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Had my first , oh i've lost it moment today
1848 19 2017-8-13
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Daveb500
lvl.4
Flight distance : 191742 ft
United Kingdom
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I had that first feeling today of i've lost my drone. I went to survey a river bank, one ive flown and worked on for somrtime now. First issue was when I got on site I could not get a clear connection to the drone through the go app. After a number of shut downs and reboots of everything I checked my phone, and found it had also conected to the wifi, so I shut the phone down completely. I use an old sony Z1 for the drone, it has worked fine until now. Anyway that gave me a good signal on the sony, and I managed to take off, I flew to the start point and started recording. I flew down the river, height was 120ft, and clear of all obstructions, this river meanders aloth her so line of sight wasnt far, but flight disatnce was as I twisted and turned down the river, then 3 mintues into the flight the app froze on the phone. As I was using that to follow the twists, I had lost which dot in the sky the phantom was. So I flicked the return to home togle, and waited. I heard the voice stutter badly go ho,e. well ggggg o o go H h home. Nothing happened the screnn was still fozen, I could see the battery live dropping, it showed 47%. After a couple of minutes looking and listening, I still couldnt hear the bird. Thats when I thought ohh s****t . I killed the app, and startred to walk down stream towards where the bird should be, still could nt hear it. I tried rebooting the app, still nothing. so I rebooted the phone. As I did that I tried the return to home switch again. After a minute I heard the buzz of the bird, and what a feeling of relief I saw the dot flying towards its take off point. I ran back to take control and landed  safe and sound.
Back home I checked the flight log, and after less than a minute the log stopped. the next recorded log was when I had rebooted the phone and the bird was on its return to home about 1800ft away from me. Everthing else is lost.
As to the recoding it recorded the flight for 3.30minutes then again nothing.
After that I dont want to use the old sony again, so it time to start finding a tablet that will work with no worries.
2017-8-13
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ALABAMA
Captain
Flight distance : 10442687 ft
United States
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Sick feeling, isn't it ?
2017-8-13
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RedHotPoker
Captain
Flight distance : 165105 ft
Canada
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This is what's known as cheap entertainment. Got your heart pumping didn't it? Ha

I know that dreaded feeling. But with the tech. built in, you should be able to fly back, following the line on the map.
Actually there are two map lines created while we fly, one shows the flight path, while the other is a straight line from drone to RC.
You can also see what direction the drone faces, with the arrow on the map. Turn it around and bring her home. ;-)


RedHotPoker
2017-8-13
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DJI Susan
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I would suggest you to use one of the recommended mobile as they have been tested and the performance can be ensured. You can find it in the Download section of under the corresponding units.
2017-8-13
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Daveb500
lvl.4
Flight distance : 191742 ft
United Kingdom
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RedHotPoker Posted at 2017-8-13 12:01
This is what's known as cheap entertainment. Got your heart pumping didn't it? Ha

I know that dreaded feeling. But with the tech. built in, you should be able to fly back, following the line on the map.

The other problem was the map wasn't working, so I had no direction arrow, and when it froze I had a good idea of where it was and direction, but couldn't tell for sure..
I checked the log last night, and it was flying for about 10 minutes, I could see the point where I said return to home, the message in the log reads as if it detected an obstacle so stopped and hovered, even though my drone has no obstacle detection. It sat at 220ft my safe altitude, zero climb and zero ground speed. It wasn't until I had rebooted the phone that it then started to move, it moved a few feet and stopped again with the same message. then finally set off home. That's when I detected it and flew it home myself.
weird, but yes it got the heart bumping.
I think the moral is don't panic, atleast they will hover and give you time to think.
2017-8-13
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RedHotPoker
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Daveb500 Posted at 2017-8-13 22:27
The other problem was the map wasn't working, so I had no direction arrow, and when it froze I had a good idea of where it was and direction, but couldn't tell for sure..
I checked the log last night, and it was flying for about 10 minutes, I could see the point where I said return to home, the message in the log reads as if it detected an obstacle so stopped and hovered, even though my drone has no obstacle detection. It sat at 220ft my safe altitude, zero climb and zero ground speed. It wasn't until I had rebooted the phone that it then started to move, it moved a few feet and stopped again with the same message. then finally set off home. That's when I detected it and flew it home myself.
weird, but yes it got the heart bumping.

You certainly had a nerve wracking time of it eh? Haha

Just when you thought all hope was lost, you somehow managed to save and bring her home.


Do you have Smart Return Home set?


RedHotPoker
2017-8-14
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RMJovo
First Officer
Flight distance : 1716240 ft
United States
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I shared that sick feeling also yesterday, the P4P was out 1421 feet and I dropped the altitude from 200ft to 50ft looking for a weed patch in the corn field, I took my eyes off the drone to look at the camera feed and lost sight of the drone and after looking and searching the sky I could not get a visual on the drone even though I have the frount painted bright orange and the back bright green, "slow controlled panic" Pressed the Return to home still did not see it gain altitude "where is it oh where is it" then finely I heard the noise of Ten Thousand Mosquitos and seen the P4P descending for landing Oh Ya
2017-8-14
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Daveb500
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Flight distance : 191742 ft
United Kingdom
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RedHotPoker Posted at 2017-8-14 08:43
You certainly had a nerve wracking time of it eh? Haha

Just when you thought all hope was lost, you somehow managed to save and bring her home.

Yes smart return is set, for some reason a p3 seemed to think it was a p4 and thought it saw an obstacle, but nothing there. Well that's what the log says. Just one of those glitches I guess.
2017-8-14
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Daveb500
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Flight distance : 191742 ft
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RMJovo Posted at 2017-8-14 14:03
I shared that sick feeling also yesterday, the P4P was out 1421 feet and I dropped the altitude from 200ft to 50ft looking for a weed patch in the corn field, I took my eyes off the drone to look at the camera feed and lost sight of the drone and after looking and searching the sky I could not get a visual on the drone even though I have the frount painted bright orange and the back bright green, "slow controlled panic" Pressed the Return to home still did not see it gain altitude "where is it oh where is it" then finely I heard the noise of Ten Thousand Mosquitos and seen the P4P descending for landing Oh Ya

When I checked the video play back it stopped after 3.30 in a 10 minute flight. It stopped after I hovered over something in the river, and I moved the camera down to get a better look. I had planned to descend as well, that was to point the app froze. It was another 7 minutes until I landed it.
2017-8-14
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dancopter
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Flight distance : 17901030 ft
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Anything iOS is rock solid (compared to Android anyway).
2017-8-15
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Nigel_
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United Kingdom
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Daveb500 Posted at 2017-8-14 22:18
When I checked the video play back it stopped after 3.30 in a 10 minute flight. It stopped after I hovered over something in the river, and I moved the camera down to get a better look. I had planned to descend as well, that was to point the app froze. It was another 7 minutes until I landed it.

I guess the easy way to bring it back home would have been to turn the controller off, then it would have set off back home after 3 seconds instead of listening to a dead app.

The aircraft logs should have the complete flight even though the app didn't record the phone logs.
2017-8-15
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RedHotPoker
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Daveb500 Posted at 2017-8-14 22:15
Yes smart return is set, for some reason a p3 seemed to think it was a p4 and thought it saw an obstacle, but nothing there. Well that's what the log says. Just one of those glitches I guess.

Sounds like a mutant drone, with mixed up electronic parts. Haha


Have you checked the flight log?



RedHotPoker
2017-8-15
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R&L Aerial
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Def ditch the old sony, iPad mini 4, iPad air or as i use the new iPad pro 10.5 will suit you best. If your an android user then you can't beat the nvidia shield k-1 for the price.....
2017-8-15
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RedHotPoker
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Flight distance : 165105 ft
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R&L Aerial  Posted at 2017-8-15 04:40
Def ditch the old sony, iPad mini 4, iPad air or as i use the new iPad pro 10.5 will suit you best. If your an android user then you can't beat the nvidia shield k-1 for the price.....

Yes my Phantom 3 Pro dedicated device is its iPad Air2 Cellular. What a marvelous device for this service.



RedHotPoker
2017-8-15
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Daveb500
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Flight distance : 191742 ft
United Kingdom
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RedHotPoker Posted at 2017-8-15 04:35
Sounds like a mutant drone, with mixed up electronic parts. Haha

yes checked the flight logs, that's where I picked up the message from, it never lost the rc controller, just the app, so that must have confused it.
2017-8-15
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Daveb500
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Flight distance : 191742 ft
United Kingdom
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R&L Aerial  Posted at 2017-8-15 04:40
Def ditch the old sony, iPad mini 4, iPad air or as i use the new iPad pro 10.5 will suit you best. If your an android user then you can't beat the nvidia shield k-1 for the price.....

Out of principle I will not use IOS, hate apple to the core.
I have an acer Iconia, trying that now, it looks stable,
2017-8-15
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sSunSetter
First Officer
Flight distance : 311089 ft
United States
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Smart return?
2017-8-16
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njalex
lvl.1
United States
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As of right now, I do not own a very powerful mobile device: I am running an iPhone 5C and an iPad Mini 1st Generation as my viewing devices when flying my Phantom 3 4K. In fact, when I was helping my little brother fly his Phantom 3 Standard at the field today, and he was using my old iPhone, I was getting a CPU usage warning and the feed was extremely unreliable.

At the same time, being someone used to flying the old Phantom 1 with no viewing device at all, and who works with the P3 4K, which does not have lightbridge, I have one major rule for myself when it comes to flying anything, and I made sure my brother knew it: ALWAYS keep your aircraft in line of sight, and never lose position of it, or bad things will happen.

A couple days ago, I witnessed a Phantom 3 Standard being crashed, as the pilot was only paying attention to the phone's unreliable feed, and backed it up straight into a tree. The drone was damaged, with a slightly bent arm, and a crack in the gimbal, but nothing that a little glue couldn't fix, and the drone was flying and filming normally the next day. But it just goes to show, never rely on the feed, even if you have a powerful lightbridge connection. Always know where your drone is and what is around you, and I guarantee you, you will never crash or lose your drone.
2017-8-16
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MrRobert5823
Second Officer
Flight distance : 1385223 ft
United States
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SERIOUS pucker factor!  i would have had an awful time!
2017-8-30
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paraviz02
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njalex Posted at 2017-8-16 18:43
As of right now, I do not own a very powerful mobile device: I am running an iPhone 5C and an iPad Mini 1st Generation as my viewing devices when flying my Phantom 3 4K. In fact, when I was helping my little brother fly his Phantom 3 Standard at the field today, and he was using my old iPhone, I was getting a CPU usage warning and the feed was extremely unreliable.

At the same time, being someone used to flying the old Phantom 1 with no viewing device at all, and who works with the P3 4K, which does not have lightbridge, I have one major rule for myself when it comes to flying anything, and I made sure my brother knew it: ALWAYS keep your aircraft in line of sight, and never lose position of it, or bad things will happen.

But one of the reasons we bought this technology is the HD video feed. We were never told this is just as reliant upon our mobile device specs as it is with the rest of the DJI hardware ...

None of our "DJI flight solution" should be dependent on our mobile device, in my opinion. And the video feed -- I'd say in almost every VLOS situation -- should be stable and reliable. And it has not been reliable with the latest firmware updates. I sometimes (quite often) have to rely on the HD while in visual line of sight simply to pilot the aircraft appropriately. I can't tell how close a tree is to the aircraft sometimes, or how close I am to the subject I am recording while in VLOS, especially when these things are in that same line of sight.

2017-8-30
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