Hey forum -

So here's the situation. I was flying a bit too high (1,000') last night and the wind took my drone out of range. I tried doing the "return to home" but it didn't work. Then, of course, my iphone battery died, so I couldn't even see where it went/landed. I charged my phone battery and connected to the DJI app, which showed me where it was/is.

It's showing me exactly where it is. But I've been to the place (twice) now, and looked absolutely everywhere and can't find it. It's a four-story building, and I've been in the basement, tenant 1 first floor, tenant 2 second floor, the attic and the roof, and it's nowhere to be found. I spoke with both of the tenants and they said that they haven't seen it (I'm trusting that they are telling me the truth).

My question is: can the drone be sending a signal that's not actually where it is? I mean, seeing that it crash landed, it could be in a bush or something and giving off an incorrect signal?

Absolutely ANY thoughts/insights will be immensely helpful!!! Thank you in advance.

Brian

Unless your Phantom is still working and transmitting video from where it landed, I'd think that your app is showing where the Phantom WAS when the app was last recording, rather than where it finished up.
It would be easy to check by watching the flight record in the app and noting the height where the recording stops and if it was still flying.

Go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here will probably be able to analyse it and give you a better idea of what happened.

I'm very sorry to hear the loss of your drone,Brian.
Please sync your flight records from the DJI Go app first.
Could you please clarify what area are you located in?

The aircraft will not give you an incorrect location, and it is unlikely it is still sending any data as the battery would be flat by now. Unfortunately, if your iPhone battery went flat during the incident, it is possible that it did not record a full flight record either. But uploading the flight record to Phantomhelp as suggested may give a clue as to where it is.

Sorry to hear that, did you put "reward if found" label on it by any chance?
Try to search it in the direction where the wind was blowing also is it possible it was performing RTH and landed somewhere midway?
Goodluck and let us know if you find it

Sad to read of another misplaced Phantom, lost in flight.

I would strongly suggest to always make sure to keep your smart device (iPad Air2 here) battery charged up and all your (my four) flight batteries too, before flying.
Hopefully the LOG files will share some insight into where your drone may be "still" laying.
It's right and wise to notify anyone who lives nearby, I can't see a neighbour finding it, and not willingly wishing to return it to you. ;-)
Good luck discovering it, intact... Ha

RedHotPoker

+1 On all batteries being fully charge. Would never fly without my device and drone batteries all 100% charged. Also the RTH is not what you want to use during a high wind condition, it does not using full power to get back, maybe 2/3's at best. So next time, if there is a next time. Charge your batteries to 100%, and try to manual fly her back (not RTH). Left stick full down to get low as possible fast as possible where the winds might have been less, and fly her back if you still had control (RC) connect.

Unbelieveable advice!!! THANK YOU ALL for all your input.

So, here's the flight record from http://healthydrones.com (I LOVE them!!)
https://healthydrones.com/main?f ... id=GENERALLarge_Map

Please don't crap on me for flying in this urban/neighborhood area like this. TRUST ME: I'VE LEARNED A VERY (EXPENSIVE) LESSON TO FLY IN THE OPEN!!! We all make mistakes, especially naive newbies like mwah

At the last red dot, I actually climbed onto the roof of this four-story building (with the landlords' permission of course) and it wasn't there. But what I'm hearing from you all s that it actually could have been anywhere along this flight path, even though it was still 600' up..?

Addendum:
What do you all use for tracking your drone? I was thinking of using Tile (https://www.thetileapp.com/), but would LOVE all of your helpful thoughts..
Brian

fans43a351d9 Posted at 2016-11-11 09:46
Unbelieveable advice!!! THANK YOU ALL for all your input.

So, here's the flight record from http:/ ...

If you followed the instructions I gave you in post #2 we might be able to understand what happened.
But you took 3 days and then give us a Healthydrones link instead.
HD only gives a brief summary - nowhere near enough information to investigate.

fans43a351d9 Posted at 2016-11-11 09:46
Unbelieveable advice!!! THANK YOU ALL for all your input.

So, here's the flight record from http:/ ...

What little can be seen in HD suggests that you didn't want to keep your Phantom.
What was the wind doing that day?
How strong was it up at 400 and 300 metres where you had the Phantom?
What direction was it blowing, and what direction did you fly out?
Had you practised with RTH to know how it operates?

fans43a351d9 Posted at 2016-11-10 14:46
Unbelieveable advice!!! THANK YOU ALL for all your input.

So, here's the flight record from http:/ ...

It's not so much flying in an urban neighborhood that people will criticized you for but rather thumbing your nose at the most basic of safety rules and taking it to 1000'. There could be manned aircraft at that altitude and you were putting lives in danger. If I was ever to believe in divine intervention this would be it.

A few things I see from that record, your craft probably landed where the trace stopped (it did go into auto landing there). Apparently it landed with about 16% battery left. It was landing/dropping when you finally lost all signal (and therefore the telemetry).  You were flying waaay above the 400 AGL limits imposed by the FAA.
You were flying pretty far away for a P3S therefore the abundance of signal loss, especially when the altitude dropped during landing.

IMHO

KM5RG-Robert Posted at 2016-11-11 11:28
A few things I see from that record, your craft probably landed where the trace stopped (it did go i ...

"I am wondering if the home point was set somewhere beyond your flight in the direction of travel
...  since it did not set a homepoint before taking off on this flight"

There's no indication that there was anything at all abnormal about the home point recording for this flight.
The Phantom was properly reporting accurate distances throughout the flight.

RSW Posted at 2016-11-11 07:45
It's not so much flying in an urban neighborhood that people will criticized you for but rather th ...

I appreciate your candidness. I'm not thumbing my nose at anything. I know where the NFZ's are, and no manned flights are anywhere close to this area. But I take what you are saying to heart and seriously. And I thank you for your input.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-11 06:55
If you followed the instructions I gave you in post #2 we might be able to understand what happene ...

I've been looking for it for 3 days. Didn't know/to think to come here for advice right away. My mistake again. I'm still learning. My apologies.

fans43a351d9 Posted at 2016-11-11 11:54
I've been looking for it for 3 days. Didn't know/to think to come here for advice right away. My m ...

Perhaps you could upload the flight data to Phantomhelp, it really does provide much more detail. Then we can help look for it.

Geebax Posted at 2016-11-11 11:06
Perhaps you could upload the flight data to Phantomhelp, it really does provide much more detail.  ...

I'm sorry but where is Phantomhelp? I'll upload it if you can point me in the right direction. Thanks!

1000 ft is really too high in this environment.  Chastisement over.

Looking at the kml data it looks like it was headed for the rear of 363 Wood st between the two buildings.  It was in autolanding mode at the time, so it looks like it was landing due to very low battery.  The remaining charge was dropping very rapidly at the end, recording 16% at the last entry but I wouldn't be surprised if it was fighting wind and discharged it to a critical level and it just shut off.  At best it was able to land, otherwise it crashed.  There looks light a slight kink in the descent at the end as it was being nudged north, so it looks like it could be anywhere between this point and the next intersection, Bradford Street.




Half of the flight looks like it was in RTH and not doing too well against the wind.  You only get about 10m/s max in RTH (~25mph) or about 15m/s (35mph) if flown manually.   If you had descended a lot sooner you may have been able to regain control as the wind conditions would likely be different at the lower altitude.

I'm not surprised there were a few signal dropouts in the flight due to the large trees around your home point, they likely obstructed your line of sight, and radio transmissions between the controller and aircraft.  Otherwise the flight record isn't too bad, and what I'd expect from a P3P.

You can see the full data from the flight from this healthy drones link: https://healthydrones.com/csv?flight=5e46214048a96380e48f833ff5d9afe5  It is a csv file, if you open it in Excel you can see what it was doing in 100ms increments (while the transmission was constant, there are gaps when the signal was interrupted).  It is very similar to the info returned by Phantom Help referred to above by Labroides, however there are a couple of extra items returned by PH which could be helpful.

You can explore the flight in 3D in Google Earth (Pro) by opening the kml file here: https://healthydrones.com/kml?flight=5e46214048a96380e48f833ff5d9afe5

fans43a351d9 Posted at 2016-11-12 01:41
I'm sorry but where is Phantomhelp? I'll upload it if you can point me in the right direction. Tha ...

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-10 18:43
"I am wondering if the home point was set somewhere beyond your flight in the direction of travel
...

I have not played with Healthy Drones enough to remember if the Home Point should be reported in the displayed record or not. I  expected it would be but it is not in this record so I am assuming it did not record the Home Point. I take it I am wrong about that and it just is not displayed in the HD list of notifications for some reason (even though it IS a notification on screen at take-off).


Edit: I do see that it does not list that notification on HD. Went and looked at some of my old flights there.