Hey there,
first things first: I crashed my Spark. I was flying around the top of a church, when the connection was lost twice. It recovered from the first connection loss, but initiated RTH the second time when it was just halfway around the church. The RTH altitude was set to 40m but unfortunately, the church was 40,5m... Not a problem, as we have VPS. At this point the Spark was just 54m out, so VPS should have been enabled, as "if it is farther than 100 meters away then the aircraft will return home at a speed of 10m/s and it can’t avoid obstacles." (DJI.com). Despite activated VPS and not being in sport mode, it hit the top of the church and dropped 40m onto the grass besides the church. Fortunately, no one was hurt and nothing was damaged. The spark had one propeller ripped off and one torn, but nothing else was broken. It didn't even have scratches on the body! Lucky me!<br><br>
So my question is: How sensitive is the VPS? Can it detect narrow obstacles aswell? As you can see in the attached video of the crash, the stick where the star is sitting on is quite narrow so maybe the VPS didn't recognize it. In my opinion, it should have recognized at least the star at the very top and that's where it hit. What do you think? Why didn't the Spark avoid the collision?

Video of the crash: (Password: sparkpilots)

Flight log here: http://www.phantomhelp.com/logviewer/SI0ZOB8LNTTPN0SB8QH3/

Sorry for the crash, looks like the top of the church is too thin and small to be recognized. As you can see the manual, small and fine objects may hard to be recognized. Anyway, it is so lucky that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged.

I was thinking the same thing but it crashed into the star on top, which was not too small (30-40cm diameter). I was wondering if maybe the reflections of the sun from the golden surface could have caused a problem with the VPS?

SpeedCore Posted at 2017-10-16 04:51
I was thinking the same thing but it crashed into the star on top, which was not too small (30-40cm diameter). I was wondering if maybe the reflections of the sun from the golden surface could have caused a problem with the VPS?

Reflection could have been a problem , it’s a pity because square on obstacle avoidance is very good on spark, I think you were extremely unlucky if your RTH height was 30metre your spark may have avoided the steeple . The video is very spectacular one you won’t forget, thanks for sharing.
Lucky know around was injured and lucky with minimal damage.

I suppose lesson learned about flying behind buildings. And btw VPS is on bottom of spark OA (obstacle avoidance) is on the front which I think you meant.

Good luck.

IMO to thin object  ahead. Lucky u - so many tumbles and spark fine If so and your model is understrucible, fly again, position it directly in front of star and RTH when star is bigger athwart

I guess any other value for the RTH altitude would have prevented the crash, as the steeple isn't that long. Lesson learned, definitely. Thanks for the hint regarding VPS, I thought VPS would be the whole system including front and bottom sensors. Thanks

medyq69 Posted at 2017-10-16 05:30
IMO to thin object  ahead. Lucky u - so many tumbles and spark fine  If so and your model is understrucible, fly again, position it directly in front of star and RTH when star is bigger athwart

I don't dare

Sorry to hear about your crash.  VPS works as expected except if there is reflections and/or objects aren't big enough to trigger sensor.

Good to hear nothing was really damaged.
I believe it was too small for the VPS indeed, but I would not dare to try again