There are a lot of threads on these forums of people losing their Sparks due to a Fly Away after losing GPS signal and the aircraft switching to ATTI mode. After looking at a few of the cases that provided video and logs it became clear these were not truly Fly Aways.

Let me start by saying I'm not blaming the pilots, as this AC is marketed as a selfie drone for beginners, but this is where the issue lies.

There is an issue with the aircraft randomly dropping GPS lock and switching to ATTI mode. For an experienced pilot this is no issue at all, I have flown RC helicopters , planes, and race quads for over 10 years, so ATTI mode is no big deal, but for a new pilot who has very little experience and has only flown an aircraft equipped with stabilization and GPS, the Spark in ATTI mode will be almost uncontrollable because new pilots have never actually had to actively pilot their aircraft.

I really think that if you are a new pilot, you may want to hold off on flying until DJI figures this issue out, and i would also recommend you buy a cheap quadcopter , or a simulator so you can actually learn to fly the aircraft without the assistance of the GPS and the sensors. DJI is to blame for the technical issues but you as a responsible pilot should ensure you are capable of flying the aircraft in the case that there is an issue mid flight.

Good point.

But, I think there are also situations where even a skilled pilot would have difficulties of controlling the drone. Especially, if the GPS drop and atti mode happens suddenly at high altitudes. And in Europe the range of the controller is limited to max. 500m with no obstacles (due to CE regulations for WiFi devices). This narrows down the timeframe you will have to get it back drastically.

In my case the drone was flying away at 100m altitude with about 20 Km/h - that leaves you a window of mathematically 89 seconds until the range exceeds and signal is lost. The mathematical number is of course one that is only valid in optimal conditions - no other wifi signals around, no buildings, trees etc.

I lost sight of the drone quite fast (due to trees), and had to move after the drone to gain it back - which is costing even more precious time.

BTW: since my Spark is lost now, I can not check it, but is it possible to manually set the Spark into ATTI mode for practicing?

I also believe that after that error occurs and it goes into atti mode, something else happens. some people tried to fly back, some experienced people, and lost theirs because they could not control it at all. there was no response. i don't think all cases has to do with pilot error but im sure some do.

but all the same since i am a new pilot i will be aware of this. i have flown a couple pretty bad drones so i should be ok.

I definitely agree with you that the limited range , especially when utilizing a mobile device and no RC, gives you a limited amount of time to recover the aircraft. But in most of the cases that i have seen, the video downlink was still working, so for a pilot with experience ( especially FPV experienced) losing GPS is no issue.

Like I said before I'm not blaming the pilots, they were sold a drone marketed at first time pilots, but unfortunately a first time pilot stands little chance of controlling the Spark in ATTI mode. But rather than call these incidents Fly Aways, They should be classified as GPS failures followed by pilot error, The term Fly Away gives the impression that the Spark just decided on its own that it would " FLY AWAY" that's not at all what is happening. The Spark loses GPS and the pilot is unable to pilot the aircraft in this state so ....... Bye Spark.

First off I agree many inexperienced flyers and going into Atti mode can be very difficult if you have no experience of it.
But regarding sudden loss of gps, this is not what is happening, you say you have looked at various logs, then you would have noticed that in nearly all cases Compass and strong magnetic interferences was the initial problem with almost all of so called flyaway.
Spark is designed in such away that when there is such interference that gps basically gives up can't get correct heading , so Aircraft goes automatically into Atti mode. So if there was no compass problem or magnetic interference spark would still have gps.
For some who have experienced this it happened when Spark was out of VLOS making it almost impossible without any experience to control spark.
Much of what I see is flyers first calibrating compass directly before flight when no calibration was needed,  if you read all cases here on the forum , almost all start with same first line, "Calibrated my compass"
I have a feeling many problems are caused pre take off.

ciesnik Posted at 2017-8-1 08:38
Good point.

But, I think there are also situations where even a skilled pilot would have difficulties of controlling the drone. Especially, if the GPS drop and atti mode happens suddenly at high altitudes. And in Europe the range of the controller is limited to max. 500m with no obstacles (due to CE regulations for WiFi devices). This narrows down the timeframe you will have to get it back drastically.

Atti mode is much easier to control/ handle at higher altitude, no obstacles for one, you also have map with small red triangle to help you know where you AC is and where it's facing, with Atti mode you are always fighting against the wind so small stick movements are of no use to you, this is why most people say Pushing sticks had no effect on AC , in Atti mode you will find you will almost never get a chance to remove fingers from pushing on sticks.

Yes there is no Atti switch on spark or Mavic to practice and for some that's a pity, for others it's a blessing because I think we would see more crashes and accidents with first time flyers.

What adds to the issue of suddenly switching to ATTI mode, I noticed that at the same time the app says "Aircraft disconnected" on Android, although I could still see the live preview.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-1 09:41
Atti mode is much easier to control/ handle at higher altitude, no obstacles for one, you also have map with small red triangle to help you know where you AC is and where it's facing, with Atti mode you are always fighting against the wind so small stick movements are of no use to you, this is why most people say Pushing sticks had no effect on AC , in Atti mode you will find you will almost never get a chance to remove fingers from pushing on sticks.

Yes there is no Atti switch on spark or Mavic to practice and for some that's a pity, for others it's a blessing because I think we would see more crashes and accidents with first time flyers.

So my newb mea culpa, I was practicing flying my PS3 for a while (all in POS mode), and thought I was getting good.  One time I tried to launch from my pontoon (lots of metal), and it couldn't get compass or GPS lock.  In my desire to fly anyways, I ignored the warnings (that was a mistake).  I realized how much POS helps, and how good I wasn't (yet).  It was windy in a small canyon, so there was a great deal of shifting winds, so controlling the craft was a b!#$%^.  Fortunately I was able to land, and I learned two valuable lessons that day.  1.  Don't ignore the warnings, ever.  2.  I wasn't that good at flying yet.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-1 09:22
First off I agree many inexperienced flyers and going into Atti mode can be very difficult if you have no experience of it.
But regarding sudden loss of gps, this is not what is happening, you say you have looked at various logs, then you would have noticed that in nearly all cases Compass and strong magnetic interferences was the initial problem with almost all of so called flyaway.
Spark is designed in such away that when there is such interference that gps basically gives up can't get correct heading , so Aircraft goes automatically into Atti mode. So if there was no compass problem or magnetic interference spark would still have gps.

by sudden loss of GPS, I'm referring to the situation you are describing, Compass error = GPS shut down = ATTI mode.  Many of the cases on here where this situation has arisen, the AC was still responsive to pilot inputs but unfortunately the pilot did not know the inputs that needed to be given. This scenario is not a " Fly Away" by definition. The aircraft was still under the control of the pilot.

ciesnik Posted at 2017-8-1 09:48
What adds to the issue of suddenly switching to ATTI mode, I noticed that at the same time the app says "Aircraft disconnected" on Android, although I could still see the live preview.

Look a lot of problems caused when AC goes into Atti mode could be overcome before we start out flying.

Recommended in your manual.

Suitable environments open spaces
Don't fly over water
Always maintain VLOS

This is just 3 recommendations you see in your manual, if you fly in unsuitable environments you are taking a risk, flying over water you are taking a risk and flying outside of VLOS you are taking a risk, and although most will take these risks on a lot won't except any responsibility and immediately look to dji to sort their problems.

A simple thing before you go flying is to ask yourself, if something goes wrong is there a safe place I can land, or 2 or 3 safe places, I don't think many people would bother to apply this to their preflight routine, in fact I don't think many new flyers have a preflight routine, but it is one way of reducing your chances of loosing your drone.

Resqman911 Posted at 2017-8-1 09:59
by sudden loss of GPS, I'm referring to the situation you are describing, Compass error = GPS shut down = ATTI mode.  Many of the cases on here where this situation has arisen, the AC was still responsive to pilot inputs but unfortunately the pilot did not know the inputs that needed to be given. This scenario is not a " Fly Away" by definition. The aircraft was still under the control of the pilot.

I fully agree, but most will say they had no control and this is usually because controlling AC in Atti mode is much different than gps mode, although I don't believe it's to difficult for anyone but maybe a cheap quad for $50 some practice would help, it's the way I started, so I'm not panicked if it happens.

I think better prep before you fly, checking out the area your flying in , try to have some safe areas to land if something goes wrong, could easily negate a lot of these so called flyaways.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-1 10:15
I fully agree, but most will say they had no control and this is usually because controlling AC in Atti mode is much different than gps mode, although I don't believe it's to difficult for anyone but maybe a cheap quad for $50 some practice would help, it's the way I started, so I'm not panicked if it happens.

I think better prep before you fly, checking out the area your flying in , try to have some safe areas to land if something goes wrong, could easily negate a lot of these so called flyaways.

This is what I bought for practicing indoors.  It's very squirrely, but if you get good at flying this you should be able to handle the spark.  https://www.amazon.com/BLADE-Nan ... pter/dp/B00SNEJA92.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-1 10:27
This is what I bought for practicing indoors.  It's very squirrely, but if you get good at flying this you should be able to handle the spark.  https://www.amazon.com/BLADE-Nano-QX-RTF-Quadcopter/dp/B00SNEJA92.

Yeah there great I love messing about inside with them, I have 3 of great fun.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-1 10:15
I fully agree, but most will say they had no control and this is usually because controlling AC in Atti mode is much different than gps mode, although I don't believe it's to difficult for anyone but maybe a cheap quad for $50 some practice would help, it's the way I started, so I'm not panicked if it happens.

I think better prep before you fly, checking out the area your flying in , try to have some safe areas to land if something goes wrong, could easily negate a lot of these so called flyaways.

I agree, a little pre-flight planning and a little practice flying before you take your Spark out and we wouldn't have nearly as many people on here claiming they had a " Fly Away".

I'm just getting a little frustrated with the " My Spark flew away " threads when in reality they are not fly aways. when you buy a $500 aircraft you may want to make sure you are capable of operating it before you launch it and head out a couple hundred meters