Just interested, does anyone know about the fact (Some) of these P3's  seem to have an issue with going rouge and take themselves off on solo adventures. So they say!  SO the company said anyway, it was down to software issuse, which ( I hope has been resolved), so I prsume it was correct, but that was when they first came out, has those updates resolved this or does it still happen to the unfortunate  ??/

Most fly always are pilot error

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-26 00:19
Most fly always are pilot error

I just ready the thing here about fly away probs and ATTI mode, is the way to go, so he says!

Alien tech Posted at 2015-8-26 00:24
I just ready the thing here about fly away probs and ATTI mode, is the way to go, so he says!

atti mode is great if your compass or gps malfunction mid flight, basically you are flying the p3 without any techy stuff, you are in full control!!

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-26 00:19
Most fly always are pilot error

You are wise beyond your years, Ray....I suspect most flyaways are operators who don't want to admit they screwed up. I posted this in another forum and you can imagine the storm.

Just what is a flyaway?

In my humble opinion, it is not:


A bird that is intentionally ”shot out” to “see how far it will go?”

A bird that is intentionally shot UP to “see how high it will go?”

A bird that clearly communicates a failure, via the APP, but the pilot ignores it and continues to fly

A bird whose pilot never bothered with CAL or IMU

A bird whose pilot is only flying by looking at the screen(?)

A bird that is intentionally flown near known sources of RF or magnetic disturbance (high power lines)

A bird clearly showing a low batt indication but the pilot disregards it

A bird flown outside the recommended temperature envelope

A bird flown outside the recommended wind envelope

A bird flown behind obstacles (BLOS)

A bird flown with a low battery in the controller

A bird flown with user-installed devices (strobe lights, trackers) without a short, low altitude test flight first.

LICENSED PILOT Posted at 2015-8-26 01:19
You are wise beyond your years, Ray....I suspect most flyaways are operators who don't want to adm ...

I like this....

LICENSED PILOT Posted at 2015-8-26 01:19
You are wise beyond your years, Ray....I suspect most flyaways are operators who don't want to adm ...

I am 53 LP, and in Your old line of work, I'm sure you've heard it all!!
It wasn't my fault, the beer cans just had a compass error and ended up in my gut as I was driving!!!

All I know, either I've been the luckiest guy with over 200 long flights, battery down to 10%, and never had one inkling of anything out of the ordinary, minus when I was being stupid or inadvertently doing CSC, or not looking at the fact that ground was raising and I was not, or people just treat p3 as a toy instead of an actual very capable flying machine that requires some common sense and pre flight checks!!
Just now I was testing some ideas in my house: I started the p3 indoors in a room and got compass mod value of 1550, moved it to next room with no electronic devices and started it and got a mod value of over 3500!!!! Moved it 2' to the left and turned it towards north and got a value of 1500ish! That's just moving it 2' . So I'd say compass is very sensitive and needs to be treated as such! Just like my wife! I probably treat p3 with more care than I do my wife! Nothing to be proud of

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-25 21:26
I am 53 LP, and in Your old line of work, I'm sure you've heard it all!!
It wasn't my fault, the b ...

  I love it, I know what you mean ( I have a wife like that)  was not my fault, or the other famous one is; I mean to say!   Hello, so why didn't you say that then ?   But this has to be kept quite, under the national secrets act!  or I am dead!!   Flying a wife is far harder than any drone or commercial arcraft!!!!  Infinate skill levels needed... only saints need apply   They gonna string me up for this one!!

Alien tech Posted at 2015-8-26 14:48
I love it, I know what you mean ( I have a wife like that)  was not my fault, or the other fa ...

LOL.... You guys need to grow a set....
In my house.... I'm the Boss...(she said so!)

Most of the true "fly aways" have been just that, not pilot error; people will just blame the pilot as it can't surely be their beloved p3.

They'll say it's because the compass was out, but unless you get to analyze the logs, they are guessing. There have been a number of people that have had replacement P3s given as a result of DJI reviewing the logs.

Just learn to fly Atti and know how to switch quickly as you never know when you'll need it. If Atti doesn't help it's probably all over for your drone.

Alien tech Posted at 2015-8-26 14:48
I love it, I know what you mean ( I have a wife like that)  was not my fault, or the other fa ...

i told my wife that the app says i need to upgrade her fw for a new set

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-26 16:52
i told my wife that the app says i need to upgrade her fw for a new set

Brave man, very brave!

About 150,000 P3's have been sold (guesswork, but probably close).

The number of flyaways reported which are "true rogue" are less than I can count on one hand. One of them was from a dude who I predicted would lose his bird weeks before it flew away (he tempts fate in so many ways)....

While you can't say "none ever fly away", it's about as common (or less common) as flipping a coin and having it land on it's edge.
For a nickel that's 1 in 6,000.

So this would mean 25 P3's have flown away with no explanation.

I'm not counting the MANY crashes, compass failures, batteries not pushed in or dirty contacts, etc.

The word flyaway is suspect. I think accident or incident is more accurate. Then we can discuss all the potential reasons - for example, I would consider a real true "flyaway" to be when even a pilot switching into ATTI mode cannot save the bird. A crash into a tree is not a flyaway.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-8-27 01:38
About 150,000 P3's have been sold (guesswork, but probably close).

The number of flyaways reported  ...

there are 2 mind sets:
1- any crash is DJI fault and the easiest terminology that has become popular "fly away"
2- my own fault for :
a- not reading manual
b- not knowing what im doing
c- treating the p3 as a toy
d- flying beyond my capabilities
..
...
..
Z: not doing any pre flight checks and daily routine checkup of the p3

Same thing with any devices. When some products is coming more popular, normally that people who have big problems, is writing in forums and blogs as "bad machines".
But maybe always the truth is different and real problems is a lot of smaller than many people thinking.

Just think ex. firmwares. Why somebodys have problems, and example I dont have? There is so many things what could be wrong. First of all, you have an computer, you maybe have some problems in there(virus or something) and your programs dosent work so well. You download an packed file Dji and extract that = YOU maybe have errors in that moment for some reason. Then you have card reader. Maybe there is some problems to writing data correctly in sd card. Then you have an sd card, maybe you get some losen data there?
Then you move that card in the copter and maybe droped that card in the floor when moving it in the plane.
When you finally get it and run it, you can get some errors. What user thinks? - This is an peace of shit and blame Dji.

I DONT saying, that Dji dosent have problems. Butt everytime, when something happens, there is so many things what could be wrong before that.
Hoping that somebody understand my point with these bad english but thats what i thinking about.

Mine flew away but it was my fault. Newbie. Computers will just do what you tell them to do.  It was so far away and I had no idea what I was doing. I hit the RTH button and the dam thing came back 3-4 minutes later and landed right at my feet.  Bad ass drone!

sprawl Posted at 2015-8-27 02:31
Same thing with any devices. When some products is coming more popular, normally that people who hav ...

I thought your English was quite well spoken. Come into my fantasy football league and you will see bad English.  This is a great Drone and Drone's are not easy to fly.  I could hear the argument with someone that is really a great pilot losing one but most of the bad reviews come from amateurs. And they are the ones posting.  

dsm091 Posted at 2015-8-27 04:38
I thought your English was quite well spoken. Come into my fantasy football league and you will se ...

or better still, come to my bar in WV and you will see what bad english really is!

ScottyT Posted at 2015-8-26 16:47
Most of the true "fly aways" have been just that, not pilot error; people will just blame the pilot  ...

I like this. ATTI is the A position on the P,A,F switch. I'm going to practice flying in that mode tonight.

I sure wish they would finally release the firmware version that gives us all the goodies for IOC mode (the F position)! I've been checking almost every day.

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-26 21:52
i told my wife that the app says i need to upgrade her fw for a new set

"for a new set"  ???  

dsm091 Posted at 2015-8-27 04:16
Mine flew away but it was my fault. Newbie. Computers will just do what you tell them to do.  It was ...

Just to note: that's not a fly away. We need to be careful using that phrase.

Your issue was user error, which is exactly what mine were.

I've seen so many "flyaway" videos, I almost didn't buy a quad at all.  After learning more, I paid attention to the content of the videos, and discovered it was usually very obvious how it could fly away from the guy flying.  I'm not sure I've ever seen one where it was a genuine mystery.  I was scared to death of flying my P3 at first.  But, as I gained experience and saw how it reacts, what makes it tick, etc.,  I have slowly gained confidence.  I'm a life-long technical person, so the more I learn about and understand something, the more I trust it.  I'm almost to the point where I might even trust it over water.   

I was playing around with the different flight modes yesterday...In P-OPTI it flew fine, but when I switched to F-ATTI mode it hovered really choppy and it pulled back and to the left on it's own. What causes this?

SpunOne69 Posted at 2015-8-27 06:48
I was playing around with the different flight modes yesterday...In P-OPTI it flew fine, but when I  ...

Was it windy at all? More info please...

SpunOne69 Posted at 2015-8-27 06:48
I was playing around with the different flight modes yesterday...In P-OPTI it flew fine, but when I  ...

the fact that you dont have gps or compass helping  to keep it in one place. atti basically means you are in total command, so if u let go of the controls the p3 will go where the wind takes it.
while you are best advised to learn to fly in atti mode in case you have some anomalies while in flight, i would suggest practicing it regularly in open spaces away from trees and other obstacles.
good luck

Yes, it was a little windy...nothing too bad, but it was noticeable.

SpunOne69 Posted at 2015-8-26 18:48
I was playing around with the different flight modes yesterday...In P-OPTI it flew fine, but when I  ...

A is ATTI.
F is function mode.
Don't use that mode......

Use only the P mode (GPS) or the A mode (ATTI) until you 100% know if and what you are using the F mode for.

Yeah...I'm starting to get the hang of it.  The "F" mode is a little different, more responsive, but also more difficult to control.

fly away..
not pilot error

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-8-26 12:38
About 150,000 P3's have been sold (guesswork, but probably close).

The number of flyaways reported  ...

How do you know there's been less than 5 "true" fly-aways?

rayrokni Posted at 2015-8-26 13:14
there are 2 mind sets:
1- any crash is DJI fault and the easiest terminology that has become popul ...

Why does it have to be so black-or-white?  By your definition either someone is bound-and-determined to blame in on DJI no matter what or it is pilot error.

There are definitely people who don't rush to automatically blame it on DJI, but who provide log data and work their way to a conclusion whether it was pilot error or not.  I've seen numerous post and videos where the person says something to the effect of, "Here's what happened, tell me what I did wrong" but it's not always clear they did anything wrong even after community input.  I'm sure "true" fly-aways are rare, but there's no reason for anyone to be reflexively defensive that any reported error "must' be pilot error.

LICENSED PILOT Posted at 2015-8-26 04:19
You are wise beyond your years, Ray....I suspect most flyaways are operators who don't want to adm ...

These are not reasons for fly-always. I have done most of these on the list, and never had an issue.

I do see your point but most of these sound like potential "crashes" due to an eventual battery failure from flying too long without landing.

Kit Walker Posted at 2016-3-8 11:59
These are not reasons for fly-always. I have done most of these on the list, and never had an issu ...

I Believe his point is that these are the actual issues 99% of the time when someone comes to this forum claiming a loss/crash due to "flyaway".

i.e.  the dozen who initiated RTH out of line of sight behind buildings and then peppered the threads about "flyaways" when their logs were posted and clearly pointed to user error.

ryan209 Posted at 2016-3-9 06:01
I Believe his point is that these are the actual issues 99% of the time when someone comes to this ...

Totally agree

I also figure that there is an even larger number of flyers out there who screwed up and then realised, quite correctly, that it was their fault, and not a flyaway. Those people do not bother to come on this forum and try to blame everyone else for their actions.

I realise that post. I think we need clarification on the term "fly-away".

Kit Walker Posted at 2016-3-9 12:55
I realise that post. I think we need clarification on the term "fly-away".

Fly away  ....  is a handy term to explain losing your Phantom .... when you didn't understand enough about how it works and how to fly it properly.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-9 13:08
Fly away  ....  is a handy term to explain losing your Phantom .... when you didn't understand eno ...

Yes! - I Too had a Very Genuine & Typical "Fly Away" the other day...., I Took off right after switching on a partial battery charge, without checking number of GPS sats, from a bridge made of steel, then Hit maximum throttle to 120m, because I wanted to get high quickly before the battery run out, and while my eyes were glued to the screen, I flew the P3 around 1.5 km away and I didnt notice that two very large buildings, a bunch of trees and an elephant walked right between me and my P3, after which I unexpectedly and mysteriously lost video and control and the P3 flew away never to be found!!!!

DJI..!!! - I don't expect a $2000+ piece of equipment to behave in this way.... Its all your fault!!!! and I demand & expect you to replace my Fly'ed away P3 and give me a Brand Spanking New P4, and throw in a couple spare battries for all the inconvenience and "Fly away" stress you have caused !!!

P.S. Im a very experienced pilot, and have read the manual cover to cover, both of them covers properly in detail..
......By the way.... What is ATTI???


Yours Sincerely
I. M. Hebetudinous.

That occurs when you land and don't shut down the engines. Then the low battery RTH kicks in and the P3 "fly back" to the home point.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-8-27 03:38
About 150,000 P3's have been sold (guesswork, but probably close).

The number of flyaways reported  ...

Well said