Ok had a full moon tonight thought I would fly above my house to get a good view of the city and the moon had home point set it started flying away from home I lost all control lost video only thing I had was map where it was headed had my wife drive to help me find it we got close enough that had video again but battery low so it started to land in a neighborhood street but it  showed where it landed on map pulled on the street and there it was in the middle of the street lights blinking heart was racing lucky to have found it.and also it was 2.5 miles from my home Anyone out there had this problem crazy crazy

That is one of the longest run-on sentences I have ever read. After reading it a few times I think I understand what took place. You don't mention how long the flight was, however you quickly state that the battery was low. Was the battery fully charged when you took off?

Sorry I was still nervous when writing but yes battery was fully charged went it's on way 2.5 miles flight time was 20 minutes so 19 minutes of about to have heartattack

Hi Bigmike

Please give more information:

- What was state of battery at takeoff.
- how far did you fly.
- how long did you fly
- what caused Video Out.
etc...

Did you get a RTH warning when home point calculated return time? or when battery run low?

Ok I'll make it short EVERYTHING was 100% on take off 1 minute later lost total control. Would not return home. Lucky I found the aircraft HAD NO CONTROL

It is difficult to parse your story but if I'm reading it correctly you were flying normally until you lost contact with your Phantom.  Then you finally found it somewhere near the last spot that the drone managed to update on the map.  So it seems that when  it lost contact with you it decided to hover until the battery went flat.  It landed and somehow didn't get run over.

You were very lucky.....

If this is all correct, I will surmise that your RTH (Return to Home) setting was 'hover' and the Phantom did exactly what it was supposed to do.

You may need to curl up with your manual and spend some quality time understanding the Return To Home feature.  This is extremely important.  Not a few Phantoms have been lost because their owners did not understand the subtleties of this important function.  I'm pretty sure that one of the DJI folks created a short video on this - look around.

Then read everything again.  It is really important.

dji-p3p1 Posted at 2016-1-24 23:15
Hi Bigmike

Please give more information:

Battery on take 100%
Flew straight up 200 meters lost control no warnings I tried home button it said coming home but didn't work I could not do anything

dji-p3p1 Posted at 2016-1-24 23:15
Hi Bigmike

Please give more information:

Battery on take 100%
Flew straight up 200 meters lost control no warnings I tried home button it said coming home but didn't work I could not do anything

bigmike285 Posted at 2016-1-25 16:30
Battery on take 100%
Flew straight up 200 meters lost control no warnings I tried home button it s ...

Yes, except it had not really lost control signal, otherwise there would have been no data to show the position of the aircraft on the map.

Geebax Posted at 2016-1-24 23:35
Yes, except it had not really lost control signal, otherwise there would have been no data to show ...

Guess your right but to make it short the air craft just took off north tell it landed from low battery nothing that I could do but lucky to have the map or it would be bye bye 1200 dollars

Maybe upload for flight logs through the app AND to Healthy Drones. Those will give us exactly what occurred throughout the flight.

Bigmike

I am glad you got your P3 back undamaged, and more importantly nobody was harmed, or any property damaged.

I don't know the exact details, But it seems like there might be a few things leading to the issues you saw.
As WetDog & Geebax put it you really need to ensure that all parameters on the P3 are set correctly especially RTH.  And the fact you had mapping info means that the downlink to your controller from the P3 still worked - so maybe it was so dark that you thought video was not working because the camera was filming the dark night and hence the screen was black but you had map info.

As a Friendly fellow P3 Pilot, ill say you also may have done a few things that you should "really" as a responsible pilot should Not have done. i.e attempt to fly in the dark, fly higher then 120 meters etc..
I am sure we all may have also have sometimes done those things, but.. Please be Careful! as any accidents have the potential to cause untold damage to the whole hobby.

If the P3 reacted on its own, and the behaviour was odd or unexpected then you need to contact DJI with your logs or upload your logs to Healthy Drones and get your logs looked at right away!. A small problem now could be resolved, but if left could lead to disaster later.

I am curious. Did you press the RTH button? Perhaps the altitude was set at 200 ft so the Phantom would ascend to it predetermined RTH height (presumably that was 200 ft.)  You would not be able to control that ascension unless you cancelled the RTH. Was it trying to return to a previous location because you didn't reset the home location? Or maybe you gained control again after it reached its assigned RTH altitude and didn't realize it and you simply flew it away without realizing it. It could have lost control of the RC and landed (again a setting in the app). Is it possible this is what happened? There are many possibilities depending on how you set it up in the app.

bigmike285 Posted at 2016-1-25 13:40
Guess your right but to make it short the air craft just took off north tell it landed from low ba ...

Maybe you were in attitude mode and did not realize it. If there was any wind it would cause the phantom to move without input of the controller. Just a suggestion

jstrick35 Posted at 2016-1-25 17:12
Maybe you were in attitude mode and did not realize it. If there was any wind it would cause the p ...

Would P3 respond to RTH button correctly if Switch in controller was set Atti?
- I have never tried it - Maybe ill test it in an open field next time..

I have once knocked the switch and accidently turned on Atti while unfolding the antenna. but i realised and switched back to P.

bigmike285 Posted at 2016-1-25 16:40
Guess your right but to make it short the air craft just took off north tell it landed from low ba ...

An adventurous episode like that isn't much value unless you can learn from it.
That the Phantom landed so far away indicates that it did not follow through with  the RTH you tried to initiate.
It was sitting out there and had control signal, hovering waiting for you to fly it home.
If it had lost control signal,  it should have gone to failsafe RTH itself.
When the battery reached a low level it autolanded.

We can attempt to work out what went wrong and why you felt that you'd lost control if you go  to HealthyDrones.com and upload your flight log (instructions are there) and post a link here.

How much experience have you had with RTH?
It is important to practice so that you understand RTH and know how it works and how to control it.

Upload Your log *.DAT

Morph1 Posted at 2016-1-25 17:39
That is something I do never want to experience myself...
to all of you guys , if the RTH in the a ...

"I'm curious if the RC button will execute the type of RTH as preset in the app or will that actually fly the drone to home position..."

It will execute the manoeuvre you select in the App, otherwise what is the point of setting it?

bigmike285,

i believe i know what you're talking about, please check my post and tell me if what i'm experiencing is same as your, i will have my flightlog up asap.
http://forum.dji.com/thread-40895-1-1.html

rzboril Posted at 2016-1-25 01:50
Upload Your log *.DAT

how do you upload your *.DAT? could you explain the steps please?

jdmwhre14@hotma Posted at 2016-1-25 19:04
bigmike285,

i believe i know what you're talking about, please check my post and tell me if what i ...

From reading your post and also this one, it seems both of you had set the home point after the aircraft was up and running, but the question is, to where? When the aircraft starts, it automatically sets its home point, and there is little reason to change this.

If you set the home point to the position of the RC unit, that may explain the 'fly-away'. To set the position to the RC unit, the device you have attached to the RC unit may return a position streets away from where you actually are, they are not nearly as accurate as the GPS receiver unit in the aircraft.

Unless you have a really good reason to do so, use the position the aircraft determines, it is much safer.

Geebax Posted at 2016-1-25 02:22
From reading your post and also this one, it seems both of you had set the home point after the air ...

Geebax,
I dont remember set home point any where else beside where i took off. As you can see from two of the picture, when i initiated RTH, the drone would turn and face home but it would not go home. It also cross my mind that maybe the wind was too strong to counter it, but actually that day it was not windy at all.

jdmwhre14@hotma Posted at 2016-1-25 19:46
Geebax,
I dont remember set home point any where else beside where i took off. As you can see fro ...

OK, of course the wind 30 feet above the ground may be very different to at ground level. But the action you describe sounds strange. I would suggest downgrading the aircraft firmware one edition from the one you have and then upgrading to the current version again. There may be a minor glitch in the code.

Geebax Posted at 2016-1-25 02:53
OK, of course the wind 30 feet above the ground may be very different to at ground level. But the  ...

i just upgrade it back to 1.6, i will do another test tomorrow.
Geebax, lets say if you're out flying your p3p if you flew it straight up lets say to 100m, and you let go your controller, does your phantom stay still at one place? or does it drift with the wind?
at low altitude, mine seem to be fine, just higher up it start to drift....

jdmwhre14@hotma Posted at 2016-1-25 20:07
i just upgrade it back to 1.6, i will do another test tomorrow.
Geebax, lets say if you're out fl ...

At any altitude mine just stays where I leave it. It should not drift unless there is a really strong wind up there. A Phantom can hold position even in quite strong winds. If it is not holding station, then a compass and IMU calibration should be tried to see if it improves.

you probably lost only the video link, but not the control, but since it was dark and far you could't know  if it's responding the sticks or not.  In this case  you could just press RTH button instead of  driving  there

That's almost impossible to read, but has made me decide to never fly at night.

jdmwhre14@hotma Posted at 2016-1-25 09:08
how do you upload your *.DAT? could you explain the steps please?

Interconnection P3 mode data with a PC. http://support.dronesmadeeasy.com/hc/en-us/articles/206171443-Flight-Data-Log-Viewer-DJI-Phantom-3-and-Inspire-1