Signal was strong. I was flying near buildings line of site. Then it pulled to the side and thats the last I saw of it. Looked like it was right next to a very tall building. I ran over to where it was last but couldn't find it. Came back today to see if the people there could look on the roof but they couldn't find it. http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/YP7ZVIFLT00PU8ZCFXO3/

I think I uploaded the wrong flight log

this is it http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/GBZTD47EBNSICUR5XJGX/

700 feet away is a long way to keep visual contact with a spark... flying among tall buildings blocked your GPS signal... once it went behind that tall building the signal from your remote was blocked.. Spark should have tried to land if it didn't have good GPS but if there was wind it could have been blown a fair distance before landing.  It looks like it was only 80 or so feet up so it wouldn't be on the roof of any of the taller buildings but it could be on the roof of any of the shorter ones...   If it did have a GPS lock when it lost signal it would have tried  to return to the home point but if the return to home altitude was not enough to get over the tall buildings it would have crashed into one of those.   All in all... not  a very good place to be flying, winds around bulidings like that can get pretty bad.

LouisP Posted at 2018-2-1 12:26
700 feet away is a long way to keep visual contact with a spark... flying among tall buildings blocked your GPS signal... once it went behind that tall building the signal from your remote was blocked.. Spark should have tried to land if it didn't have good GPS but if there was wind it could have been blown a fair distance before landing.  It looks like it was only 80 or so feet up so it wouldn't be on the roof of any of the taller buildings but it could be on the roof of any of the shorter ones...   If it did have a GPS lock when it lost signal it would have tried  to return to the home point but if the return to home altitude was not enough to get over the tall buildings it would have crashed into one of those.   All in all... not  a very good place to be flying, winds around bulidings like that can get pretty bad.

ya I pushed it because It was too cool just flying like that. everything was fine until that point. There's a little balcony like around the 3rd floor they didn't check that seemed like it could of fell there. I gotta check again. Thanks.

Last entry 24 ft altitude doing 40 mph, downlink lost.

My money is on fatal collision with a building, possibly caused by a really strong blast of downtown wind.

Sorry to see, that you got to learn where not to fly in the worse way. Hope some will find your bird and return it to you. It was definitely too small sat count to start flying and at one moment drone was switched to atti mode, you should took that as serious warning especially when flying in this kind of area. Anyway, good luck finding you spark!

Raimenzio Posted at 2018-2-1 13:19
Sorry to see, that you got to learn where not to fly in the worse way. Hope some will find your bird and return it to you. It was definitely too small sat count to start flying and at one moment drone was switched to atti mode, you should took that as serious warning especially when flying in this kind of area. Anyway, good luck finding you spark!

I gotta learn more about this thing. I'm sure I won't get it back but such a valuable lesson learned haha. I was just enjoying it too much and going for distance and then whack. There it went. I'm guessing it could of just broke into a bunch of pieces going 40mph into concrete. I really liked the video quality. Whenever I get a chance to get another I wont be using it for distance and mostly for video in near by distances.

That's unfortunate. Seems like you learned an important lesson and I hope you don't give up!!

DroneManDan Posted at 2018-2-1 14:03
That's unfortunate. Seems like you learned an important lesson and I hope you don't give up!!

just gotta not jump into the deep end right away and start small and know my limits.

dartheyeball Posted at 2018-2-1 14:11
just gotta not jump into the deep end right away and start small and know my limits.

That's the hardest thing to do. The desire to just get to flying as quickly as possible has bitten more than you. These things are much more complicated that they seem on the surface. It's a really good idea to take it slow and keep things as safe as possible. The safe part should always be a part of what you do, but, as you get better with it (and I don't mean better at flying it - you can fly it like a pro right out of the box) I mean better at understanding it and what it's trying to tell you. It'll warn you about a bunch of stuff, you just have to know what all of that means and take action on the warnings.

Best of luck, I hope you find it!

Flying Wolf_NOLA Posted at 2018-2-1 14:25
That's the hardest thing to do. The desire to just get to flying as quickly as possible has bitten more than you. These things are much more complicated that they seem on the surface. It's a really good idea to take it slow and keep things as safe as possible. The safe part should always be a part of what you do, but, as you get better with it (and I don't mean better at flying it - you can fly it like a pro right out of the box) I mean better at understanding it and what it's trying to tell you. It'll warn you about a bunch of stuff, you just have to know what all of that means and take action on the warnings.

Best of luck, I hope you find it!

Thanks. Can't wait to try it out again but slow this time haha. Probably be about another month until I will be able to get another.

Sorry to be the bad guy here but people like you really annoy me.

Without any experience you flew a new drone in a highly built up area. You then flew it way further that could be considered visual line of sight. And then, huge surprise, it crashed.

You could have hit someone, you could have hit a moving vehicle. You were stupid, irresponsible and it's numpties like you that mean that laws on consumer drones will tighten up globally.

Don't buy and new one until you have bothered to read enough to have a basic idea what you are doing, understand the risks your 'hobby' could have on others and how you might enjoy your hobby whilst being responsible and keeping vaugely legal.

Sorry for your loss, I wouldnt wanna fly in a densely area like that I get that its cool but next time think about the risk of losing $700

Convert Posted at 2018-2-1 15:22
Sorry to be the bad guy here but people like you really annoy me.

Without any experience you flew a new drone in a highly built up area. You then flew it way further that could be considered visual line of sight. And then, huge surprise, it crashed.

all good. Glad to annoy you. At least I did learn something. And I did learn from my mistakes. I just find it boring to fly for 10 minutes in the middle of nowhere and just turn around and come back. I do have ideas now that i know what I'm getting into.

BeastMaster_101 Posted at 2018-2-1 16:36
Sorry for your loss, I wouldnt wanna fly in a densely area like that I get that its cool but next time think about the risk of losing $700

Now that I know that's not a good idea I wont be doing that the next chance I get. I don't know anybody around here that flies these types of drones. I've been watching videos  and see people doing it though so I thought I would be ok

Fast Spark.  From 80 feet to 24 feet in less than two seconds.  Like it was a race drone doing a building dive.  Front edges starting to glow.  Heat tiles starting to peal back.  People in Starbucks feeling a sudden 0.00001 level earthquake.

"Did my coffee just ripple?"

Man that sounds exciting! Hopefully no coffee got spilled....

dartheyeball Posted at 2018-2-1 16:48
Now that I know that's not a good idea I wont be doing that the next chance I get. I don't know anybody around here that flies these types of drones. I've been watching videos  and see people doing it though so I thought I would be ok

Sir, did you contact our support and start a case? If not, please start a case: http://www.dji.com/support. Thanks for your support.  

dartheyeball Posted at 2018-2-1 16:48
Now that I know that's not a good idea I wont be doing that the next chance I get. I don't know anybody around here that flies these types of drones. I've been watching videos  and see people doing it though so I thought I would be ok

Sir, did you contact our support and start a case? If not, please start a case: http://www.dji.com/support. Thanks for your support.  

It looks to me like it fell out of the sky uncontrollably right on the sidewalk in front of the main doors of the O.T. Bassett Tower.  Somewhere around the 6m57s or 6m58s mark something happened that caused the aircraft to fall uncontrollably.  It went from basically hovering at 80 feet up to dropping basically straight down at a rate of 40mph.  During the free fall, it was pitching and rolling (especially rolling) very wildly.  

I thought it was interesting that the status showed as P-GPS the entire time even though there were only 6 satellites at times.  I also thought it was odd how the logs were formatted until I realized that it was being controlled by Litchi instead of DJI Go 4.

From my perspective, it is very hard for me to say what caused the uncontrolled free fall.  Maybe it ran into something, maybe it broke a propeller, maybe it got struck by a bird, etc etc.




As far as I can tell, I think the chances extremely high that it fell very near to the last coordinates in the logs.  
31.759605        -106.486128

I wish you the best of luck in finding it or a good resolution from your support ticket.

It was strange. At that point I was trying to turn around and go back and then it seemed like it got sucked into the wall of the building and then everyrhing paused and we saw it going down. I then ran over to it and it was nowhere to be found. I even went back earlyvthe next day because there are people working on the bassett tower and they checked the roofs for me and couldn't find it. I dont even know if I should bother opening a case.

Convert Posted at 2018-2-1 15:22
Sorry to be the bad guy here but people like you really annoy me.

Without any experience you flew a new drone in a highly built up area. You then flew it way further that could be considered visual line of sight. And then, huge surprise, it crashed.

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but aren't you being a little tough on the dude? I think people come here looking for help, I don't think that insulting them will keep them coming back, just my thoughts.

Yeah, he did almost everything wrong, I agree. I think this is one of those cases where he's beating himself up more than any of use could ever do. I know I would be.

Anyway, what's done is done, if we can keep him coming back, we'll have a chance to  teach him the right way to use his UAV.  That's all I'm saying.  We can be his example of the right way to do things.

Just my opinion

Flying Wolf_NOLA Posted at 2018-2-2 09:26
I don't disagree with anything you've said, but aren't you being a little tough on the dude? I think people come here looking for help, I don't think that insulting them will keep them coming back, just my thoughts.

Yeah, he did almost everything wrong, I agree. I think this is one of those cases where he's beating himself up more than any of use could ever do. I know I would be.

I think we coddle the youngsters too much leading to the opposite of my grandfather's greatest generation.  I want the FAA to show up to his house with a large fraternity paddle and apply a severe spanking.

I think the FAA is too lenient on troublemakers and prefers to punish the entire hobby.  Trying to ground the whole hobby because people know it is wrong, but fly over cities anyway.  Punishing the hobby is safer for the FAA liability and lawyer wise.

"I think this is one of those cases where he's beating himself up more than any of use could ever do. I know I would be."

I'm not sure he is. He is upset/frustrated he has lost his expensive toy but I don't sense any regret about being so incredibly ignorant that he didn't realise how irresponsible he was being before flying the thing. Only an imbecile would have to have a loss like this to learn their lesson. Anyone with a brain would know not to do it before doing it.

He did say one thing interesting though - ' I've been watching videos and see people doing it though so I thought I would be ok'.

He's right on that score. For the mouth breathers out there without the wherewithal or the patience to actually read how they should be using their new drone there are plenty of videos out there that would give you a wrong sense about what is acceptable. Sadly, I’ve seen a fair few of them on this forum. It seems a forum with plenty of moderator presence so I'm quite surprised they don't take them down more frequently if nothing else for the long-term viability of the market. If consumer drone use becomes a practical impossibility through overbearing legislation brought in as a reaction to drone misuse DJI as a company also becomes non-viable.

Convert Posted at 2018-2-1 15:22
Sorry to be the bad guy here but people like you really annoy me.

Without any experience you flew a new drone in a highly built up area. You then flew it way further that could be considered visual line of sight. And then, huge surprise, it crashed.

bro, yolo though

Im soaking up everything you guys are saying. You all werent there to hold my hand so I just tried it out myself and messed up. That's when I decided to look for what I did wrong by coming here. All low and behold there it is. All the spanking I deserve. Im gonna try thuz again and am not looking to get spanked so Im deci itely going to do my best to keep it safe. ..i.,

Sorry for the typos

Gunship9 Posted at 2018-2-2 09:45
I think we coddle the youngsters too much leading to the opposite of my grandfather's greatest generation.  I want the FAA to show up to his house with a large fraternity paddle and apply a severe spanking.

I think the FAA is too lenient on troublemakers and prefers to punish the entire hobby.  Trying to ground the whole hobby because people know it is wrong, but fly over cities anyway.  Punishing the hobby is safer for the FAA liability and lawyer wise.

I think you're absolutely correct that this is a past time where the good pay for the bad. It happens all too often and it isn't fair. Of course, we all know that life isn't fair.

Actually, you make my point for me. We, the experienced drone pilots (especially us with our Part 107), should be ambassadors for this venture. We do know the right things to do and we should be able to share them clearly and without emotion.

It's interesting to assume that someone else should just naturally know what we had to learn ourselves. Why would he think that flying over a city is wrong? Have you see the advertisement for the Spark?  There are several things in that ad that are 'wrong'. Youtube is filled with people doing the wrong things, I've seen videos on this page with pilots doing the wrong thing. One of them flying over and around a very populated city.

I do agree that today's youth is coddled too much. I also think that we can be better teachers than disciplinarians.  Again, just my opinion. Everyone has to do, and act, as they see fit.

Flying wolf - you are clearly a nicer person than me! :-)

"It's interesting to assume that someone else should just naturally know what we had to learn ourselves. Why would he think that flying over a city is wrong? "

To turn that around - so how did you learn that flying over cities was wong? Did you perchance learn it by flying the thing 700ft along a busy road between a bunch of buildings and crashing? Or did you learn it by reading about it at some point before you made that assumption that it would be a reaonable thing to do? I'm not a betting person but I'm guessing the latter.

You don't discourage me at all you D-hole

Convert Posted at 2018-2-2 10:42
Flying wolf - you are clearly a nicer person than me! :-)

"It's interesting to assume that someone else should just naturally know what we had to learn ourselves. Why would he think that flying over a city is wrong? "

Much of what we know is common sense, much of what we don’t know is ignorance. We all get a manual in fact we are given little slips of paper when opening our drone with instructions to read the manual before flying, I’m pretty sure that before starting up his drone he would have to had at least a look or two at the manual and in it he would have found simple things like fly within the rules of your country , if he didn’t then that’s ignorance.
Remember when he crashed he knew where to go to find out what happened, we are not our brothers keeper and we shouldn’t take any responsibility for what he has done, if we do then he learns nothing.

dartheyeball Posted at 2018-2-2 11:07
You don't discourage me at all you D-hole

don't be discouraged! Convert and Flying Wolf_NOVA have very little experience flying drones and are very new to the topic. There are many things we could probably teach them. Both of them are notorious forum trolls so take it all with a grain of salt. They have been reported for there lack of intelligence.

You dont discourage me either ..i.,

I hope someone flies a racing quad with a 5s into your face

Either El Paso Electric building zapped your drone or the US District Court Clerk building shot it down since it is illegal to fly drones near government buildings. Goodluck next time. Fly safe!

Kloo Gee Posted at 2018-2-1 22:24
It looks to me like it fell out of the sky uncontrollably right on the sidewalk in front of the main doors of the O.T. Bassett Tower.  Somewhere around the 6m57s or 6m58s mark something happened that caused the aircraft to fall uncontrollably.  It went from basically hovering at 80 feet up to dropping basically straight down at a rate of 40mph.  During the free fall, it was pitching and rolling (especially rolling) very wildly.  

I thought it was interesting that the status showed as P-GPS the entire time even though there were only 6 satellites at times.  I also thought it was odd how the logs were formatted until I realized that it was being controlled by Litchi instead of DJI Go 4.

Great analysis Kloo Gee.. but remember GPS accuracy is only a couple of meters at best so there is a very good chance that the reason it started to fall was that it hit the building.

Convert Posted at 2018-2-2 10:42
Flying wolf - you are clearly a nicer person than me! :-)

"It's interesting to assume that someone else should just naturally know what we had to learn ourselves. Why would he think that flying over a city is wrong? "

Well, truth be told, I got my first UAV  (Phantom 3(4K) and started doing some research. That's how I found out just how strict  the (US) government had gotten over drones. I wasn't even aware that they needed to be registered until I started looking into it.
This research wasn't done before my first flight, however. Once I got it set up and charged up and updated, I went right outside and took off. I just really went straight up and back down again, but technically, I shouldn't have even done that.

I didn't know what I didn't know, because when I first heard of DJI and drones, you had to strap a GoPro to them and purchase a gimbal as an optional item. No one seemed to care what you did with them. There were all kinds of videos of people flying them at weddings and the sort.  Being a photographer I ASSUMED that, like my other cameras, I owned it, I can do what I want with it.

Of course, I now know better. The difference is, this guy pushed his drone further than I did and he was much more unlucky.  Now that I've learned, and taken and passed my part 107, I do know the rules (more so than I'd like).

I assure you I'm not a nicer person than you. Ask any of my coworkers!  LOL
I am a parent, however, and I know that young people mess up sometimes. This person seems young to me (I don't know if he/she is, I just get that feeling).  We (all drone owners) need to band together because we do have the FAA up our collective..... you know what.   This person messed up - agreed. However, if can bring him/her into the fold and teach them (with kindness and the understanding that we were all beginners at one point), we'll all be better off, as a droning community, in the long run.

That's all I'm saying.

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,"  :-)

hoosierdoc Posted at 2018-2-2 11:20
don't be discouraged! Convert and Flying Wolf_NOVA have very little experience flying drones and are very new to the topic. There are many things we could probably teach them. Both of them are notorious forum trolls so take it all with a grain of salt. They have been reported for there lack of intelligence.

Excuse me?  Did you even read what I wrote?  I suggest you go back and read it before calling someone a 'troll'.

You're way off base and I'd appreciate an apology.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-2-2 11:17
Much of what we know is common sense, much of what we don’t know is ignorance. We all get a manual in fact we are given little slips of paper when opening our drone with instructions to read the manual before flying, I’m pretty sure that before starting up his drone he would have to had at least a look or two at the manual and in it he would have found simple things like fly within the rules of your country , if he didn’t then that’s ignorance.
Remember when he crashed he knew where to go to find out what happened, we are not our brothers keeper and we shouldn’t take any responsibility for what he has done, if we do then he learns nothing.

We get a manual now. When I purchased my Phantom 3, there was no manual in the box with the drone. You could go online and download one in PDF format, but there was no paper manual.

With the Phantom 4 pro and the spark, you're right, there was a manual.