Akael
lvl.1
United States
Offline
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So I contemplated not posting about these two lessons, but figured maybe they will help some other new Phantom owners.
I am now going on 2 weeks with my Phantom 3 Advanced, and getting more and more confidence with my flying abilities. The other day I went to a park to fly around a bit. It had been raining beforehand and the grass was pretty tall and wet. I decided to calibrate the compass in the parking lot, which of course was cement. It seemed to go well at the time, and calibrated correctly I thought. Then a few minutes into my flight the app reported a compass error, and the drone switched to Atti mode. I had practiced flying in Atti and since I wasn't far away I was able to land just fine. The only thing I can think of that may have caused the issue is the fact that the parking lot cement has rebar embedded, and must have caused an issue with the compass calibration. I was too worried about controlling the drone to really focus on the errors in the application, but I should have tried to get a screenshot I guess.
The second lesson I learned was regarding flying with a group of people around. Normally I takeoff in a wide open area, and without anyone around. This particular day I was at a friends house, and wanted to show off the drone. They had a couple teenage sons, and each had friends over so there was a group of maybe 7-8 people there. I normally take off with the drone facing away from me, and I did this day when I first took off. Shortly into the flight one of the teenagers asked how I land it, and I preceeded to show them by landing it on the wood deck behind their house. When I landed it the drone was facing me instead of away from me, and I took back off without realizing it. The questions were coming back to back, and I was slightly distracted. Near the house was a tree that while not too large was definiately closer to where I was flying than I should have been.
As I raised the drone I was flying only about ten feet from the tree branches and needed to get further away. Being distracted and having taken off facing the opposite direction I normally do I hit the stick and flew directly into the tree. I realized immediately, but it was too late. I tried to fly away from the tree, but the props hit a branch about as thick as my pinky finger, and the drone started rolling completely end over end. I thought for sure it would tumble to the ground, and the entire group there all verbally gasped out loud. Amazingly the drone recovered somehow, and shot up about ten feet and away from the tree.
My heart was racing, and I carfully brought it in and landed. I was amazed that there wasn't anything wrong at all with the props except for some green marks where it clipped the leaves. There was of course a small pile of leaves and a small branch that was cut clean off the tree, which is how I knew it was as think as my pinky.
So my too leassons learned:
1. Don't calibrate the compass on cement.
2. Either fly with nobody around, or ignore the people standing with you and pay attenion to what you are doing even more so than you do when alone, because you will be distracted and screw up.
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