FWIW, I think a lot of incidences of problems come from inexperience. The first flyaway I had was on a cheaper Syma quad at night, in wind.. Perfect situation to lose your quad, and I did. Probably ended in some yard a mile back, became a kids toy or they threw it away. I also did not have my Phone # on it.. It was a practice toy, and I did learn to fly with it for a few months.

Spark was next. Very new to the product and Wifi Controller, Phone app. Read up on many things in the manual, and watched many hours of video tutorials on YT. First time up was awesome. GPS lock, really nice flights. An update or so later and I started getting errors. Not flying more than 100 m away either. Some closer. Good thing is, though the app was tossing errors I still knew how to fly. I didn't freak out or panic. GPS is cool, but it's scary for many when you lose that lock. Craft can get harder to fly. I didn't panic, flew it back and within 50 meters it was fine again and then fine the rest of the time. Another time was about 400m out. That thing is tiny then. When it got away from me, lost GPS, I pushed forward to determine direction. Made the corrections, went to Sport mode, and got it back.

Spark may suffer some from not having dual GPS and IMU like other DJI products. I also later discovered that connections can be better when in Airplane mode after all connections are made. Tried that and had less and less errors. I still get some in my neighborhood. Congested, power lines nearby. In park areas it is a pretty simple flight. Cool because it gets me away for a while.

Spark to me is an entry drone, thus my purchase of a Mavic Pro.  Neer an error to be had yet with that one. It does not use wifi though. Ocusync for connection and it has been flawless.

I still take the Spark out because it is fun to fly. Given the price reductions in these, I may get another.  Kind of an insurance policy of sorts. lol

miketmtpro Posted at 2018-3-23 22:22
FWIW, I think a lot of incidences of problems come from inexperience. The first flyaway I had was on a cheaper Syma quad at night, in wind.. Perfect situation to lose your quad, and I did. Probably ended in some yard a mile back, became a kids toy or they threw it away. I also did not have my Phone # on it.. It was a practice toy, and I did learn to fly with it for a few months.

Spark was next. Very new to the product and Wifi Controller, Phone app. Read up on many things in the manual, and watched many hours of video tutorials on YT. First time up was awesome. GPS lock, really nice flights. An update or so later and I started getting errors. Not flying more than 100 m away either. Some closer. Good thing is, though the app was tossing errors I still knew how to fly. I didn't freak out or panic. GPS is cool, but it's scary for many when you lose that lock. Craft can get harder to fly. I didn't panic, flew it back and within 50 meters it was fine again and then fine the rest of the time. Another time was about 400m out. That thing is tiny then. When it got away from me, lost GPS, I pushed forward to determine direction. Made the corrections, went to Sport mode, and got it back.

I would like to point out the complete lack of input or advice from the DJI mods in this, and other similar threads.

They must have recievied logs from a number of flyaways and, no doubt, have an answer as to what causes it.

djiuser_ElWrlsI5U4Iz Posted at 2018-3-23 23:05
I would like to point out the complete lack of input or advice from the DJI mods in this, and other similar threads.

They must have recievied logs from a number of flyaways and, no doubt, have an answer as to what causes it.

I don't think they always know. Every area can have things that create errors. People in our local drone groups always tell noob flyers NEVER PANIC that is how you lose them. Orientation of the craft is huge too. Too many people get airborne before having the basics... like knowing how to use the maps, craft orientation within the app, battery management, and so on. FB forums for these specific craft are full of flyway stories, and many simply were avoiding the basic rules of flight, not doing flight checks, not verifying settings... ie RTH controller vs HP.

DJI nor any other company that makes these products can do much about those issues. The more common problems of failure or flyways are user created, though some are not. Some are simply the area is not conducive to flying, compass errors, and other things. Sometimes it's the phone, or a watch someone is wearing... or BT headset. The crashes more related to the craft, the app, or controller malfunction are often resolved in most cases I have seen. Some opt for the insurance, some do not.