I was doing some nap of the earth flying on a Litchi Mission. When out of nowhere a tree jumped in front of the drone. When it hit the tree it hung there for just a few seconds. I started to put the controller down, thinking I needed to drive over and pick up the pieces, until when I saw movement on the screen. It fell free, tried to right it self, bounced on the ground and then recovered and went into a hover. I was very surprised it didn't drift back into the tree. Suddenly I realized I had controll again. The Litchi mission must have cancelled. I imediately gained alltitude and made a beeline for home about 3/4s of a mile away.

So lessons learned; 1) no more low level flights, especially if there are people near by. 2) check, recheck, and check again the data and inputs you use to create a Litchi mission. I know why it hit the tree and the bad math i used to plan the route. One important note, when you do curved turns in Litchi it is coplaner with the three points that define the curve. So not only does it "cut the corner" horizontally, it does so on a tilted plane as well. In other words if the apex of the curve is the high point it will not reach the intended height, and then trees will jump in front of you.

Is that San Tan Mtns Park?  Thats out my way.  Im in SE Gilbert!   I can't believe that it fell out of the tree, bounced and took off like nothing happened.

Nice recovery, lucky you. I had the same thing happen to me. I was too busy looking down with my FPV I flew right into a tree about 70ft up. It fell to the ground I thought. But it didn't, it flew off into another tree about 100ft away. BTW it wasn't a Phantom.

Wow!! The fact it fell from the tree and didn't hover back into it is incredible. Great footage.

why didn't obstacle avoidance work ? - it should do with Litchi.

I wish all drone ~ tree incidents ended like this. Good fortune.

Be more careful, in the future. ;-)


RedHotPoker

birdingbilly Posted at 2016-12-28 12:44
why didn't obstacle avoidance work ? - it should do with Litchi.

Because DJI do not guarantee object avoidance will work with trees.

OCGFarrell Posted at 2016-12-28 12:41
Wow!! The fact it fell from the tree and didn't hoover back into it is incredible. Great footage.

The name of a president, the name of a dam and the name of a vaccuum cleaner. But for something flying and staying in the same place, it is hover.

Hoover! For someone who ate too fast. Hahaha


RedHotPoker

Cardnick Posted at 2016-12-27 18:34
Is that San Tan Mtns Park?  Thats out my way.  Im in SE Gilbert!   I can't believe that it fell out of the tree, bounced and took off like nothing happened.

Almost, Silly Mountain off the 60. Yeah, really lucky.

birdingbilly Posted at 2016-12-27 18:44
why didn't obstacle avoidance work ? - it should do with Litchi.

Now that is the question of the day. I know it was turned on.

I flew into invisible powerlines once, it did a vertical flip in mid-air, recovered, and then kept going, very lucky!

Very lucky man... must be terrified at that moment...

Geebax Posted at 2016-12-28 13:11
Because DJI do not guarantee object avoidance will work with trees.

Also, I don't believe VC Tech enabled obstacle avoidance with Litchi till .15.1 (for iOS) - version .15.0 was the initial release for the P4P and it had very limited support. So it depends on which version was being used.

bro! this is awesome! its like the mavic pro video those cats did with it being in the rain, hitting trees, etc.. just shows how robust these are.

when these forums usually have 98% of issues, you don't see things like this posted everyday.

man that sucker just got out of harm's way and was like "what?" awesome!!

OP, were you visible anywhere in this footage? i see a lot o' cats roaming about down there...

marctronixx Posted at 2016-12-28 21:39
bro! this is awesome! its like the mavic pro video those cats did with it being in the rain, hitting trees, etc.. just shows how robust these are.

when these forums usually have 98% of issues, you don't see things like this posted everyday.

I was 3/4 mile away, staring in disbelief at my monitor. i thought for sure it was a goner before it righted itself and i was able to gain altitude.

Yep, I met one of those moving trees here too....  Also flying Litchi and used Google Earth to calculate the heights... always add 10 - 20 ft more is my lesson learned!