Very strange incident with my P4... What happened?

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I was flying my P4 after not using it for about a month. I flew it about 1800 feet away and about 500 feet high. There was a bit of wind (maybe 10-15mph) but didn't seem too bad. I had it in sport mode and was going about 40-50mph. I stopped the drone for a minute because I was talking to someone. After that I tried moving, but it wouldnt go anywhere. It went up and down fine, but wouldnt go past 4mph horizontal speed. Anyone have any idea what could have caused this?
 
Obstacle Avoidance turned on and maybe switched to P mode while you were chatting? In a stiff wind it may have been struggling go make headway, assuming you still had full control signal. Even in S mode, you may still have issues with a headwind, I've had to drop right down to a lower height to get into cleaner air at times.
 
I've heard bright sun can confuse OA?
 
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Did the return to home work?
no... I switched to sport mode and it still went 4mph max, and thats when I started to panic
I looked at the flight log, it went maybe a couple hundred feet sideways in 3 minutes with no input except full forwards
I did get a "strong interference" and "forward OA not working" alerts but my connection never showed any signs of interruption, I switched into sport mode and it was still not going forwards, and RTH did not work. I could control the vertical speed and yaw, but not horizontal speed
Will upload the flight logs in a minute
 
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Obstacle Avoidance turned on and maybe switched to P mode while you were chatting? In a stiff wind it may have been struggling go make headway, assuming you still had full control signal. Even in S mode, you may still have issues with a headwind, I've had to drop right down to a lower height to get into cleaner air at times.
I put it into sport mode when I realized P mode wouldnt let it move forwards. Sport mode didn't let it go forwards either, and it wasnt an especially windy day, so I cant see a headwind being the issue
 
See 13: 00 onwards to see live internal conflict with OA (not my video). 29:40 onwards for case review.

Was not bright sun but similar behavior.

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Last edited:
See 13: 00 onwards to see live internal conflict with OA (not my video). 29:40 onwards for case review.

Was not bright sun but similar behavior.

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It is not very smart to fly to 5km with 50% of energy and have red battery symbol with 41%. No check of wind speed, no check of cells of the battery. The drone hove no juice to fly.
 
I put it into sport mode when I realized P mode wouldnt let it move forwards. Sport mode didn't let it go forwards either, and it wasnt an especially windy day, so I cant see a headwind being the issue
Looking at your flight data, I think headwind may have been an issue.
The time you are concerned with was when you were trying to go north where the battery was around 68%-65% and the altitude over 800 feet.
With full right stick, you were only making 3-4 mph in P-GPS
If you look back to 4:30-5:00 you were also flying northwards in Sport mode with full stick and couldn't exceed 30 mph.
Altitude there was 525 ft.
Earlier in the flight, when flying south your Phantom had no trouble reaching proper speeds.

What this tells me was that there was a strong wind from the north affecting your speed.
The higher you flew, the strong the wind.
Winds aloft are always stronger than what you experience on the ground.
 
I'm not being a wise ***, but when it would not go forward, did you try facing the AC away from you and fly backwards? In addition have you ever used UAV forecast? I have found that on some days a 10mph wind @ 30' can be a 30mph wind @ 300' You mentioned that you were @ 500' could have been strong winds.
 

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