I lost my flamewheel & GoPro 3+ over the Easter weekend.

Flying relatively low (30ft), over rocks at the shoreline, it flipped over sideways (I was strafing, no other input, just over half throttle) , veered sideways wildly out to see (about 30ft), then divebombed straight into the sea. I was unable to recover anything.

I'm trying to figure out if I did anything wrong (apart from flying close to the sea), but I'm struggling. Conditions were perfect, no wind, nothing manmade nearby to cause interferance, GPS was happy, 4 minutes into flight with Turnigy Nano 6000 4S. Props were Graupner 10x5. I have never had any problems with this setup. Any ideas?

I should probably add some more spec:

Receiver FrSky X8R
Transmitter Turnigy 9XR
AeroxCraft landing gear with Tarot 2D gimble
Motors stock DJI
DJI NAZA M V2

I'm really sorry for your loss. It's a nightmare we all share.

Was it a F450 or F550?

From your description it seems to point to a motor, ESC, or prop failure.  When one of these devices fail on a Hex, such as the F550 with Naza V2, there is an amount of redundancy built into the system and the craft can be limped home. On a quad, such as the F450, there is no such safe guard and the craft will spin and pitch violently until the inevitable crash.

Regards

Nidge

It was a F550. I've seen a few videos of component failure like you mentioned and the multi rotor always remained relatively stable except for the initial glitch when a component was lost. Mine seemed to fly quite far (and fast!) after the initial glitch with no indication of trying to re-level.

I guess without recovering it there's no way of telling what happened. I'm going to go APM for the next build as I will probably always be paranoid that it was the NAZA's fault now!

I have a similar setup, F550 with AeroXcraft landing gear, Datalink, FrSky Taranis with Zaggometry telemetry interface between the Naza and X8R receiver. I chose the F550 for the redundancy if a motor, ESC, or prop failed in flight.  Another possibility is that maybe the PMU glitched in someway which would affect the operation of the Naza and / or the receiver.


I do like the APM controllers.  I have one installed in a plane I use for training new pilots and it never misses a beat. I've also recently built and tuned a quad for a club member using an APM controller. Even though it's not as PnP as a Naza the features available via the Mission Planner, both on Windows and Android, leave the DJI Groundstation severely wanting.

Again I'm really sorry to hear of your incident. Whenever we launch our multirotors we can't help but be wary that due to the relative complexity of the electronics under the hood that the smallest glitch can result in disaster, as multirotors don't have much of a glide slope.

Regards

Nidge

Very sorry for your loss!

Just for some information for the future...
Primary causes of “Fly Aways”:

Pilot error:

• Pilot did not calibrate the compass prior to launching.
• Firmware is not upgraded.
• IMU has not been calibrated.
• Loss of orientation.

Environmental interference:

• Flying near high tension power lines.
• Taking off from metallic surfaces, concrete with rebar, manhole covers, cars and pickup tailbeds etc..
• Flying near microwave towers and cell phone towers.
• Interference from the copter to the GPS/Compass. This can be from the lipo, video down link or RC link depending on the frequencies.

Hardware failures:

• Compass/GPS failure. Check the Mod readings in Assistant. If the calibration does not bring them into normal range, contact your dealer for replacement.
• IMU failure. Make sure that the IMU/Naza/Phantom controller is mounted with the supplied DJI double stick tape. If not reattach and test. Also check the Mod readings in Assistant. If they will not come into normal range after advanced calibration, contact your dealer for replacement.
• ESC/Motor connections. Make sure that the ESC’s are connected to the flight controller correctly and they motors are connected to the ESC’s. There have been reports of bullet connection failures.