Every Phantom pilot worries that they might crash. Apart from damaging your drone, you could damage someone’s property or even…someone!
You don’t want that happening, and neither do we! That’s why we’ve put together this list of ten common mistakes Phantom Pilots make, so you can avoid making them yourself. Let’s get started.
1. Conducting the Combination Stick Command (CSC) Midair.
If you conduct the CSC, all the motors will stop after holding the sticks to the bottom inner corners for 3 seconds, with the most recent firmware. If you’re running an older firmware, stop time will be even less than that. You should only preform the CSC midair if you’re certain you’re going to crash. In most cases, stopping the motors will mitigate any damage resulting from a crash.
Tips: The CSC should only be used in emergencies, so don’t use the CSC when landing. Just land automatically with Return to Home or hold the throttle stick downward once the drone’s on the ground to stop the motors.
2. Improperly Installed Propellers
When the motors are spinning at 7000-8000 rotations per minute, correct propeller installation is a key factor to ensure a safe flight. The aircraft changes its attitude in the air all the time, and motor speed changes correspondingly. If they’re improperly installed, a propeller could spin off the motors midair. Losing a propeller could hurt you or people around you.
Tips: Make sure the propellers are tightly installed on the corresponding motors (if you’re using quick-release propellers, make sure they’re locked). Additionally, change your propellers once they’re worn or damaged. We suggest changing propellers every 50 flights, and a set of propellers should not be used for more than 100 flights. If you haven’t used a set of propellers for more than 50 flights, but they’re over a year old, still change them, as the threads will degrade over time from exposure to air.
3. Crashing during Failsafe Return to Home (RTH)
Imagine you’re flying in the mountains. If you fly behind a tall mountain, the signal between the aircraft and your RC may be severed. Unless you set an appropriate RTH Altitude, your aircraft may crash into the mountain as the drone is returning home. Since the map in the DJI GO app is 2D, crashes like these are more likely to happen when a pilot is fixated on their device screen and not actively observing their surroundings and the drone during flight.
Tips: Make sure to fly in open areas with as little magnetic interference as possible, and try to avoid places with tall buildings or obstacles. If you have to fly around buildings, make sure you set your RTH Altitude higher than the tallest building in the vicinity, and make sure you have enough battery for the flight.
4. Critical Low Battery Landing
As soon as your battery gets critically low (10% by default, but the level can be set higher), the aircraft will land automatically right where it is. If you don’t touch the sticks, the aircraft will start descending at 3 m/s. However, if the remote controller is still connected, you can still throttle up to make it hover or rise. Throttle up 70-80% to hover or push the stick greater than 80% to raise the altitude. If pushed all the way, the aircraft will rise at about 1 m/s. All other sticks will function the same as they normally do.
If you don’t do anything during landing, chances are the drone may land in water, bump into something on the way down, or even get lost. If you find yourself with critically low battery, be sure to maneuver the drone as best you can before it descends.
Tips: Avoid this situation altogether! Keep an eye on your battery level in the app for the duration a flight and land safely before your battery gets critically low.
5. Failure to Avoid Obstacles Beyond Line-of-Sight
When you fly your aircraft beyond Line-of-Sight (often abbreviated as LOS), you can only see what’s surrounding your drone with the camera view in the DJI Go app. In such situations, you’re much more likely to crash.
Tips: Only fly within LOS! If you absolutely need to fly beyond LOS, make sure to have a spotter and set the RTH height higher than the tallest obstacle in the area.
6. Flying Backwards Quickly
Since the cameras on all Phantoms can only face forward, it’s impossible to see what’s behind it in the camera view. There’s always a possibility of crashing if you’re gunning it backwards and staring at your phone or tablet screen. Tips: Again, keep your drone within LOS and make sure there’s nothing behind it.
7. Indoor Drifting
A lot of new pilots like testing their drones indoors. However, due to a lack of GPS signal, the drone is much more likely to drift. Even with the VPS active, many floors are monochrome, which makes it hard for the VPS to detect surface patterns and stabilize accordingly. Additionally, many floors are carpeted. Carpet absorbs ultrasound, and DJI drones use ultrasonic sensors to stabilize.
Tips: Don’t practice indoors! Practice in the DJI GO Flight Simulator or an open area.
8. Misoperation during RTH A lot of users don’t understand how exactly RTH works and wonder why their drone landed instead of returning to the home point or why RTH was cancelled all of a sudden.
Tips: First of all, if you command a DJI drone to return to home within 20 meters of the home point, the aircraft will land right where it is instead of rising up to the RTH height and returning to the home point. Second, the aircraft will rise to the RTH height you set in the app if it’s lower than that height before function is triggered. 20 meters is lowest RTH height you can set. However, if you press the RTH button quickly, you will cancel the whole RTH process. To initiate RTH again, long press the RTH button for 3 seconds.
9. Flying in Unsuitable Environments
There are a lot of environments that we suggest you don’t fly in:
· Do not use the aircraft in severe weather conditions, including wind speeds exceeding 10m/s, snow, rain and fog. · Only fly in open areas. Tall or large metal structures may affect the accuracy of the onboard compass and GPS. · Avoid obstacles, crowds, high voltage power lines, trees and water. · Minimize interference by avoiding areas with high levels of electromagnetism, including base stations and radio transmission towers. · Aircraft and battery performance is subject to environmental factors such as air pressure and temperature. Be very careful when flying at altitudes greater than 19685 feet (6000 meters) above sea level, as the performance of battery and aircraft may be affected. · Additionally, all Phantom series aircraft cannot be operated in Polar Regions in P mode.
10. Crashing after Braking
Say you’re flying really fast, and all of a sudden, you realize there’s an obstacle in front of your Phantom. Even if you stop pushing the aircraft forward, it will still drift forward a bit due to inertia. Lots of drones crash in such circumstances.
Tips: Remember that it takes time for your drone to brake and keep a safe distance from obstacles.
Thanks for reading everyone! If your DJI drone has obstacle avoidance, like the Phantom 4 or Inspire 2, you may be able to avoid some of the issues discussed in the article. However, even with obstacle avoidance, there are still some potential issues you should be aware of. We’ll discuss those in a future article. Follow DJI Support on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for more tips, tricks, and advice!
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