I lost my drone a couple days ago and am trying to determine what most likely happened to it after I lost connection. I was about 1000ft in altitude (I know too high) and I lost video signal. I had 74% battery left and I turned off the controller so it would return home.... I had 9 satellites locked before I started flying. Something went wrong and it never came back but what would the drone most likely do being unmanned. I am assuming it went crazy until the battery got low then it went into emergency land? Would it fly until the battery died and fall back to earth? Would it automatically start to decend or does it need its gps home lock first before it decends.  I'm trying to get a grasp on how it may have spent its last 10-15 minutes in the air.

Shame about the lost bird. If it had had GPS lock, it would have returned home after losing connection. Home could be the home you set that very sortie or, if you hadn't set a home that sortie, it must have gone to the home you set in your previous sortie.

If there's no home in its memory at all, it will just hang there, with GPS lock, till it runs out of battery power, after which it will descend and land pretty much straight down from where it was hovering.

If there's no GPS lock, it will drift whichever way the wind is blowing, until it runs out of battery power and then land wherever it may be. Or fly into something while drifting.

I think these are your various options, unless you adjusted the respective settings. Based on these options, I'd check out the prevailing wind direction for that day and do a few sweeps downwind. If no joy, then try searching where your previous home was set. Provided this wasn't 1000 km away of course.

By the way, what's the "Find my Phantom" telling you?

Good luck. Let us know how you got on.

Thanks for the help. I did have a GPS lock before I took off. It was actually locked for over a minute, as I was adjusting some camera settings via the app, before I took off. I made sure the dynamic home point was turned off since I didn't like the idea of the home point moving mid flight. When I lost video signal and turned off the controller I never regained video signal so I am assuming it did not immediately come down but rather starting moving in another direction. The "Find my phantom" shows it directly above where I took off which would be correct since I did not move much from the original take off location. However it did not land close to me as I was straining to hear it so I could try to locate it.

I haven't heard of a phantom not setting a home point and trying to return to the last one in memory. Wouldn't the memory be erased when the battery is pulled for charging? Thanks for the help.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-15 22:16
Thanks for the help. I did have a GPS lock before I took off. It was actually locked for over a minu ...

Also the last home point would be under 3 miles away (takes exactly 3 in a car and the roads are fairly straight) as I last took it off from was down the road. The battery was 74% not sure how far it could fly on that charge.

I had the same thing happen to me except I was lucky enough to get a visual on it and bring it home right at the last minute.  I had it up about 1,000 ft, the winds were too strong for the gps lock to hold, and then I lost my WiFi signal.  I pretty much had a panic attack and then I gave one last stare into the sky and found the thing, lol.  From now on, whenever I take it up that high I make sure to fly out against the wind to have some space to let it descend and still stay close to me.  I also pay really close attention to where it is in the sky.  Just in case that video goes out.  Hope you find it.

nwellborn85 Posted at 2014-12-15 22:36
I had the same thing happen to me except I was lucky enough to get a visual on it and bring it home  ...

Thanks, It was really light to no wind. I stopped a few hundred feet up to see how much the camera was moving since I know the wind on the ground is different then in the air.

If i knew it was going back to my old home location I could take a look in that direction. there is a lot of woods around its hard walking. Does anyone know if the phantom has a memory of past locations?

Not trying to be critical here, but I've been reading a lot about flying before I actually fly mine, and here in the US, it is said you should keep RC aircraft at a 400 ft ceiling.  Is this something that is generally ignored in the community?

tweed: I am assuming that home location is not stored between power cycling.  You turn it on, acquire GPS, and it sets the home location when you move the stick at liftoff, and then when you power off, home location, as well as GPS info is lost. If this is correct, it would not have flown to your previous 'home' location.  As to losing the wifi , and not regaining it.  That happened to me recently, when flying in my back yard.  The camera never reconnected even as the phantom came close in, and I know why... the wifi on the wifi extender, switched over to a stronger network the network from my home.  So apparently, there is some danger, when one network fails, the phantom will automatically switch to the next strongest one.  I've flown from this spot many times, and this had never happened before.  Anyhow, I think I would start a search directly under the bird.  Did you have battery low, RTH or battery low Land set?

"switched over to a stronger network the network from my home."

Yep, has happened to me more than once...

Sorry to hear about losing your investment... Did you try to locate it with your "Find my Phantom App"?

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2014-12-16 01:29
"switched over to a stronger network the network from my home."

Yep, has happened to me more than o ...

So what you mean here is your phone or tablet switched to the stronger wifi signal and NOT the phantom or extender.

kjkisatsky@comc Posted at 2014-12-16 01:08
Not trying to be critical here, but I've been reading a lot about flying before I actually fly mine, ...

The 400' ceiling is actually a (good) suggestion by the FAA and not a rule. But, as long as you check the airspace maps for the location you're flying in and make sure not to enter airspace used by real aircraft, you can fly above 400'.

rhayhurst- I have Low battery set to land I believe. I just wiped/updated my phone (to IOS 8) a few days before flying and re-downloaded the app so I left it thinking turning the controller off would activate the RTH and I normally keep it close after about 50% battery.

markkinley- Yes it shows it right where I took it off from( i went straight up ). I believe "find my phantom" uses the data that the phantom transmits on the 2.4 Ghz video feed. So once you lose your video you also stop getting updates on the gps location of you phantom.  After about 5 min i noticed my phone was not connected to the extender so I power cycled the extender and when that didn't work i cycled the wifi on and off on my phone. After about another 5 minuted of this my phone finally connected to the extender.....kept getting the unable to connect message

I took my phone and controller up and down the road trying to connect to the phantom with no luck. I was hoping I would get a hit and be able to use the camera to see where i was at.

umpa Posted at 2014-12-16 02:31
So what you mean here is your phone or tablet switched to the stronger wifi signal and NOT the pha ...

If you loose wifi link in flight and are near a previously established "pair" your device/phone will link to it.

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2014-12-16 22:13
If you loose wifi link in flight and are near a previously established "pair" your device/phone wi ...

I find it unsettling that you can lose the wifi link to a device (extender) that is about 4" from your phone.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-16 22:16
I find it unsettling that you can lose the wifi link to a device (extender) that is about 4" from  ...

no, link to phantom, the extender is just that an extender, you are paired to the drone

gsp171@mchsi.co Posted at 2014-12-17 02:15
no, link to phantom, the extender is just that an extender, you are paired to the drone

this may help me find my drone......so if I have my phantom off but the extender on my phone will not connect to the extender?

I was out 3100 ft, 400ft up and broke 2.4 GHz wifi connection, got the warning, standing in my front yard, started to freak out a little beacuse of hill tops and tall ass trees , drone way to far to see, quickly hit S2 down for IOC, pulled down on right stick and waited,,, she came back to me, still had 5.8 GHz telemetry the entire time, flipped S2 back up, took control and landed, wifi connection NEVER came back, I looked and saw my Ipad mini was paired to my house wifi lol

Ya my phone connected to my parents wifi when I lost my drone but I was able to see the phantom wifi later when I was driving around. I connected to it but in the app it did not seem to be connected to my phantom.....nothing worked so it was like it was not connected at all.

Thats why I was wondering if the extender has its own SSID and it binds with the phantoms wifi. If the extender has its own SSID it would be possible to connect only to the extender and not the phantom.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-17 03:26
Ya my phone connected to my parents wifi when I lost my drone but I was able to see the phantom wifi ...

Ok the extender is a stand alone unit so if you phone drops the phantom wifi then there is an issue with the extender and not the drone.

Tested it at home today. I turned the extender on (i have no drone) and the phantom wifi network came up and I was able to connect to it.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-17 06:26
Ok the extender is a stand alone unit so if you phone drops the phantom wifi then there is an issu ...

Stay focused on the last known position and work your way out. I lost one a month ago, and found it 958 feet from the reported 'Find My Phantom' position.

By the way, it was in pristine condition, it went into auto landing and came down extremely slow. I know this from watching the video after I recovered it.

TX-Joe Posted at 2014-12-17 07:59
Stay focused on the last known position and work your way out. I lost one a month ago, and found i ...

Thanks for the hope. It's hard since I have a lot of woods to cover and I don't want to just walk around in other peoples property. My buddy has a vision + so i'm hoping he gets some free time this week to fly over the space and look from above.

umpa Posted at 2014-12-16 02:31
So what you mean here is your phone or tablet switched to the stronger wifi signal and NOT the pha ...

yes, the phantom probably did not switch networks, but the iPhone did.

The Phantom could lose connection, but will not search for a better connection because the complete system is bonded to 1 mac address.  Check your phone settings and see if it will automatically search for a better connection.  If it is on, then turn it off.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-17 08:24
Thanks for the hope. It's hard since I have a lot of woods to cover and I don't want to just walk  ...

I also used another Phantom to search for mine, here's how that went...

I was 200' up, looking straight down, recording in 1080P wide angle. I would go home, review the footage, note anything that looked interesting (anything white), go back and do a second fly-over at 100' (1080P narrow angle) to investigate the various white objects. In particular I spotted something bright white in a treeline, so a really spent time filming that area.

I go home, pop the sd card in my pc, and start scrutinizing the white object. It turned out to be big white plastic 55 gal barrel. Obviously a pretty big object.

Now here's the clincher. A week later, while on foot doing the search I mentioned in my earlier post, I found my Phantom not more than 20 feet from that big white barrel. I was amazed, because I scrutinized that area thoroughly.

Later, when I got home, and after I got over the elation of finding my Phantom2V+, I decided to review my videos and see how I could possibly have missed it. Man... seriously, it was right there in the video, but even KNOWING it was there, it was still hard to see. There would have been no way on this planet that I could have spotted it in the video I took, and it was in grass, not covered at all.

I don't know if we can post pics here, I'll check after typing this, but really, boots on the ground is the way to go.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-17 08:24
Thanks for the hope. It's hard since I have a lot of woods to cover and I don't want to just walk  ...

Here's the clip with that white barrel.

Keep in mind, you KNOW the Phantom is in this clip, so you MIGHT see it...

Find the Phantom

I know what it's like to have a Phantom missing. Hopefully some of this info will help. At the very least, you'll know what to look for in your aerial search.

TX-Joe Posted at 2014-12-17 13:03
Here's the clip with that white barrel.

Keep in mind, you KNOW the Phantom is in this clip, so yo ...

As you are coming down, there is a small hole, like a moon crater in the lower left of the video.  It looks like your Phantom is about 1/2 inch in the video above the hole.  Am I right?

I couldn't see it.  Needle in a haystack.  Lucky you checked around that barrel.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2014-12-17 13:13
As you are coming down, there is a small hole, like a moon crater in the lower left of the video.  ...

Nope.

Amazing huh? 100' up, hi rez video, I'm telling you it's there, and it's still hard to see. Imagine looking at that and you weren't certain it was even there; you'd never see it.

It isn't covered by anything.

It's so hard to see, that every time I look at that video I have to re-find it.

I'm gonna put a picture up that catches it at an angle from a distance and you can see something white near the white barrel, which is the drone. Again I'm doing this to help anyone who loses their Phantom.

TX-Joe Posted at 2014-12-17 13:03
Here's the clip with that white barrel.

Keep in mind, you KNOW the Phantom is in this clip, so yo ...

Yes your right, very hard to see anything. I thought the sun would help but it almost blows out the contrast on the video. I will keep this in mind but yes I have been walking as well to search. I'm hoping the brown leaves will help it stick out a little more.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-18 00:01
Yes your right, very hard to see anything. I thought the sun would help but it almost blows out th ...

Here is a screenshot from the video.  I think I have it now spotted in the red circle.  Maybe, maybe not.

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=6 ... B998%211051&v=3

kjkisatsky@comc Posted at 2014-12-16 01:08
Not trying to be critical here, but I've been reading a lot about flying before I actually fly mine, ...

400 feet is a "suggestion" based on AMA's rules, developed many years ago primarily for R/C aircraft, which have to operate LOS anyway. I live, for example, in an area of uncontrolled airspace up to 1200 feet.

[img]https://forum11.djicdn.com/data/attachment/forum/%5BIMG%5D[/IMG]

After editing the brightness saturation and contrast it is easier to see the ground. I believe the X of the drone stands out right where i put the red circle.

Walked a few miles in the woods today and did not see anything. Using an iPhone app call trace my route so I can try to get good coverage.

teedo757@yahoo. Posted at 2014-12-18 03:41
[/IMG]

After editing the brightness saturation and contrast it is easier to see the ground. I belie ...

You're correct!

Everyone seeing this will now have a pretty good idea of what a lost Phantom looks like from the air.

Maybe we should put bright orange tape on our Phantoms; what would have made it more obvious from the air?

By the way, I now have the RF-V16 GPS tracker attached to my Phantom.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2014-12-18 00:17
Here is a screenshot from the video.  I think I have it now spotted in the red circle.  Maybe, may ...

I couldn't open your link

No fricken way would that little white dot raise my interest if I was looking for my Phantom.....

This is what it looked like on the ground...

Sighting Phantom from the ground

I was looking here and here..in white.

TX-Joe Posted at 2014-12-18 04:11
I couldn't open your link

I had it in the second shot that you could not open.