My Phantom 2 lost its connection with its controller and failed to land. At the time it had not connected to any satellites, so I cant use that feature to find it.
With the controller turned off, no connection, the drone kept its altitude and drifted off in the wind. I watched it for 200m+ heading towards the bay. It had a good ten minutes battery life left. so i fear it met a watery end.
The support people in HK were less than satisfactory. No support or offer of compensation. All I have left are some useless accessories, battery, controller and a large hole in my wallet.
contact me if you can help
Peter

Sorry for your loss.
This is why flying without GPS is dangerous.
Turning the controller off will activate the failsafe and autoland, but without GPS it will drift with the wind while it descends for landing, depending on the altitude and wind speed at the time this can end up as you described.
Without a set GPS home point flying the phantom out of range or turning the controller off is NOT a good idea, sorry but its your fault this time.

That is a total bummer Peter. I feel for ya.

Last weekend I was flying in open water from a boat and got the message on the phone of phantom connection broke (I was flying in GPS), the first thing I did was to pull up the drone in case I get back the signal I can avoid crash in the water or palms trees. I was able to reconnect to the copter and had a safe landing!

johnwarr@live.c Posted at 2014-9-24 13:40
Sorry for your loss.
This is why flying without GPS is dangerous.
Turning the controller off will ac ...

how is this my fault when the drone failed to descend?

peter@kmetrics. Posted at 2014-9-25 07:59
how is this my fault when the drone failed to descend?

clearly you should not fly with less than 6 sats connected

ringlis1 Posted at 2014-9-25 08:07
clearly you should not fly with less than 6 sats connected

More to the point is Clearly the drone was faulty and failed to land when the connection was lost

Peter I have to say first of all I'm sorry you lost your aircraft. That's a total bummer.

But I also have to say from what I read is that you sunk your own ship here. Without getting a GPS lock on the phantom, it does not know where it is suppose to go. When loosing signal or power to the radio. By shutting down your radio (turning it off) you then lose all chance to regain control.

The phantom should not just land if you have the return to home selected within the software, I believe. (Factory Default) At that point it will just hover and the wind will take it away. The best thing you could have done it to try to reestablish connection the the aircraft. By turning the controller back on. Again sorry this happened.  

I think the lesson learned here is to NEVER TAKE OFF WITHOUT GPS LOCK.

This is just my opinion, and not to wish you any more frustration that you already have.
I have to agree with John here.
I have no idea how the post jumped to the top.

hd_ultra@msn.co Posted at 2014-9-25 08:31
Peter I have to say first of all I'm sorry you lost your aircraft. That's a total bummer.

But I als ...

Thanks HD
I am getting two different messages on what happens with no connection and no GPS. One is that it will just hover  and blow away in the wind and the one from 'Johnwarr' that it will descend as a fail-safe. Not sure which is correct.

I'll check more into that so that I know for sure. You would think it would just land. I'm double guessing myself now.
4 Failsafe Function
The Phantom will enter Failsafe mode when its connection to the Remote Control is lost. The Flight Control System will automatically control the aircraft to return to home and land to prevent injury or damage. But only if there is GPS lock
Home Point: When the Phantom enters ‘Ready to Fly’ from the ‘Ready to Fly status (non-GPS)’, the GPS coordinates will be recorded and set as the home point.
When Remote Control signal is lost, the aircraft will return to the recorded home point coordinates and land. Home point coordinates are used to calculate the horizontal distance of the aircraft (shown as “Distance” on the GUI of the DJI VISION App).
After successfully record the home point, rear LED flight indicators blink fast green.

This is what I came up with.

Thanks again
That is pretty much what I thought when there was a GPS connection. But my flight had no GPS connection and didn't record a home point.

Yea man that is a bummer. I hope it not ever happen to me. But i'm one of those guys that will do whatever it takes to get the shot. Even if it risk my equipment. But that why I have insurance. Peter good luck man. I hope you get another and this does not stop you from flying and being creative. I had to buy a camera for mine last week. That was half the cost of the whole phantom. Stupid flag pole got in my way.

peter@kmetrics. Posted at 2014-9-25 11:11
Thanks HD
I am getting two different messages on what happens with no connection and no GPS. One i ...

You said it was windy, so it will drift, and as I said depending on how high, it would drift a long way as it dose not drop like a stone.
Turning off the controller was a mistake, flying the phantom out of range was a mistake, not waiting for GPS lock before the flight was a mistake.
Learn from them before buying another phantom....

hd_ultra@msn.co Posted at 2014-9-25 08:31
Peter I have to say first of all I'm sorry you lost your aircraft. That's a total bummer.

But I als ...

because you got a support vote, , so the post will jump to the top of all posts.

Peter I am sorry to hear that you lost your phantom. I have over 20 years experience flying model aircraft, 15 of them being RC aircraft. When I decided to get into flying quads I purchased an inexpensive Hubsan X4 to practice the basics. When i got my Phantom 2 Vision Plus about two months ago it was a piece of cake to fly. At that point I had about 10 hours of practice on my Hubsan. My only advice to newbies out there is read your manual numerous times, get in plenty of practice, and then get into NAZA mode as soon as you are confident with the basics. Why NAZA mode? The IOC features will give you greater piece of mind. Now keep in mind if you loose GPS your HOME LOCK will not work in NAZA mode. When you do have GPS it is an amazing feature. Imagine being several hundred feet away from yourself and you loose your orientation. All you have to do is flip your bird into HOME LOCK and pull back on your right stick (providing you are in Mode 2). Amazing . . . your bird will come back towards your home point. Now what happens if you loose GPS? Thank goodness for COURSE LOCK! It does not depend on GPS it depends on your compass. Providing your bird is properly calibrated it will fly a grid like pattern when enabled based on takeoff orientation. This can come in handy if your loose GPS as a tool to get your Phantom closer to home. Providing you have sufficient satellites you can also engage and disengage FAILSAFE with the flip of your S1 switch when you are in NAZA mode. Additionally if you loose GPS in NAZA mode which has happened to me providing your flying skills are at a high enough level you can flip your bird into ATTI mode and use the radar on your mobile. The radar is a great tool to keep you flying in the right direction as you bring your bird home. My entire point is never fly far and high away until you have enough skill and confidence to deal with potential problems that can occur. Personally I like to fly within line of sight. Peter don't let your unfortunate incident turn you off regarding this hobby. It is awful the loss you are dealing with. In time who knows with a little luck you will be back in the air.

hd_ultra@msn.co Posted at 2014-9-25 11:54
Yea man that is a bummer. I hope it not ever happen to me. But i'm one of those guys that will do wh ...

hd, do you mind me asking who your insurance carrier is? I haven't found one that is willing to cover the equipment while it is in the air. They will cover it as long as it is not in use. Are you referring to equipment insurance, or personal injury, or both? Any info would be most appreciated!

Join the ama and it comes with membership. I'll send you a link to the policy.

• Liability Coverage for the Operation of Model Aircraft, Boats, Cars, and Rockets
• $2,500,000 Comprehensive General Liability Protection for model activities for members, clubs, site owners, and sponsors
• $25,000 Accident/Medical Coverage for members
• $10,000 Maximum Accidental Death Coverage for members
• $1,000 Fire, Theft, and Vandalism Coverage for members
• Primary Site Owner Insurance ‑ up to $5,000,000 each location
  

http://www.modelaircraft.org

Today I lost mine also and feel abso sick as I saved up for 6 months to buy it. Searched the last known location on the find my P2 but no luck.

Sorry for the 2x guys who have lost  their quads .
I still feel that a set of led lights on the top of the bird would help some folks to make sure they had home lock ie these light would stay on only when home lock has been established no lights dont fly .Or  when using the app an indicator to tell the operator that home lock has been established .
I am well aware that you get the green flashing underneath but i have read on quite a few occasions that folk have been distracted and thought they had home lock =big mistake hence the reason for dedicated home lock led's.

xzgraham@btinte Posted at 2014-11-8 04:13
Sorry for the 2x guys who have lost  their quads .
I still feel that a set of led lights on the top  ...

It would be nice to have a home lock indicator LED on the Phantom. I have the vision+ and use ground station to verify where my home point is when flying in GPS mode.

jmtw000@gmail.c Posted at 2014-11-10 03:02
It would be nice to have a home lock indicator LED on the Phantom. I have the vision+ and use grou ...

Even better if it not could take off, before it has HL

jmtw000@gmail.c Posted at 2014-11-10 03:02
It would be nice to have a home lock indicator LED on the Phantom. I have the vision+ and use grou ...

There is a home lock LED on the phantom.... it's fast green blinks. Once it finds 6 satellites it records it's home lock point and signals you with quick green flashes. Am I right?

Yes you are correct but i have read on various forums folks  saying that  they thought they had home lock  ect  got distracted and took off .
Ok its pilot error  but a couple of led's on top that come on when home lock has been established  and stay on, the rapid flashing greens  only last a few seconds .

So long as you've got home lock (read: satellite lock), your green LEDs will keep flashing slowly/regularly. Once you see a red flash in the green sequence, it means you're on the verge of losing home lock, whilst 2 red flashes means you've lost home lock.

That is a horrid feeling to realize it's just plain gone.  Been there, not fun!!!  

Not that it helps you much, but I can tell you one thing you have that I did not have on a complete loss...  Some idea of what happened.  Something to learn from.  Something to proactively avoid next time.  I can only guess what put mine in Davy Jones' Locker, and that only adds to the frustration.

I don't agree failsafe will always work, I set a home point and ensure GPS is all green, and done all what I need to do before take off, I try to film a speed boat however there are many radio frequency in the area. and i lost it, can't find it anymore, I activated the failsafe but the drone never come back. so painful after 1 hour of searching but no luck.

ktakwok Posted at 2014-12-23 11:34
I don't agree failsafe will always work, I set a home point and ensure GPS is all green, and done al ...

This is a FACT that failsafe will not always work even when you get a satellite lock. I just found my lost drone yesterday after over a week of looking for it. Had 9 satellites locked before I left. I watched the video I recovered and as soon as I activated the return home after losing the video feed it appears it kicked into ATTI mode and just descended. It drifted the whole time so I have to assume that on the 5 minute descent it never regained GPS lock or the software froze up and it stayed in ATTI mode. I had a lock for over 30 seconds before I took off, 9 satellite lock when I activated the return home.

Peters situation is different as he never got GPS lock and it appears he was excited to fly and missed the details on how the return home function worked.

It's likely that failsafe will not work - or work in the wrong way - if the GPS/Compass stuff is off. There is a lot of intelligence in the NAZA, but not enough to take into account every possibility.

It's very possible that a switch to ATTI mode may have made it simply land where it was....or at least try to descend.

No one should fly these without 100% becoming familiar with all the various IOC functions - especially home lock. I've been flying my Phantom over a year and never used any failsafe other than Home Lock.

Turning the controller off is a last ditch effort which doesn't work if the problem is GPC/Compass based.

Sorry about your loss - I've lost a bunch of quads and cameras...but I spent a year losing inexpensive ones and learned a lot in the process. I don't want to lose my bigger ones!