Hello DJI

I am a big fan of the products and been supporting since the Phantom 2 came out.  So I ve been flying for almost 2 years and I really love my birds. Upgraded to the P3A the first week it came out and never had issues with it. I am not a newby and is very carefull and aways do a pre-flight check before each flights.  I've been reading on the net about Fly Aways and I was telling  myself that it is most of the time it was pilot error.  But last week, my experience prooved me wrong.  As I was in a rural area where I fly often at my parents place, I became a victim of thoses electronic failurs..

i had planed to fly over the lake and did my regular preflight check.  Propellers were tighten, calibration of IMU and compass were done flight before and I had 13 sats locked in.  Battery was 100% charged and had only 6 flight with it.  Since I am not in my first, I often put the bird in ATTI mode, wich I find more interesting to fly.  36 second into the flight, The remote indicated lost signal.  The P3 was at 100 feet in the air and about 300 meters aeay, wich is not far but lost sight of it since I was looking at my screen. When I lost the signal, I tought the the quad failsafe would kick in and it will come back to land at my feet.  But it didnt hapened. Even with pressing the RTH button, nothing happened.  So basically, my P3 advance never came back and Didnt se it fall into the lake wich makes me believe that i just continued to climb and went strait nto the woods until the battery died. Now, following this adventure, I have filled a TICKET with DJI support, but never got an answer.  Some say it might take up to a month to get a response.  I eould really like to continue flying but I am not willing to cough another 1000$ for a new one, especially that this is not my fault what so ever.  

I have put the video of the flight log and the video of the incident in the link bellow, so you can see for  yourself

http://youtu.be/seEGFie92oQ

http://youtu.be/pLy2fAnbt7I

JI believe when you are in ATTI flight,   you alone control the Phantom,   maybe if you switched back to P-GPS  if might have come back to you.   Some else want to correct me if I am wrong...  Sorry for your loss.  

CaveDrone Posted at 2015-10-31 22:53
JI believe when you are in ATTI flight,   you alone control the Phantom,   maybe if you switched bac ...

I did that but.  Even in ATTI mod, when you loose signal, the bird comes back. It a different thing, loosing control of it and losing signal.  

Even if you flip the switch back, if the connection is lost, the quand will not go back to GPS mode. I believe that even if I was in GPS mode, the bird would have still lost the conneçtion and flew on his own.

Thank for your concern

Lenrage Posted at 2015-10-31 23:05
I did that but.  Even in ATTI mod, when you loose signal, the bird comes back. It a different thin ...

And you are not supposed to lose the signal at 300 meters away with no intereference

I've had this before, start to lose signal that is, I hurried and threw my phone from my shirt pocket and signal back and strong, also had trouble with people coming over going, WOW CAN I SEE?  and if they have a cell phones I have to tell them to turn them to airplane mode or crazy shit starts to happen,
The other thing to do is select the Auto channel option, so when a competing signal interferes it will automatically change frequencies

jpaydirt Posted at 2015-11-2 02:19
I've had this before, start to lose signal that is, I hurried and threw my phone from my shirt pocke ...

This is good info to know!! I just ordered a P3, and nice to know this little nugget of info about having cell phones around when flying your bird.

I would never fly the bird in atti mode, why should i? it fly,s so nice and strait with all these helpfull things as GPS and Glonass, the bird is to expensive for me to do experiments like this, there fore  i have a cheap model like the Hubsan X4
So please dont do this again, if you want to fly straigt and pure, do this with a cheaper model like the Hubsan or so

Lenrage Posted at 2015-10-31 22:05
I did that but.  Even in ATTI mod, when you loose signal, the bird comes back. It a different thin ...

Just a thought here, but did you just lose VIDEO signal or total control of the aircraft?  Losing just video signal will not cause RTH to automatically kick it...the controller signal itself needs to be lost for that to kick in.

k.kavelaars@qui Posted at 2015-11-2 22:57
I would never fly the bird in atti mode, why should i? it fly,s so nice and strait with all these he ...

You should fly in atti mode so when u lose gps you can bring your bird home. Not a matter of if it happens, but when. There are lots of uncontrollable circumstances which can chop your signal all the way from a solar storm, to a passer by's cell phone to a parked car.... I'd rather be prepared for when it does happen

jpaydirt Posted at 2015-11-1 13:19
I've had this before, start to lose signal that is, I hurried and threw my phone from my shirt pocke ...

I realy doubt it was ell phone interference since i was the only one there. Drone was in the middle of lake when signal was lost, in a rural area

Flight Raptor Posted at 2015-11-2 10:28
Just a thought here, but did you just lose VIDEO signal or total control of the aircraft?  Losing  ...

Lodt both.....controler light became red after lost sinal, like the the bird didnt exist

countrysidegard Posted at 2015-11-2 12:56
You should fly in atti mode so when u lose gps you can bring your bird home. Not a matter of if it ...

ATTI mode was mode for experience pilots wich I am. When the si gnal is lost in both mode, Failsafe is supposte to kick in.  This technilogy is not made to fail at 300 meters away, in clear sight, in either mode

DJI wouldn t have made this mode to loose the bird on purpose. Been flying in ATTI mode for quite sometimes in different area,  never had any failure

Sorry for your flyaway... Please contact us via live-chat or phone call, must be more efficient then e-mail...

I have had the screen go black and the app crash a few times, lost gps once too and nearly lost the phantom as it drifted away in a strong wind.
One thing I would have checked in your situation is the status of the LED on the controller.  If its green you still have radio contact, if its red you have no contact.

Sorry lenrage, the atti mode comment was towards k.kavelaars. Sorry for your loss and hope DJI is speedy in helping u to a resolution.

Wow... this RC lost signal.   It's like someone removed your battery suddenly..

Lenrage Posted at 2015-11-2 20:22
I realy doubt it was ell phone interference since i was the only one there. Drone was in the middl ...

Ok but what did you have the channel setting on, manual or automatic?  Just curious