Did you have FPV while it was in RTH at the end or while it was hovering?

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:22
I feel like we're missing some data from the end of the flight ... the down link was intermittent at the end of the log.

3.6-ish volts in each cell at the end is getting down there, but should have been enough to keep it in the air. I believe 3.4 is where you start to consider changing out your underwear.

I bet it is...that would not be the fault of the pilot if the record was not complete.

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:22
I feel like we're missing some data from the end of the flight ... the down link was intermittent at the end of the log.

3.6-ish volts in each cell at the end is getting down there, but should have been enough to keep it in the air. I believe 3.4 is where you start to consider changing out your underwear.

It had signal at end....should have triggered RTH again before the end.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 15:31
I bet it is...that would not be the fault of the pilot if the record was not complete.

With these types of things, there generally has to be explicit data showing a fault. Here we seem to have a lack of data, which isn't quite the same, unfortunately. If you could find the drone, the DAT file might have more info.

That sucks, sorry you lost your drone.

You might post the log over on the PP forum, there are a few flight log wizards who might have more insight.

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:31
Did you have FPV while it was in RTH at the end or while it was hovering?

No it was on its way back from 2 mile away.  It was about a mile out.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 13:31
Ya my screen went all black like off afyer I saw RTH, so I dont know what it was looking at wherever it flew too.

Launching on a partially discharged battery is asking for trouble and your flight management went downhill from then on.
Leaving your Phantom so far out with an extremely low battery is never a good idea.
It looks like you really didn't want to see that Phantom again.

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:38
With these types of things, there generally has to be explicit data showing a fault. Here we seem to have a lack of data, which isn't quite the same, unfortunately. If you could find the drone, the DAT file might have more info.

That sucks, sorry you lost your drone.

Well it is supposed to RTH on signal loss.  It failed.  If we have no data...signal was lost, drone did not return home.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 15:25
Oh they did.  They said I flew it till battery was dead.  They are terrible at CS.  It is onvious it was in the air at 390ft and had good signal when it disappeared off the record.

I think they are correct, it ran out of power, then did a critical landing, and since the signal was intermittent we have missed the point where it started descending, once it lost some height the signal was never going to return as reception gets worse with less height.

I don't think the battery actually had 19% left, it had only had half a charge so the power meter was not accurate.

The only issue I see is that during RTH it kept stopping and on one occasion reversed.   We don't know why this happened but it wouldn't have been a big issue if you had kept the aircraft in sight during its first test flight.

It is out there somewhere waiting to be collected.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 15:42
Well it is supposed to RTH on signal loss.  It failed.  If we have no data...signal was lost, drone did not return home.

Did you check the area between the last known point and the takeoff point? The battery was quite low, it's iffy if you would have made it back from 390ft in RTH.

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-8-18 15:44
I think they are correct, it ran out of power, then did a critical landing, and since the signal was intermittent we have missed the point where it started descending, once it lost some height the signal was never going to return as reception gets worse with less height.

I don't think the battery actually had 19% left, it had only had half a charge so the power meter was not accurate.

Well if the batt didnt have 19% like it said then it was sending false data causing this issue because the whole RTH function operates off that power reading.  I was near 80% when I started.

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:48
Did you check the area between the last known point and the takeoff point? The battery was quite low, it's iffy if you would have made it back from 390ft in RTH.

Ya we searched...was not far from here

microlinux Posted at 2017-8-18 15:48
Did you check the area between the last known point and the takeoff point? The battery was quite low, it's iffy if you would have made it back from 390ft in RTH.

Would have been close enough for me to hear and see it possibly if not all the way.  It stopped so many times in the RTH mode and used up battery.

You can always request another review.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 15:50
Well if the batt didnt have 19% like it said then it was sending false data causing this issue because the whole RTH function operates off that power reading.  I was near 80% when I started.

You must have missed the section of the manual that advises to only launch with a fully charged battery.
This is critically important.
The RTH setting doesn't work of any percentage indicator - it works from voltage levels.
And if you launch with a partialy discharged battery, you soon run into low voltage levels.
You were relying on your Phantom to work like magic despite you making several mistakes.
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
You still have to understand how it works and how to fly it if you want to go home with it after each flight.
The mistakes you made and the poor piloting are what caused you to lose your Phantom.

Labroides Posted at 2017-8-18 16:12
You must have missed the section of the manual that advises to only launch with a fully charged battery.
This is critically important.
The RTH setting doesn't work of any percentage indicator - it works from voltage levels.

Yep and the app crashing didnt help none.  Couldnt see where it was.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 16:52
Yep and the app crashing didnt help none.  Couldnt see where it was.

Not knowing where your Phantom is is just another failing of the pilot.

Labroides Posted at 2017-8-18 17:34
Not knowing where your Phantom is is just another failing of the pilot.

The app crashed on the Android so how the heck am I supposed to see anything.  I had a black screen and before it went black it was in RTH.  Why you gotta be an *sshat?  I asked for a review...I never said it wasnt me.  All I have is the record to go off.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 12:08
We will search some more but I was right off the highway so I am sure someone saw it and took it.  It was a tail wind and 19% would have got it home easily.  Something went kookoo.

19% battery it auto lands at 10%. You had to do 5820 feet distance, even with a tail wind that is cutting it close and your drone may still have not had enough power to make it home. Look at the distance covered from battery at 40% to 30%, then look at distance travelled from 30% to 20% it is far less distance travelled.  You drone was still too far away to make it home on the available power is what DJI are saying and your drone flew until it lost power. This is plausible. Your drone seemed to be drifting further away from the highway from the flight path seen on google earth.  Might be worthwile tracking from that.


14m 48.3s        P-GPS        18satellites        390.1ft        0ft        1.1mph        5,820.2ft        19%        14.572V        3.641V        3.648V        3.649V        3.634V        0.015V        

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 17:45
The app crashed on the Android so how the heck am I supposed to see anything.  I had a black screen and before it went black it was in RTH.  Why you gotta be an *sshat?  I asked for a review...I never said it wasnt me.  All I have is the record to go off.

I was just telling you truthfully some of the problems with that flight.
Avoiding the truth isn't being helpful.
It doesn't matter if your screen went black.
Your Phantom was not going to get back anyway because the battery did not have enough life in it to come back from that distance.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 17:45
The app crashed on the Android so how the heck am I supposed to see anything.  I had a black screen and before it went black it was in RTH.  Why you gotta be an *sshat?  I asked for a review...I never said it wasnt me.  All I have is the record to go off.

If the app crashes you can also shut off the RC as this initiates the RTH function after signal loss.
I have done this waited a bit then restarted my RC and App.  Happened to me with a flight with my drone about a mile out.  I finally heard it coming back and fired up my RC and App and then completed a manual landing as my drone was already in auto landing mode.

Labroides Posted at 2017-8-18 18:05
I was just telling you truthfully some of the problems with that flight.
Avoiding the truth isn't being helpful.
It doesn't matter if your screen went black.

Fans I am afraid that Labroides is correct.  I also wrote that from  5,820.2ft with 19% battery remaining that is simply too far for the drone to return with the available power and distance it needed to cover.
The drone at some point went to auto land when it reached critical low battery.  Now the question is did it lose power before it had time to descend to land.

I had one of my flights go to critical low battery at 35% but was about to get my bird home in auto landing mode. http://forum.dji.com/thread-89101-1-1.html

blackcrusader Posted at 2017-8-18 18:27
Fans I am afraid that Labroides is correct.  I also wrote that from  5,820.2ft with 19% battery remaining that is simply too far for the drone to return with the available power and distance it needed to cover.
The drone at some point went to auto land when it reached critical low battery.  Now the question is did it lose power before it had time to descend to land.

So with a record cut off at 390ft up, everytbing aftet that is an assumption because we really dont know?  I mean for all we know, all 4 props could have flown off right?

blackcrusader Posted at 2017-8-18 17:59
19% battery it auto lands at 10%. You had to do 5820 feet distance, even with a tail wind that is cutting it close and your drone may still have not had enough power to make it home. Look at the distance covered from battery at 40% to 30%, then look at distance travelled from 30% to 20% it is far less distance travelled.  You drone was still too far away to make it home on the available power is what DJI are saying and your drone flew until it lost power. This is plausible. Your drone seemed to be drifting further away from the highway from the flight path seen on google earth.  Might be worthwile tracking from that.

It stopped and hovered many times in RTH mode taking more time than constant movement.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 21:33
So with a record cut off at 390ft up, everytbing aftet that is an assumption because we really dont know?  I mean for all we know, all 4 props could have flown off right?

From 5800 feet away the Drone would not make it back to home point with the remaining power. That is not hard to understand is it? For all you know a bird strike a lost prop or a complete power failure occured.  Maybe all three, a bird struck your drone, a prop came off sending your drone into a spin which ejected the battery. You have can have all three if you want.  Main thing is you need to accept your drone did not have enough power to return home from 5800 feet.

RTH usually has a slow speed so from distance if you go to RTH then use full throttle to get home.  This is what saved my drone when I had critical low battery, I was at max height so descending was at full left stick down, and as had a tail wind full throttle.  my power levels were back to normal as the drone got back to home point as it effectively "rested" enough for power consumption to be reduced. I will still take another look at google earth and go and try to find your done, as recovery would give more data to analysis.
You current flight log shows you did not have enough power to get back in RTH from 5800 plus feet away the distance was too great. So your drone would have gone to critical low battery and auto landed.  

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-18 04:46
I did that.  It took 3 weeks for them to tell me my 14 minute old drone was not faulty and they will not do anything.  You can clearly see the flight ends at 390ft in the air.  The drone never returned home or showed a decent or land.  It did this after a black screen on my p4+ monitor.  Drone was never found.

Could you PM me your case number? I'd like to check the exact status.

blackcrusader Posted at 2017-8-18 22:21
From 5800 feet away the Drone would not make it back to home point with the remaining power. That is not hard to understand is it? For all you know a bird strike a lost prop or a complete power failure occured.  Maybe all three, a bird struck your drone, a prop came off sending your drone into a spin which ejected the battery. You have can have all three if you want.  Main thing is you need to accept your drone did not have enough power to return home from 5800 feet.

RTH usually has a slow speed so from distance if you go to RTH then use full throttle to get home.  This is what saved my drone when I had critical low battery, I was at max height so descending was at full left stick down, and as had a tail wind full throttle.  my power levels were back to normal as the drone got back to home point as it effectively "rested" enough for power consumption to be reduced. I will still take another look at google earth and go and try to find your done, as recovery would give more data to analysis.

You seem knowledgable...can you explain the no descent or land data?

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 05:23
You seem knowledgable...can you explain the no descent or land data?

I have had that from a flight log when my App stopped.  However my drone still returned. I wrote about that above.  I lost the last mile of flight as my app was turned off.

blackcrusader Posted at 2017-8-19 06:10
I have had that from a flight log when my App stopped.  However my drone still returned. I wrote about that above.  I lost the last mile of flight as my app was turned off.

Well when app stops you can not see what status your drone is in.  This is an integrated P4P+.  The app crashed on the Factory Android.  This is not anything I caused.  Is it RTH, landing, hovering, flying wrong direction....no app you cant tell.  Last itsaid was RTH.  I had to think it was.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 07:47
Well when app stops you can not see what status your drone is in.  This is an integrated P4P+.  The app crashed on the Factory Android.  This is not anything I caused.  Is it RTH, landing, hovering, flying wrong direction....no app you cant tell.  Last itsaid was RTH.  I had to think it was.

Thinking but not knowing it could not.  You did not have enough power for the 5800 feet distance to make it home before you hit critical low battery status and auto land.  You had 19% battery with 9% before it auto landed. You cannot cover 5800 feet with 9% battery left before the 10% auto land kicks in.

You were flying too high with not enough power to get home.  Landing your drone when you got to 20% would have been wise.  I pretty much try to have my drone back to near home point when near 20%. Most flights I end with 20% to 25%.  The only time I let my drone run below 20% is when it is within a very short distance of home point at maybe 10 feet height to drain the battery to 11% then land it.  The real issue you are not accepting is that your drone was too far away to return to home point. You should have set it to auto land where it was with low level of battery and then gone to your drone.  You had a safe area to land your drone in.  In fact I would have looked at google earth and looked at the flight path and done a search.  If you have another drone you could go to near your last recorded point and probably locate it pretty quickly.   

blackcrusader Posted at 2017-8-19 10:28
Thinking but not knowing it could not.  You did not have enough power for the 5800 feet distance to make it home before you hit critical low battery status and auto land.  You had 19% battery with 9% before it auto landed. You cannot cover 5800 feet with 9% battery left before the 10% auto land kicks in.

You were flying too high with not enough power to get home.  Landing your drone when you got to 20% would have been wise.  I pretty much try to have my drone back to near home point when near 20%. Most flights I end with 20% to 25%.  The only time I let my drone run below 20% is when it is within a very short distance of home point at maybe 10 feet height to drain the battery to 11% then land it.  The real issue you are not accepting is that your drone was too far away to return to home point. You should have set it to auto land where it was with low level of battery and then gone to your drone.  You had a safe area to land your drone in.  In fact I would have looked at google earth and looked at the flight path and done a search.  If you have another drone you could go to near your last recorded point and probably locate it pretty quickly.

I understand what you are saying.  What I am telling you is I had no idea it was where it was.  I had no screen to tell me anything.  Obviously I would not have flown it that far.  My DJI Android POS monitor crashed so I was flying blind.  I had no idea where drone was and no data on my screen.  Try it some time when your drone is out.  I hit RTH but you can see it went in and out of it and hovered in one spot for a long time.
I had no screen so I couldnt have changed anything or turned anything off.

I have another drone and flew it over and over.  That last known location is false.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 12:12
I have another drone and flew it over and over.  That last known location is false.

It appears that you had a good signal when you were standing in front of your house (south side with the drone to the south), you got a poor signal and started having drop outs when you went around the back of the house with the house partly blocking the signal path to the drone, then you lost the signal completely and the log ended when you walked up to your back door with the house completely blocking the view to the south where the drone was.   If you had gone back out the front of the house you should have got reception back.

Did you try going back out the front?

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-8-19 14:32
It appears that you had a good signal when you were standing in front of your house (south side with the drone to the south), you got a poor signal and started having drop outs when you went around the back of the house with the house partly blocking the signal path to the drone, then you lost the signal completely and the log ended when you walked up to your back door with the house completely blocking the view to the south where the drone was.   If you had gone back out the front of the house you should have got reception back.

Did you try going back out the front?

I never left the front south side and drine was south.  I got a black screen pushed RTH and waited and waited.  I didnt walk to back until like 15 minutes later to see if it came back and landed there.  

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 14:46
I never left the front south side and drine was south.  I got a black screen pushed RTH and waited and waited.  I didnt walk to back until like 15 minutes later to see if it came back and landed there.

It appears the log file is inaccurate then.

Presumably both GPS and the drone data connection deteriorated due to the time of day changing the atmospheric conditions.  

I still think the most likely explanation for it failing to fly straight home at full speed is the sun getting into the left side of the field of view and it thinking there was an obstacle.  If not then maybe a bird or a few birds were circling and trying to chase it off, problem is there is no way of knowing without finding it.  Obstacle avoidance seems to have been working OK on the way out so presumably wasn't faulty and I don't see any other evidence of faults.

Lord have mercy!

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-8-19 15:04
It appears the log file is inaccurate then.

Presumably both GPS and the drone data connection deteriorated due to the time of day changing the atmospheric conditions.  

It is totally due to me not being able to see any data or where it was.  Black screen is a tough situation.  I had no idea of elevation, direction or nothing.  I just knew it was south is all.  I have flown Phantoms before and used my phine with no crash issues.  This integrated Android with old version of OS is tough.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 16:30
It is totally due to me not being able to see any data or where it was.  Black screen is a tough situation.  I had no idea of elevation, direction or nothing.  I just knew it was south is all.  I have flown Phantoms before and used my phine with no crash issues.  This integrated Android with old version of OS is tough.

If the app crashed and stopped logging then it is possible you continued flying it using the remote control after the end of the log so it could be anywhere within 9% battery distance.  If you didn't use the controls then it should still be somewhere on the straight line home.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 12:07
I understand what you are saying.  What I am telling you is I had no idea it was where it was.  I had no screen to tell me anything.  Obviously I would not have flown it that far.  My DJI Android POS monitor crashed so I was flying blind.  I had no idea where drone was and no data on my screen.  Try it some time when your drone is out.  I hit RTH but you can see it went in and out of it and hovered in one spot for a long time.
I had no screen so I couldnt have changed anything or turned anything off.

If you app crashed you can fly manually using the remote yes?

Your issue  "I had no idea it was where it was" So when you lost your app you were flying blind.
Last known location is a starting point. Your drone was being blown towards the buildings I would have flown towards them.  As you said maybe someone saw your drone come down and took it.  Did you have your name and phone number on your drone.  I do so that if lost some kind person might return it.

fans5f01fa88 Posted at 2017-8-19 16:30
It is totally due to me not being able to see any data or where it was.  Black screen is a tough situation.  I had no idea of elevation, direction or nothing.  I just knew it was south is all.  I have flown Phantoms before and used my phine with no crash issues.  This integrated Android with old version of OS is tough.

How is it you had no idea of elevation or where the drone was heading as you had that on screen before the app crashed yes?  After all your drone was headed home, the issue is that it was not going to make it without power issues and auto landing.  I've had my app crash and my drone go to atti mode as well.  But since I knew where it was I just put mine into reverse ( as it was heading away from me ) and low and behold, soon I could hear the drone and then spotted it.  If you pay attention to your drones heading and location even from the screen as you fly you can often recover from an app crash.

That's why we practice Atti mode flying in case we also lose GPS.

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-8-18 12:24
So why the log message: "GEO: You are in a Warning Zone (Unpaved Airports). Fly with caution."?

Unpaved Airports are not restricted areas.