Took my spark to the parents so they could see it.

Sent it up about 20ft and then a short distance away; about 40ft. As it went it seemed a lot faster than normal so checked i hadnt left/switched sport mode on but no.
At that point it starts heading vaguely back towards me but no control input from me.

Goes full tilt into a tall fir tree in the neighbour's garden and all i can hear is whirring and crashing...

Luckily neighbour was in, and diggory was sat at the bottom of the tree looking sad with one missing propeller.

I've replaced all the props and it seems ok now.

Only differences from all my previous, incident free, flights;
New location
Didn't hook phone up as I only planned a quick whiz round the garden.
There was a small tree between me and the aircraft albeit i could see it perfectly as it was well above.

Only thing i have noticed since is a tendency for the viewpoint to "drift" when hovering but I'll have to check previous recordings to see if im just noticing it because I'm looking for issues now...

I don't rebuke or criticize other individuals flight choices, but I personally would never not "hook phone up" when flying in a new environment.  The app will tell you if you are having difficulty locking on to GPS or if you have compass issues.  If you have confidence in an environment, then sure... no phone if you want.  But if I'm in a brand new environment with no experience on the impacts, I will rely on my phone to ensure that I've got good compass and gps lock.

Yep, use the app.  It will warn you about imminent danger.

That's tough , maybe plug into assistant 2 and down load file and get dji to have a look, some mods here might help you, no harm finding out actual cause.

Good luck...

I agree with Charles, I would never not fly without the phone, too risky, I believe.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-28 12:52
I don't rebuke or criticize other individuals flight choices, but I personally would never not "hook phone up" when flying in a new environment.  The app will tell you if you are having difficulty locking on to GPS or if you have compass issues.  If you have confidence in an environment, then sure... no phone if you want.  But if I'm in a brand new environment with no experience on the impacts, I will rely on my phone to ensure that I've got good compass and gps lock.

so when i fly with no phone it still has gps

TMUSVI Posted at 2017-8-28 16:05
so when i fly with no phone it still has gps

The craft itself...  MAYBE!  It will absolutely TRY to lock onto gps.  But if it has difficulties, the app tells you (a yellow banner indicating you are in atti mode).  If you are flying without the app, you won't get the indicator/warning if the device has trouble locking in on GPS.

It always works fine until the "live demo"...

A controller for the spark should be all that you need to fly a drone. Why would dji offer a controller if it causes the drone to go out of control? If you turn both on and the light turns green, you should feel confident to fly with or without a display. The spark gives you many options to fly. Gesture mode, phone only, rc only, and rc with phone. You would think that all choices should be suitable for flight.  That being said, having the most information possible before flight is a good thing, especially when compass interference or imu errors seem to plague the spark lately. But flying with just the controller should be perfectly fine, without condemnation or ridicule.

Goatherdervt Posted at 2017-8-28 17:10
A controller for the spark should be all that you need to fly a drone. Why would dji offer a controller if it causes the drone to go out of control? If you turn both on and the light turns green, you should feel confident to fly with or without a display. The spark gives you many options to fly. Gesture mode, phone only, rc only, and rc with phone. You would think that all choices should be suitable for flight.  That being said, having the most information possible before flight is a good thing, especially when compass interference or imu errors seem to plague the spark lately. But flying with just the controller should be perfectly fine, without condemnation or ridicule.

Hopefully our advice is not comming accross as ridicule or condemnation, rather as helpful advice from fellow flyers with similar passions.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-28 17:21
Hopefully our advice is not comming accross as ridicule or condemnation, rather as helpful advice from fellow flyers with similar passions.

Correction, i apologize if it seemed that way. I only wanted to point out that the controller should have worked fine but did not. The fault may be in the person controlling the spark, but am becomming more skeptical with all the posts about flyaways and droping out of the sky. With a product as awesome (and expensive) as the spark can be, one would hope that a person could fly it with the controller only and not have issues. It is somewhat alarming to me that a stand-alone controller is offered but not trusted.

Again i apologize if i have offended.

Goatherdervt Posted at 2017-8-28 17:38
Correction, i apologize if it seemed that way. I only wanted to point out that the controller should have worked fine but did not. The fault may be in the person controlling the spark, but am becomming more skeptical with all the posts about flyaways and droping out of the sky. With a product as awesome (and expensive) as the spark can be, one would hope that a person could fly it with the controller only and not have issues. It is somewhat alarming to me that a stand-alone controller is offered but not trusted.

Again i apologize if i have offended.

No offense taken.

I agree it would be best if we could trust all the components and the various permutations of their use.  It is one of the most complex pieces of hardware that fits in the palm of a hand and can go a mile away and return at the command of a pilot.  Hopefully these kinks and issues can be addressed.

I ment flying with rc and no phone so when i fly with no phone it still has gps

TranceMist Posted at 2017-8-28 16:51
It always works fine until the "live demo"...

For some reason, everything goes wrong during live demos. Look at youtube, alot of failed launches of so many products.

Don't worry, no offence taken as normally I go through the whole setup and use phone+otg.

Other than a bit of video breakup I've had no issues but, as another poster said, you'd hope that flying with rc only would be a perfectly valid configuration...

I actually see the "RC but no phone" flight option as a safety thing.
For the unlikely event that the phone will die during a flight.
And that DJI haven't thought about to disable the "start flight" ability.
I for myself was wondering, that I can start engines, without a connected phone.
And asked some days ago, which mode the Spark would be in and if the video and photo mode would work:
DJI Diana:
"It can record the video and pic, It will be restricted, the maximum distance is 50 m, and the altitude is 30 m.
As for the home point, it depends on the GPS signal.  To ensure the safety, I  would not recommend you fly without the APP."

Only you dont know anything about, no feedback.

Oh, btw: How about a "Photo during video" function?

I've managed it to hook it up to a PC now and look at the flight log and... it tells me nothing.
The last (oldest) log recorded just shows what looks like the crash, there's absolutely no data from before it


Green arrow is take off point, yellow where drone was originally hovering before going off.
Red track is the recorded flight...

Sorry for your unfortunate experience, I would recommend you contact the support first to start a case, here is the link: http://www.dji.com/support.
Then,please export your flight data for our support to analyze the situation.

It still seems little mentioned but very important to my mind, but in gesture or no app flying, gps lock is indicated by 6 quick flashes in green on rear lights. Usually  almost immediately afterswitch on and linking, but sometimes a little while. If it they don't materialise and you take off, I fear you have no gps/homepoint set.

Further to previous post, on reflection flyaways soon after take off might occur when gps is finally locked, but before homepoint can be set, resulting in ac heading of toprevious flight's homepoint, since it will caculate it is way out of range.
Yes it's guesswork, but without app flashing lights are only indacation gps is found.