While vacationing in Hawaii, 3 flights in with me issues at all, suddenly today at the beach getting ready for sown spectcauilar ocean shots I lost signal and control.
So got to the beach, found a nice place with no sand take off from , started up the motors, lifted off and hovered at 5ft when suddenly I lost signal on the iPad and lost control of the inspire 1, the wind pushed the bird back into a bushy area behind from where I took off from. Took about 20mins to retrieve the bird from its a bushy hillside location due to razor sharp palms. Nothing broken and everything intact! So lucky! Started it up when I got back to the hotel and no errors or anything weird.
Took it out to open area for a test flight, did a calibration and flew it for 20mins with no issues at all.
Important to note, I didn't calibrate the bird when I lost signal because I flew not to long before. The imu values were within-operating paremeters.
Why do guys think?

Anything else around?  Was it near buildings or power lines or anything you could point to that might have caused interference?

There were power lines about 30ft away but as I mentioned I was at a beach so pretty wide open. Nothing else that I can attribute to causing interferences.

My best guess is your Inspire 1sensors underneath were sensing the ground and did not like what it was reading.  It tried to compensate.  If you are outside try to fly above the max height of the underneath sensors.

I don't think that's the case as I was hovering at 5ft which I usaully do before I fly. I'll contact dji when I get back and send them my log files to see what happened.

Keep us posted.

So your I1 just driftet and the remote did not work? uhh sounds not good  

drklion Posted at 2015-3-16 19:25
My best guess is your Inspire 1sensors underneath were sensing the ground and did not like what it w ...

Think your right , the wind got it drifting at low alt while the sensors were at work, then panic and loss of control as the screen went ?  I've lost video cam fpv signal before flying out after take off , did two shoots at the same spot , second flight I was a little lower as I started filming over water the same old bridge pillings across a lake , and suddenly no video feed and the bird responded funny then I remembered the optic flow sensor .... The first flight was just a tiny bit higher and no problem all the way to 3000 feet distance across the lake and back ...so My best guess was the sensor at work which caught me off gaurd nearly causing sudden panic but took immediate control giving altitude and returning back to my position , then flew again across the field moments later without any problem either ...

Anyone try tape over the sensor to fool it or shut it down for certain situations  ?

Are you sure you were in ATTI mode? My Ipad has shut off mid-flight for some reason and restarted, but the controllers still worked.

Positive I wasnt in atti mode. I had no connection to the bird ( video & controls).

daver/m Posted at 2015-3-17 02:34
Anyone try tape over the sensor to fool it or shut it down for certain situations  ?

That would be a good question.  Can we shut down the sensor?

drklion Posted at 2015-3-17 07:18
That would be a good question.  Can we shut down the sensor?

Yes....put tape over one sonar port only. Doesn't matter which one.

I am a total newbie but one thing I did notice when I would loose my video feed to the Inspire was that my antennas were still crossed from when I pulled it out of the box. According to the manual they should be parallel and at about 45 degrees to the controller.  Since I can not see them with the iPad on, I always forget to check. But not any more. Just a thought.

Houston

I posted this on another thread , I curious, by chance did you leave the battery in the Inspire after the crash and fly successfully with the same one still in her? The reason I say this is I have noticed a fresh battery results in a GPS loss every time, but if I launch and land, then shut her off, re compass  and fly, I get a full GPS flight right from launch. I suspect this GPS signal loss may have something to do with the SMART battery and having to re initialize. It's only a hunch, perhaps you folks have noticed the same thing?  Maybe try what I have described and see if you get the same results.