Hi everyone,
Im sorry if this is not the right place to post about my case.
So I recently bought brand new Phantom3SE. I went to countryside to try how it works. I downloaded official app into my Samsung s7 which I was using to control the drone. I did two short succesful flights. First in the begginer mode, second in regular mode. I was highly impressed how easy it was to control the drone.
Then I launched it for the third time and the drone went bonkers. I had barelu

I had almost no control over the drone, after some time I lost it of my sight and never heard from it anymore

Quite a open statement you made there...

Was the drone compass calibrated ? What was the flight mode? Did you have gps lock? Did you use the RTH feature?  Did you eventually retrieve your drone ? any warnings before take off or during flight ?

Very suspicious indeed!  It sounds like he somehow lost GPS and was flying manually.  But not enough information to really make a determination.

Hi there. We're very sorry to hear on what happened to your drone. Can you please tell me more what happened before it flew away? also, where you able to retrieve your drone? If you already have the case, please check your email from time to time for the update on the process. If you have further question, please let us know. Thank you.

Thank you all for your responses. To be honest Im a complete newbie and I cant really answer your questions :/ hower I do have a log from my last flight. Is there any chance that I can share it with you kind people?

I send the bug report via app some time ago but no updates so far :/ one of the last messages from that flight was information about some magnetic interferance and drone returning to the home point. Sadly it never returned and I wasnt able to retrieve it

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-16 06:03
Thank you all for your responses. To be honest Im a complete newbie and I cant really answer your questions :/ hower I do have a log from my last flight. Is there any chance that I can share it with you kind people?

Yes, you can sync your flight record using your DJI Go App. Here's a link for the video tutorial on how to sync your flight record.

Done. I did sync my flight record, what should I do next?

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-16 07:56
Done. I did sync my flight record, what should I do next?

Go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

Can you also give some details about where you launched from?
Launching from steel or reinforced concrete surfaces can cause problems and that might be your issue.

Thank you Labroides for your help. I launched from the country road in middle of nowhere so no reinforced concrete for sure. The closest object near the launching place was my car that I parked like 30 feet away.
Heres report from that flight:http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/UK3ZRDBLPVWPQ2VCBSK3/

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-16 22:49
Thank you Labroides for your help. I launched from the country road in middle of nowhere so no reinforced concrete for sure. The closest object near the launching place was my car that I parked like 30 feet away.
Heres report from that flight:http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/UK3ZRDBLPVWPQ2VCBSK3/

A car 30 feet away would not have any effect.
But something did.  
What was the road made of?  Was there a steel pipe immediately below?
Your Phantom went to compass error only 4 feet from home and wandered around at slow speed without you making any effort to bring it down.

Sorry to read about another drone that didn’t cooperate with a new rc pilot.

Drone error, or a few pilot mistakes??

You be the judge...


Honestly, I hope that you can use the info in your flight LOG, to go back and retrieve the wayward drone.
Please fly responsibly in the future.


RedHotPoker

It was typical countryside gravel road...no steel pipes for sure, no electric wires either. Just me and my car on that gravel road and fields of wheat on every side :/
Im pretty sure I wont be able to retrieve it since last time I seen the drone it was flying like 300 feet above the ground and moving away from me. Judging by the battery life that was still there it could go very very far  if it kept flying...
Im just trying to understand if that was all my newbie mistakes that led to that accident or maybe something was wrong with the drone itself

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-17 00:20
It was typical countryside gravel road...no steel pipes for sure, no electric wires either. Just me and my car on that gravel road and fields of wheat on every side :/
Im pretty sure I wont be able to retrieve it since last time I seen the drone it was flying like 300 feet above the ground and moving away from me. Judging by the battery life that was still there it could go very very far  if it kept flying...
Im just trying to understand if that was all my newbie mistakes that led to that accident or maybe something was wrong with the drone itself

Im just trying to understand if that was all my newbie mistakes that led to that accident or maybe something was wrong with the drone itself.
I'm not sure what to say.
The symptoms are what you'd see if the Phantom was launched from a steel surface and I can't think of anything else that would cause what you observed.
The compass error warning showed up 3 seconds after launch and I'm puzzled that you let it fly and didn't bring it down immediately.
The compass issue would have caused much of the horizontal movement but the vertical was all due to you.

The data indicates that you pushed the left stick full up four times  to climb to about 360 feet.

How is that possible that I finished two flights before, was even able to land it exactly in a place that I wanted despite its being my first time ever flying the drone...that third time I felt like I had absolutely no control over it :/ I panicked and kept clicking on that 'return to home' button every time it showed up...at some point I just gave up, thinking that maybe I am the one causing the problem with what I was doing.

So basically my mistake was still trying to fly it despite that message about compass error?

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-17 01:24
So basically my mistake was still trying to fly it despite that message about compass error?

Yes - it is not popping up errors for nothing.

Wondering a few things.
Was it powered up the whole time or was the third flight after a fresh power on?
Did you power it on inside or on the car and then bring it to the road for take off or was it on the road from the start?

Third flight was after fresh power on. I did in fact power it on inside the car, then took it outside and launched.

You didnt say if you calibrated your done for flight in that location you were flying in ?

I was always told to power on my drone on a level flat location/position that would be the drone NEW Home Location. Turning on the drone while its at rest initializes everything in the right orientation.

Turning on the Drone while its on your lap, while sitting in your car isn't a great idea. As a new home point will be registered inside your car at the GPS location, unless you set up a new one before take off.

In theory, so long as the home point was set.. you probably would have been better off turning off the CONTROLLER OFF altogether. And triggering the RTH on the drone so long at the home point was set.

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-17 01:50
Third flight was after fresh power on. I did in fact power it on inside the car, then took it outside and launched.

Mystery solved.
When I asked if you launched from a steel surface, I was expecting that you'd powered on where you launched.
You screwed up the compass by powering it on in the car.

fans21546423 Posted at 2018-7-17 02:28
You didnt say if you calibrated your done for flight in that location you were flying in ?

I was always told to power on my drone on a level flat location/position that would be the drone NEW Home Location. Turning on the drone while its at rest initializes everything in the right orientation.

You didnt say if you calibrated your done for flight in that location you were flying in ?
Calibration is not necessary and would have made no difference.


Turning on the Drone while its on your lap, while sitting in your car isn't a great idea. As a new home point will be registered inside your car at the GPS location, unless you set up a new one before take off.
His problems had nothing to do with a home point being set anywhere.

Okay, I guess the topic can be closed now. Ill try to learn from my mistakes. Thanks everyone for your time, especially you Labroides, thank you very much

Everyone learns from experience.  Sorry this happened to ya, but chalk it up to a lesson learned and don't make the same mistake twice.  There's still a chance you can find it, so keep looking.  

LostmyP3SE Posted at 2018-7-17 01:50
Third flight was after fresh power on. I did in fact power it on inside the car, then took it outside and launched.

Sorry to hear that, thanks for the confirmation, there should be no reason to step more on that mistake.

For future reference, always power on being on the take off place that should be at distance from any metals.
Now out hunting for your drone, with a little luck it has landed somewhere just waiting to be picked up.

Wow, sorry about the loss of your equipment; I hope you can find it.  Nice work figuring all that out guys. I'm a pretty new pilot as well and I learned a few things from this post.