What would you like to know about fly-aways?

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I'm building a survey about fly-aways and crashes to determine the causes of an fly-aways/crashes. I'm building a huge set of questions to see if there are any things that connects fly-aways and crashes.

Any suggestions about what kind of questions you would like to aks?

If everything goes well, people are interested enough to take part of the survey to help recognise possible reasons and connections between fly-aways.
 
- Did you get it back?
- How did you find it?
- Was it all stock, or modified in some way?
- What was the weather (wind, temp, visibility)?
- What was the altitude when you lost control?

tons more I'm sure
 
This has been done already here. Someone has made a pretty comprehensive type survey about flyaways that you could see the results in percentages. Can't find it but just use that one.

This will avoid repeats that seems to be common in these forums.
 
The easiest survey may be to Find the pilots who have flown hundreds of flights successfully without fly-aways and find out what they do differently to prevent fly aways.

Some additional points to look at for fly-aways:
1) Magnetic declination. Do the fly-aways occur more frequently with higher magnetic declination.
2) K-Index. What was the K-Index at the time of fly-away.
3) What command was pilot giving when bird stopped responding to commands?
I've observed fly-aways on YouTube that occurred when the pilot changed the bird's direction (turned bird around to return home).
4) Maintenance schedule: Would be great to develop complete checklist like Pull_Up has done: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5148
 
I'm planning something bit extreme compared to that. And in that survey if you say "no" I havent had a fly-away it doesnt have any questions for you. In my opinion infromation from the people who havent experienced fly-away is as important as the information from the people who have experienced it. So I'm building a survey about how people do maintenance on their Phantoms, how often. What kind of batteries do they use (DJI or 3rd party), do they use quick/fast chargers etc. It would be really nice to know for an example that do people doing a lot of maintenance have less fly-aways for an example.

At the moment the survey has already a lot of questions, which is risky. As more questions mean that you need to take more time with it, but as theres already a simple survey... I'll go on with my in depth survey.

After theres enough people who have done the survey I can publish the results. Answering to questions such as: does maintenance make the difference. Do Phantoms with 3rd party batteries have more fly-aways etc....


Most of the suggested questions will be added to the survey in a way or the other.
 
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What recovery skills does the flyer have: GPS, ATTI, Manual.
One fly-away was averted when the person switched from GPS to ATTI mode.

Would have questions related to location and internal processing. In fly-away I'd assume the bird either doesn't know it's position or where home is.
  • Data input:
    • GPS from satellites (needs 6+). K-Index relates to this.
      Compass is working and providing correct data.
      • Magnetic changes would influence compass. Was compass near magnetic object before taking off?
        How would you perform maintenance on compass?
        Does bird need to be perfectly level on take-off. This item was mentioned in a beginners book on quads.
        Would vibrations affect compass over time?
    Sending data to NAZA
    • When GPS sensor / compass data travels to NAZA, was there a break in the path.
    Processing data
    • Can something happen to NAZA or it's processing that would result in no commands or incorrect command
      (firmware, or assistant settings)
    Sending commands from NAZA to ESCs/motors - what could go wrong here?
 
I'd like to know a few things:

  • Flyaways reported as percentage of users (I'd guess 20% for the P1 and >5% for the P2)
  • Percent of "flyaways" attributable at least partially to user error (I'd guess 66% for the P1 and 90% for the P2)
  • Percent of "flyaways" attributable to GPS jump (I'd guess ??% for the P1 and 0% for the P2)
  • Percent of "flyaways" attributable to bad compass data (I'd guess ??% for the P1 and 50% for the P2)
  • Percent of mechanical flyaways vs. interference flyaways vs. software defect flyaways
  • And finally, is manual mode the only way to recover from a mechanical flyaway?

You'll have to do a significant amount of work to get anything close to a real result. Bias will be high (flyaway victims will line up to answer a poll whereas the rest won't be so motivated).
 
I'd like to know what causes fly-aways and how to prevent them.

Today I explored the "Receiver Advanced Protection" feature and ran into interesting Phantom Pilot discussions and videos.
1. CAUTION - DJI NAZA V2 GPS Unexpected Take-Off Hazard – Topic started by Mike Mas.
Be advised if you are using the Naza V2- GPS your machine will take-off with no prior warning - which could result in an accident or serious injury.
Topic at: http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7231&hilit=receiver+advanced+protection+function
Mike's video documenting the hazard: http://youtu.be/03VRozck72c

In summary: When the Phantom's motors start up, the bird will shoot into the air under various transmitter conditions:
* Tx batteries fail (batteries loose - bad connection, dead)
* Tx not turned on or rx doesn't see tx
* Tx stick (A|E|R) off-center over 20 seconds and "receiver advanced protection function" enabled.
* Tx sticks not calibrated. Code sent to receiver: Right stick not on center (A|E|R) for over 20 seconds
* Trims not zeroed (non-stock tx).
* Tx signal blocked - does not reach receiver.

2. Flyaway Survey TX Type
If you have had a flyaway, Please post what type of Transmitter you were using at the time.

Stock TX, Futaba, JR, Spectrum, ect
http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2433&hilit=receiver+advanced+protection+function
Surprising result: Almost all of the fly-aways were using the stock tx (13)
One person said Futaba TBJ and described the event. Others thought it was an ESC failing during flight.

DJI added Spring-loaded sticks returning to center. This eliminated a lot of fly-aways due to sticks off-center over 20 seconds and "receiver advanced protection" enabled.

3. Suggest questions related to transmitter used when flyaway occurred.
what type of tx DO they have: stock, Futaba,...
When is the last time they changed tx batteries.
Etc
 

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