Who has not crashed or had issues with phantom drone

My original Vision+ has three times gone down (without damage) from a flaky battery. Too bad I didn't pick up that it was the same battery all three times! Last time I made an emergency landing on a remote island 4000' out & was fortunate enough to get a boat lift to recover. Once during a night excursion around the neighborhood she was brought down by "Night Fury," a large, angry, black, demon-like, winged creature who obviously wasn't particularly agreeable to sharing the skies with my Phantom! "Dirty Bird" tumbled down through the trees at speed, smashing into the asphalt below as I looked on in shock. Scuffed shell, two broken props, camera separated at the roll axis, torn ribbon cable. Sanded off the scuffs, replaced props, replaced ribbon & reattached camera. She is still flying fine to this day.

None of the Phantom 3's (P3 Pro, P3 Advanced, (2) P3 Standards, or my P4, have crashed or had issues after more than three million feet of flight. From my experiences I'd have to rate Phantoms as pretty damned amazing! :cool:

"Dirty Bird" - my original Vision+ still flying to this day:

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"Dirty Bird" - "Encounter with Night Fury":

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"Dirty Bird" - "**** the Batteries!" Emergency Landing on Remote Island.
(this happened right after I repaired the damage from the "Night Fury" encounter!)


"Dirty Bird 2" - P3 Pro:

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P3 Advanced "Poop Chute":

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P3 Standard #1 - "Darth Videous":

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P3 Standard #2 "Miss Ruby":

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P4 "Dirty Bird 3" (officially "Nemesis" just haven't installed the decals):

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Having read through lots of postings about damage and repairs, fly always and losses I was wondering how many users have good news stories and str still flying their original drone. As a newbie I was curious if I can expect to get weeks, months or years of enjoyment from my new purchase.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
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cal smith the old guy getting older and so is my phantom 3. many flights in without any serious problems and those were due to my inattention to the proper setup prior to flight. amazing machine, looking forward to better battery life ie; minutes per flight improvement as the battery designs develop.
 
3 phantoms 3 years, phantom 1, 2 and 3... only one crash whit phantom 2 the zenmuse died, it was my mistake a pilot error , I have not had any hardware or software failure
 
My P3S had one crash where I took off from a bridge and it instantly lost GPS. It started to drift and I landed quickly, too quickly. It tipped over and then flipped. At least it was on the bridge and not on the ground 50 feet below. This probably happened because of the large metal bridge I was standing on and taking off from.
The second crash was totally my fault where I zigged when I should have zagged flying towards me and didn't account for the reversed directions.
 
Have had my P3A for two weeks now. No issues at all. I installed the latest software on both the drone and the remote. I've flown it a few times now with total flight time of 59 minutes. I just have been taking it slow based on all the horror stories on here. And basically follow these main steps:
1) fly in open areas. At least the first few times to just get a feel for it.
2) always set your Home marker and check to make sure it's in the right spot and you have a max return home altitude higher than anything around you
3) always check your props and twist them on tight with your hand while holding the motors.
4) make slow movements on the joystick
5) don't push your battery to the limit. I land usually before I even get a low battery warning
6) keep the drone in your line of sight

Here's a recent video I made


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
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Have had my p3p for a year now and have never had any flight issues or fw issues. Solid piece of technology for me, have only calibrated compass and cold In once, have traveled over a thousand mile from original compass calibration location. Absolutely great experience with P3P.
Here is a screen shot of some of my flights from ND, probably another 100 flights that are not included.
I have 6 batteries and have mostly landed around 10% or less, each battery has around 80 recharges . I don't know who has started the"land with%25 battery" nonsense. These are well made intelligent batteries that have been calibrated so that %0 battery does not actually equal to 0. But if it makes a person feel more secure, then great, but if you are doing out to get more battery life, you are not getting your money's worth!

9a49162e1d01b89754b25eb22563749f.jpg
 
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I've been flying both a phantom 2 and phantom 3 pro, the pro has 89 flights and the phantom 2 doesn't keep track of flights but it is certainly well over 100 flights and I have never had a problem with either
 
No issues here close to 3000km with three Phantom 3 advanced

Update over 3000km
 

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Having read through lots of postings about damage and repairs, fly always and losses I was wondering how many users have good news stories and str still flying their original drone. As a newbie I was curious if I can expect to get weeks, months or years of enjoyment from my new purchase.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
I have been flying my 3A for about 6 months, without issue. I have not upgraded A N Y TH I N G and have been pretty happy. Off the top of my head I do not recall all the versions, but my batteries, aircraft And Rcontroller were updated about 6 or 8 months ago immediately after I bought the bird, and not since. I bought Litchi then also but it will not work on most of the Android devices I have, and there are horror stories on here, most, it seems, dealing with Litchi. I have used Ultimate Flight for missions without incidents. My experience, your mileage may vary.
 
I have been flying for many many years, Very very fast RC kit. and i have wrecked plenty of planes over the last 10 years. having said that, i have been flying DJI drones since the 2 came out and i have had 4 in between. the only crash i had , was with my 2 when i hit a tree because of my own stupidity.
if you take all the necessary precautions, dont do anything dumb, and just be aware of your surroundings, you literally eliminate 90% of the issues that can go wrong.
 
10 months flying P3S.
No crashes.

(I used to fly RC planes, and am compulsive about pre-flight checks, calibration, line of sight flying, ........still there is an element of luck!)
 
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I have only had my P3A a short time. Little over a month or so and have 75 miles of flight so far. No crashes or hard landings but I play it pretty safe and only fly in "Good weather" and bring it down with 20% + battery.
 
I've had one Phantom or another since mid-2014. 270-300 flights among them... no crashes.
Flown r/c planes since the 70's. Learned a lot since to help with current success.
 

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