ross.guardiando
lvl.1
United Kingdom
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ok I've learnt the hardway that the motors can be made to cut out when the craft is in mid air, from positioning the sticks In a certain way,
Question is what is the point of this feature it is inherently dangerous, and pointless as far as I can see,
The craft knows it's not on the ground ? Why not disable it when the craft is airborne to avoid accidental triggering ?
My poor inspire is no more after its death plummet from 50 m, I feel stupid but at the same time really very angry that such a dangerous and pointless feature is there ?
Does anyone have experience with the repair service ?
Would I be better just buying a new one pretty much everything is trashed but the main body is ok and the 3 motors can still spin, it also can still power on although entering travel mode to get it back the box was a trauma, I'm in the uk by the way
From what I'm reading Dji service dosen't seem to be very good, or it may be the distortion of people only reporting bad experiences?
Feel free to troll me and tell me how reckless I am for not reading every page of the non existent printed manual !!'
I only found this info on page 50 of a pdf manual 2 days after the incident happened after downloading it with a third party app
Update and details
Thanks for your feedback,
I was not in beginner mode,
I have some experience with flying craft but not extensive. To give a little background and so I can get the events clear in my own mind I case I wish to follow this up, my story goes like this, one night on YouTube a few days before leaving on holiday, I think to myself maybe I should to take my parrot one drone that might be fun, but then the thought occurs to me, I wonder what new drones are available now? as the parrot isn't particularly good due to the tilt controls of the iPad. So I have a search around and find the inspire, wow!! What a piece of kit, I hungrily consumed hours of video before deciding this is clearly the one to have, it is an amazing piece of equipment.
I manage to get one day before leaving for holiday, I take the quick guide out of the box to read whilst traveling, so I'm now on holiday, and the time comes to unbox my inspire and really have a good look at it, I'm aware that you must update the firmware and set about to do this, however this was not possible due to only having an iPad and had no means to get the new files onto my inspire, so I think to myself well this is a version d and all though it hasn't got the latest firmware it probably hasn't got the original versions so I feel nervous but ok, I remember watching a video where the drone couldn't be flown because it hadn't been updated so thought this may happen to me, and if my version of the firmware has been found to have issue I won't even be able to get it off the ground so I'm ok with it.
Any way I'm still no where near ready to launch the drone, time to try the simulator, thought it most strange that the craft has to be fully rigged up to use the simulator but ok I can do that ,, as I do so I'm still scratching my head why would I need to have it powered up to do this? So I power it all up, safety first of course so I leave the rotor blades off, I play with the simulator for a bit and see the controls are very simple and intuitive, but I do not like setting 2 so opt for setting 3, which was better for me. I'm still no where near ready to launch this thing so dive into the academy videos, and watch these, plus more YouTube videos, I totally missed the manual was there just below the simulator, to be honest I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of content the app has and some of the autonomous functions, most of the content of the app I have found after the event like flight logs etc, it really is very good integration of community etc and I must say I'm impressed overall.
Re the CSC kill switch function, as I said in previous post I found the info about this through a third party app called flight help which is effectively just the manuals and a simple interface 2 days after the event.
So finally time for launch, safety first let's run all the calibrations and do a full check list and have a clear flight plan, I also set the height on the return to home function that will keep it safe, this is just a test flight so my plan is just some simply manoeuvres, I was very nervous literally hands shaking and sweating, the flight location was at a villa on the side of a hill wonderful views down the hill and lots of empty non populated places to fly over when I become more confident.
Test flight goes according to plan I took her up and around tested the controls and she's a ok very easy to fly like all the videos had been saying, I'm literally in love with it,
The next few days followed a pattern of checks fly, re charge my one and only battery, I start to shoot videos etc, friends out where we we're staying are selling their property so I offer my new videographer skills
And offer to get some shots of their place, which I did, my confidence in the craft is growing, bar one incident where I used auto take off mode and the craft lurched backwards approx 3 m and nearly collided with a wall!, hmmm, not sure what happened there, so set a new rule, don't use that feature
. I'm expecting that the craft will shut itself down after a few uses and demand an update as I had seen in a video review online so each time she started was a surprise and a joy, but I'm thinking, this is a later version so any issues have been resolved and Dji do not feel the need to do this now because the product is safe and bug free.
She really was a wonder and able to easily handle all the inputs thrown at her my particular favourite was the fly back to me and have it air brake above me but my most favourite was getting a silky smooth landing, for me the motors cut out by just reducing the altitude and when she was on the ground fully pull back the stick that controls up and down motion, for me the right hand one, so confidence grows and I'm having fun, she can strafe, turn, perform air braking manoeuvres she can even turn and strafe at the same time going forwards and recover no problem
, I am mentally applauding the Dji engineers after each use, this is an excellent piece of kit, I'm also sucking up lots of videos on YouTube and learning more. For me the camera and everything is great but it was only 50% the reason I bought it, I wanted to fly it as well and she didn't disappoint in performance, so the problem came after filling up the sd card with video, I'm now bored of getting shots and video of the same location, so just use it to fly and not worry about capturing more content, as I said I now feel pretty competent in the crafts handling, some where after approx 50% of its overall use which was 36 flights, I turn off beginner mode, I want to go a little further and a little higher, I watched some videos of people flying over 2 km away, wow!! I wonder if I can just reach over there I'm thinking, or ohh I wonder what that is, although I still want to be able to see my bird in the sky, so my longest distance was about 1000m I think and I could still see a spec on the horizon, line of sight is required to keep my blood pressure In check, I lost sight once for a about ten seconds when looking away from the screen to check I still had full reception and let me tell you not a good feeling, not to be repeated. So anyway now comes the day of the fateful flight, last day before returning home, I do the usual checks the launch a few passes above me a few turns and spins wow I love this thing, so now I'm going In reverse ( I haven't tried this yet) pulling a move I've done going forwards loads of times, effectively like a reverse 180 but I wasn't just randomly smashing the sticks around there was grace to my movements but then one input to many and I obviously in CSC territory I know now and, wtf! Did the blades stop in midair or have I just destabilised her so much she's In a little trouble, obviously full throttle upwards did nothing and the poor bird flat spins to its death,
I was totally confused and felt sick, had it hurt anyone it came down with a hell of a thump, thankfully no one was, I admit I was over someone's Vila at the time of the move the craft crashed through their satellite dish no rugby World Cup for them for a few days, and broke a few roof tiles, thankfully no one was injured, is all I keep reminding myself.
So now time to dissect what happened I swear I saw the blades stop moving but why ? So I get on the Phone to Dji to report the incident, and am still waiting for an email acknowledgment, after uploading flight logs etc, I watch the flight log over and over and do not understand why my correctional inputs are not recorded on the log, but put it down to the fact she tapped out before the signals had a chance to be recorded in the log although clearly that makes no sense, I'm totally confused and gutted.
So on plane back I finally come across on page 50 of the PDF manual In this third party app a little line with an warning symbol, saying to be careful not to do this when its in the air !!!!!! Are you kidding me that can't be right surely Page 50, not page one. No mention in the quick start guide, no big huge warning sticker anywhere!! No mention in the video tutorials / guide, by the way if you want to avoid turning your craft off in mid air don't do this!!
In my opinion this is not acceptable, why would such a well engineered and manufactured consumer product have such an obviously inherent dangerous setup, with improper warnings.
1 Why have this feature activated in this way ? As mentioned above by Paul obviously this should be a a separate button labelled kill switch, not something that can be triggered while in use in this way.
2 Why not provide the top ten warnings as information in the quick guide? With this at number one
3 why should this feature be there at all when the craft is airborne and it knows it is ?
4 why not provide a printed user manual?
Please give me one argument to why this CSC feature should be activated in this way?
Has anyone else suffered this ? I would expect so, although some may not be honest and claim random fly aways.
In the strongest possible terms I advocate an immediate change to this before someone is killed, and Dji sued out of existence,
I make a prediction that to do so may accept some liability of poor design decisions and Djis legal people will be scratching their heads as to how they can implement this and not accept liability for the inadequate documentation and warnings of such an inherently dangerous feature. However do the right thing and change this immediately before the inevitable happens. If you are a video blogger please feature this soon as a warning to others.
All the arguments of you it's obvious you shouldn't do this its not a stunt quad copter or, why would you do this are not relevant, the fact is you can do this, this is a consumer product requiring no specialist licence or training before use, that has been built with an inherently dangerous feature, with inadequate warnings or printed documentation.
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