Santa brought me a Phantom-2 Vision+ (v 3.0 as far as I know).  Been loving it.  Have read all the scares here about flyaways... burned ESC's due to split-second prop-stops, etc.  Scares me!
So, thought I'd report some of my observations.

I have had my props hit the ground at least twice when landing (doing the control-sticks-to-bottom-corners maneuver), didn't seem to do any harm, she still flys great.

Then last week, the real test came.

Was flying about 800 or so feet away from me, headed back under full throttle, intended to swoop by some nearby pine trees and then zoom over me & my buddy's heads for some cool footage.

Turns out my depth perception apparently ain't what it used to be! :-O

A path that was intended to miss the pine trees by 10-20 feet was "a little bit off"... watch this!

http://youtu.be/zwaaDdItIhI

The bird performed like a champ!  She SMACKED into the tree, tumbled about 30 feet, then recovered and sat there steady as a rock waiting for me to clean out my pants!  

She never hit the ground, and still flys great - have flown about 5 batteries since then, no apparent issues.

I LOVE MY PHANTOM!!

bugman

i hear ya man, i had a similar run in with a tree and my phantom showed me it is much better at this flying thing than i am LOL.... bet you crapped your pants...

I have had my props hit the ground at least twice when landing (doing the control-sticks-to-bottom-corners maneuver)

This won't happen if you hold the left stick down to shut down the motors. They'll shut down about 3 seconds after landing.

ph is right, dont CSC to turn it off (unless you have some kind of emergency like i SHOULD have done when i effed up my three fingers grabbing for my drone instead of just killing it).  just throttle down for 3secs and they shut off very nicely with NO chance for tipover.  in fact, if you dont 'bounce land' or land harder than you should, you really cannot have a tipover using the 3sec approach.

Glad to hear that your unit is okay!  They do seem to be very robust!  And thanks for the tips all on the 3 second left stick down as opposed to CSC!  I was wondering why I always tipped on landing!  Great forum and some handy tips for the newbie!!  

Yep, I've been doin' the 3-second left-only-stick most all the time now.  Every now & then I "practice" the CSC only AFTER locking the left stick in the full down position once she hits the ground - then I push the left stick to the right and the right one to bottom-left simultaneously to kill the props immediately.  Haven't had any near-tilts at all doing it that way - looks like locking the left stick down slows the motors down enough that tipovers are extremely unlikely. (I know I'm only saving about a second or two vs just waiting for the 3-sec shutdown, but... whatever.)  :-)

Be glad you didn't hit that giant rock.

birdfolk5555 Posted at 2015-2-3 08:30
Be glad you didn't hit that giant rock.

or a water tower

Clay, you are one lucky bunny! I haven't seen a recovery like that from such a high speed hit.  Usually = chipped blade = out of balance =tumble and another broken blade=  high speed plummet to the ground and you now have a kit form bird! thanks for sharing!
Cheers!
Rod

rod Posted at 2015-2-3 13:27
Clay, you are one lucky bunny! I haven't seen a recovery like that from such a high speed hit.  Usua ...

That was actually a planned maneuver.   Right Clay?

gnixon2015 Posted at 2015-2-3 10:49
or a water tower

Whatever happened with the bird on the tower---ever get it back?

Wow Clay. You are defiantly are lucky. Glad there was no damage.

birdfolk5555 Posted at 2015-2-4 12:49
Whatever happened with the bird on the tower---ever get it back?

cant find the thread but i swore he found it and got it working.  wish there were better search features on this board....

birdfolk5555 Posted at 2015-2-4 12:49
Whatever happened with the bird on the tower---ever get it back?

Hi, yes the OP did find his phantom eventually- and it wasn't on top of the tank, it was partially under another object on the ground! I can't recall whether it fired up again- I will have a look  for the thread.
Cheers!
Rod

gnixon2015 Posted at 2015-2-4 13:40
cant find the thread but i swore he found it and got it working.  wish there were better search fe ...

found it---and so did he!!    http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... id=4120&lang=en

Cheers!
Rod

rod Posted at 2015-2-4 14:16
found it---and so did he!!    http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=4120&lang=en

Chee ...

Rod & Nixon---Thanks for the updates. I'll click that link right now to satisfy my curiosity.  

yw bird folk, and i hope he is doing well.  last update was 'it works' but i dont recall any other posts from him.  id love to hear how he is doing.