mdjak
New
United States
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This is a tough crowd for sure. forgive me, but this is my first post here. I am the type of person who readily admits mistakes. In fact, over a year ago when I owned the Phantom 2+, I did something stupid and crashed it. I came down too quickly and by the time I tried to reverse or stop, it was too late. Thankfully no damage was caused.
I then accidentally hit the side of my hot tub when attemtping a landing (my backyard is not the straightest and it would tend to tip upon landing). Well, after it hit the hot tub, it landed on the concrete below and broke the camera off the gimbal. I sold it on a photography forum for a very cheap price and full disclosure.
Fast forward a year and I purchased the Phantom3 Professional. I've not had any problems that were not caused by me. I STUPIDLY acted like a little boy experimenting, glued my GoPro to the top, thus obliterating the GPS signal, flew it and it flew away. MY FAULT. I admit it. No question. Dumb, idiotic, moronic.
That same night someone knocked on my door and said, "I have your drone." I was shocked. it landed in a maple tree in his tree nursery about half mile away. He took out the card from the gopro, reviewed the footage, recognized my house and the route I live on, and returned it along with the gopro. I gave him a handsome reward. Lesson learned.
So all of the above seems to be off topic and for that I apologize in advance. But it's not. Why? Because when I F up, I admit it. But when I follow all preflight checks and the drone, in this case the I1, stops reacting to the sticks, something is wrong.
In the few hours between losing the P3 and recouping it, I ordered an I1. Even though I got the P3 back and could've canceled the order, I wanted it.
So I get the I1, update the firmware before flying on the craft, the controller, and all 3 batteries I have.
I flew over the next 2 weeks every day with no problem whatsoever, probably over 20 times.
One day I'm in my backyard, where I had always flown it, did all the preflight checks, and began to fly. It was about 30 feet from me and all of a sudden I could not control it. it started to fly on it's own and thankfully crashed into the grass. No harm done other than a grass covered lens filter.
I have/had no idea why that happened. Next evening I flew it again without incident. That continued for the next two weeks or so.
I then took it to a park about 20 miles away. I went through all preflight checks. Compass calibration, 17 satellites, and took off, flew up and over 3 baseball fields (the park was empty, no people at all), flew over an outdoor running track. Nice open area to get some nice practice and handling in, nice sweeping turns, sharp turns, no problem whatsoever.
Back home flew it again a few times without trouble.
Back to the same park and I'm hovering about 100 feet up, about 50 feet back, fliming a backhoe tearing down a small one story bldg. I was getting great video. And I was far enough away that dust from the site was not an issue. After filming that for a few minutes, I went up to about 150 feet and once again flew out over the ball fields (also tennis courts), the track and the parking lot I was standing in I was probably in the air for about 10 minutes, at least 50 percent battery left (I was using the higher capacity battery I purchased separately), and I decided it was time to land. This was actually behind the gym I go to and I was going to workout. I began flying back to where I was standing to land. When the I1 was no more than 50 feet away, perhaps 30 feet up, it once again ceased to accept commands from the sticks. It immediately started to fly backwards and hit a tree amongst a thousand other trees. I ran over 50 feet or so and looked up but couldn't see it. I looked and looked. (I could still see the camera's view, but it was just showing leaves.)
I did not know if it was in the tree or had fallen to the underbrush below. It all happened so quickly. My only option was to try revving the props to see if I could hear it. Well, hear it I did. It was indeed stuck in a branch about 30 or 40 feet up. I contemplated asking the driver of the backhoe across the parking lot to come shake the branch but didn't as I was just filming him and I figured he may not have been too happy about that. (turns out I saw him a week later, is a good friend of a close friend of mine who is a builder and said had I mentioned my buddy's name, which I never would have thought of doing, he would have driven over in a second to get it down for me.)
So my only option was to rev the props. Two were stuck, two were spinning. After about 20 or 30 seconds it cut its way loose and fell to the cushioned underbrush. But the two props that were stuck smoked out. A long puff of smoke rose up from them just before it came down. Two engines literally melted off.
I contacted DJI and told them the exact situation I recount above. It is 100 percent gospel, exactly what happened. I took and take full responsibility for burning out two engines, but it was the only way I could retrieve it after it flew away inexplicably.
DJI sent me a return label so I did not have to pay shipping which was very nice of them. I am waiting to hear what they find.
I've learned long ago that just becasue something has never happened to me, or you, doesn't mean it hasn't happened to someone else.
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