing in the middle where things started to go out of whack.

I suspect what happened is my distance was from my home point was restricted to 1500 feet. That is my summation. As I'm getting further away from the UAV it won't come towards me.

In the panic - I didn't update the home point etc.

You always learn stuff from a crash for sure.
 
I suspect what happened is my distance was from my home point was restricted to 1500 feet. That is my summation. As I'm getting further away from the UAV it won't come towards me.

In the panic - I didn't update the home point etc.

You always learn stuff from a crash for sure.
If that was the case, it would be easy to confirm from your flight data even if you only have the last minute and first five.
Rather than suspecting, you could post data and have it checked and probably find out what actually happened.
 
Did you update your homepoint before attempting a landing on the boat? It sounds like the drone did an RTH to its takeoff location.
What tablets are any of you using to successfully “Update your Homepoint “ to your current ?
Been flying since 2014 with P3p’s and now P4Pv2 and have never been able to do this.
using iPads that have cellular capability, but no active account. I use my iPhone’s hotspot to get WiFi on the tablet. But it does have the gps In it.
a couple years ago it was suggested that iPad’s GPS accuracy isn’t within specs for DJI to do this.
This has always bugged me because I frequently walk around while flying could end up easily a quarter-mile away from my original home point. Which is not a problem if you have good eyes on the bird, but if it’s out of sight can can be a problem. And especially launching from a boat it could be a very big problem.
 
What tablets are any of you using to successfully “Update your Homepoint “ to your current ?
Been flying since 2014 with P3p’s and now P4Pv2 and have never been able to do this.
It's been reported many times in the last two years that resetting the homepoint to the current location of the controller does not work when using an iPad.
The reason is unknown.
But it works just fine with Android devices.
using iPads that have cellular capability, but no active account. I use my iPhone’s hotspot to get WiFi on the tablet. But it does have the gps In it.
Your iPad's GPS will work just fine with no active cell account.
Hotspotting will only share internet data, not GPS location data.
a couple years ago it was suggested that iPad’s GPS accuracy isn’t within specs for DJI to do this.
That's someone guessing incorrectly.
The iPad's GPS is as accurate as any other consumer GPS
This has always bugged me because I frequently walk around while flying could end up easily a quarter-mile away from my original home point. Which is not a problem if you have good eyes on the bird, but if it’s out of sight can can be a problem. And especially launching from a boat it could be a very big problem.
Flying from a boat it's usually no problem anyway because you are usually within sight of the boat and can easily visually spot the boat to come back.
 
Took your advice and ordered a Huawei M3. Hopefully get the functions I've been missing in iOS
 
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Took your advice and ordered a Huawei M3. Hopefully get the functions I've been missing in iOS
When my Shield K1 screen went black back in 2018, I also took Meta4's advice and got an M3. Overall I like it but there's one nagging 'feature' that I don't care for.

When charging, of course, the screen will go to sleep and the charging light is red IF the SOC is below 90%. When it reaches 90% the charge light turns green. I would prefer it to stay red until it reaches 100% - like every other Android device I've ever had.
 
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