hi -- i've had my P3P for 2 days and it is amazing (my first quad).  i spent many hours reading, watching tutorials, and using the flight sim before heading out yesterday -- in what was somewhat brisk wind conditions.    it worked perfectly!   admittedly, i had not read the part in the manual about using return to home within a 20m radius, the craft will drop down where it is so there was a brief panic as it dropped into the trees but remembering i could still control the craft during RTH, i raised it back up just in time to avoid disaster.  good lesson -- it made me go read some more to learn why did it do that?!! :-)

anyway, i was wondering about the cross stick position where the motors are shut off -- what if i do that in mid flight? (as indicated the most frequent cause of failures).   i was messing around in the simulator and shut down the motors while 100ft in the air.  then i restarted them and regained control of the aircraft.  i was curious if that would actually work in real life.  if it goes into free fall and you restart the motors will it regain stability.  when it drops in free fall, will it invert and go "head first"?  is revovery possible from that?

thanks

Do you have one  good reason why you would even want to try?

Plenty about it in these forums. A youtube vid or two as well

It would depend on altitude airspeed direction of travel and your reaction times among other times.  There is a certain amount of sail area to slow the fall somewhat,  but you would have to be quick.  I have read that some guys do this for fun or if in a hurry to lose altitude. I think I will pass on trying,  at least on purpose.

There was a video of starting a p3 mid air. Did not work, imu could not stabilize it before it hit the ground. It just kept spinning even though it had plenty of time

"i was wondering about the cross stick position where the motors are shut off -- what if i do that in mid flight? (as indicated the most frequent cause of failures).   i was messing around in the simulator and shut down the motors while 100ft in the air.  then i restarted them and regained control of the aircraft.  i was curious if that would actually work in real life.  if it goes into free fall and you restart the motors will it regain stability.  when it drops in free fall, will it invert and go "head first"?  is revovery possible from that?"
1.  You are referring to a mid-air CSC.
As the manual warns, CSC will stop the motors immediately.
It is not the most frequent cause of failure - actually it is quite rare although much discussed in forums.

The answer to your query about restarting is ... maybe .. and maybe not.
You'd definitely need a lot of height to recover - well over 400 ft and a lot of luck.
Get back to us with results if you decide to experiment further.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2015-12-6 01:38
"i was wondering about the cross stick position where the motors are shut off -- what if i do that i ...

according to DJI-Tim's post in this thread mid-air CSC is #1.  i was looking to see if someone could recover from this in real life.  the simulator allows such a recovery -- but i know that is not fully representative of real life dynamics of flight.

Definitely not the most frequent cause of anything.  You would have to consciously perform a CSC - it would never be a normal flight pattern for a photographic platform (i.e. full speed descent, full speed right yaw while flying full speed pitched rear-left).   And, a failure is really not the same thing as a crash.  A failure would be a motor burning out, which would result in a crash.  Most crashes are caused by flying into something that is NOT air, like a tree.  Or the ground.   But there are videos on youtube showing a recovery from a power off.  

if your worried you may want to conceder this option. http://www.marsparachutes.com/ I just posted this in another reply. It's about using an onboard parachute.

elbee Posted at 2015-12-6 19:10
according to DJI-Tim's post in this thread mid-air CSC is #1.  i was looking to see if someone cou ...

#1 on the list ... but the list is in no particular order.
Accidental CSC incidents are very rarely reported on the forums.
I haven't seen one for several months.
If they were happening, you'd know all about it.

Hi ,
It's not recommended to do that . The aircraft would find it really hard to regain it's stability before hitting the ground .

So could that be what caused mine to crash?  If I had done the cross stick thing while in flight?  I was trying out some new maneuvers at about 225 feet when it happened. DESTROYED.  Why in gods name would they have an engine kill function built in to the control sticks?  That's just idiotic! How the F is this pilot error!!!!!

blueye7 Posted at 2016-2-6 06:05
So could that be what caused mine to crash?  If I had done the cross stick thing while in flight?  I ...

that's why your drone and controller/device keeps flight logs, so you can see what happened during a good or bad flight.

blueye7 Posted at 2016-2-6 09:05
So could that be what caused mine to crash?  If I had done the cross stick thing while in flight?  I ...

No it is not idiotic. It is there as a safety measure to stop the props in an emergency. the CSC is not a manoeuvre you would do in sensible controlled flight. If you ,manage to do it while flying and did not intend to do, then it is you who are the idiot.

blueye7 Posted at 2016-2-6 09:05
So could that be what caused mine to crash?  If I had done the cross stick thing while in flight?  I ...

" How the F is this pilot error!!!!!"
Mostly because it's there in the manual for every owner to read.
Do not perform a CSC while the aircraft is in mid-air,  otherwise the motors will suddenly stop.

The CSC is disabled by default.

It's a necessary evil. We have to have some way to kill the motors in an Emergancy. The chances of pushing the sticks into those positions during normal flight should be zero. The Phantom is not some wild acrobatic quad its a flying  camera so bending the sticks in all directions just doesn't normally happen. I would much rather the CSC than some silly switch like others have. To me a switch is more likey to be accidentally triggered than the CSC is.

If you are using the latest firmware then DJI have introduced a three second delay before motors shut down. Go to the downloads page for P3P and have a look at the latest release notes.

Aardvark Posted at 2017-3-16 09:51
If you are using the latest firmware then DJI have introduced a three second delay before motors shut down. Go to the downloads page for P3P and have a look at the latest release notes.

I would not even try it with the 4000ft drop to my valley floor. It might work fine in a simulator but unless someone wants to fund my drone replacement I'm not about to try it in real life.

theres a link on youtube of guys who actually did this.........the copter did not survive.....once the free fall started the quad could not correct itself