j_hamblin@live. Posted at 2016-2-19 04:28
Who do you have your P3 insured by? Ive tried to find insurance companies to insure my P3A and I c ...

State Farm, just got mine insured for up to $1,500 to include extra batteries etc.  Annual premium is $40, zero deductible, covers theft, loss, crash but not intentional damage or wear and tear.  Due to the numerous "eagle took off with my copter" stories I specifically asked about that and it would be considered theft (evidently theft by any animal including humans counts).  The insurance policy along with the Marco Polo I've ordered pretty much guarantees I'll never have an issue...(pun intended).

I am new to Phantom 3 (pro version), switched over from Yuneec Typhoon Q500 (terrible camera), I liked the drone for simplicity but I also like the Phantom.  However, after reading these fly-aways, signal losses, I am scared to leave line of sight as required anyways.  Yuneec was more simple system (no comparison) Phantom is more complex and it needs more attention during flying (at least how I feel). I think it is definitely a good idea to have a flight plan before and pre flight check things (during also) including the location and RTH safety zone before setting go. Not trying to educate anyone here as most of you know it all, I am just saying that for those of like me new comers to flying Phantom or any drone it is well worth considering these points.  Even experienced pilots, just like real world flying a plane, it is a good idea to have check lists to go through each flight before take off, after take off and throughout the duration of the flight. Also the wind is an important factor to consider whether to go for a fly or not. I will not dare above 15-17 mph regardless. I actually think of the safety of people in and around me not even bothered loosing the drone however it is vital to realise that these drones are just a piece of machines on wings put together with electronics and they can go wrong. Like a computer crush often happens on any platforms. But we never pay great deal attention.

Just one question though, it is puzzling me a lot, why not DJI is trying to tackle this problem as this seems to be an issue for a long while now, if they can make a such complex machine with a very good system surely they could do something about this? Here is my suggestions (prove me wrong if it is difficult or impossible):

1- Hold the position of the drone at the point of signal loss a bit longer - 3 minutes or custom modified by the owner. One can walk to the location or trying avoid the obstacle.
2- Come back on the same path - say - 400 ft then fly back home. Or again custom modified by the owner. This could help to regain the signal loss both on RC and the GPS.
3- ..................
4- ..................

I think above two options won't add anything to production cost of the Phantom indeed but it may actually save someone's life (forget even saving the drone for a minute here) in the worst scenario. I think this a very important point when it comes to safety of flying of any drone. I do hope DJI sooner than later will fix this issue to avoid more of these incidents... Of course, it is still pilots responsibility to fly safely within reasons.  

Oh, by the way, I ordered one of those GPS tracking devices from Amazon (£20) and I hope it works should I decide to fly far away!

For me, insurances never work, even if it does a lot of hassle to prove yourself that you are right! My time is more valuable in life than to deal with those ..... (suckers).

Buy Low Posted at 2016-2-19 10:49
State Farm, just got mine insured for up to $1,500 to include extra batteries etc.  Annual premium ...

"Due to the numerous "eagle took off with my copter" stories I specifically asked about that... "

What numerous stories? You are just trying to sell insurance, go away.

flydodom Posted at 2016-2-19 11:03
I am new to Phantom 3 (pro version), switched over from Yuneec Typhoon Q500 (terrible camera), I lik ...

"after reading these fly-aways, signal losses, I am scared to leave line of sight as required anyways"
To get some perspective on what gets referred to as flyaways, here's a well thought out article:
http://www.droneflyers.com/2016/ ... -on-drone-flyaways/

"why not DJI is trying to tackle this problem as this seems to be an issue for a long while now, if they can make a such complex machine with a very good system surely they could do something about this? Here is my suggestions (prove me wrong if it is difficult or impossible): ..."

Why?  Probably because it's not a problem.
There are some things that users just have to understand and work with.
Setting an appropriate RTH height or not flying behind objects isn't very complicated.
Having RTH follow the track or having an option to do that would complicate things and provide more opportunities to foul up.
It wouldn't be very good in low battery situations.
Sometimes the simplest solution is best ... and RTH is pretty simple already.
There's no need to complicate it

flydodom Posted at 2016-2-19 11:03
I am new to Phantom 3 (pro version), switched over from Yuneec Typhoon Q500 (terrible camera), I lik ...

"Just one question though, it is puzzling me a lot, why not DJI is trying to tackle this problem as this seems to be an issue for a long while now... "

Because they are not a huge issue at all, very few people have this happen to them because most fly within the capability of the aircraft.

brian.thekoster Posted at 2016-2-18 11:16
Very interesting thread and as a drone owner of 1 month now this is a great learning opportunity (al ...

I have taken mine out now 1/2 dozen times and have not gone out of sight and have stayed away from high winds.

That's exactly how it is supposed to be, and what the FAA wants.  If you can't see your bird, you can't be sure it is avoiding any unexpected traffic or obstacles.  Keep it in sight, and out of high winds.  Always fly with freshly charged batteries.

I will try some more longer and more difficult conditions once I feel confident that i know exactly  how the drone is going to handle.

"How the drone is going to handle".  And that's the rub.  Lots of people go out and fly with no problems and think they know just what their bird is going to do.  Along comes a new situation that changes the story.  They lose signal.  They lose sight of their drone.  A gust of wind blows it off course because it is above what the drone can self correct.  Any of those things can take it out of your hands.

Learn how and practice flying ATTI mode.  By the way, ATTI will go faster than GPS mode, therefore can handle a battle with the wind better.  But, you must learn how to fly without all that GPS horsepower to control what it is doing.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-2-18 12:47
I researched that too, but for me the less expensive/ way it works Trackimo was a better solution  ...

I believe Trackimo requires you to be in cell coverage for the tracking to work.  No good if you are away from the signal.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-18 16:24
"Due to the numerous "eagle took off with my copter" stories I specifically asked about that... "
...

Several videos on YouTube and other uav forums. Hard to dispute the stories when they have video. If I was trying to sell insurance it would be for policies with much greater premiums than $40 per year!

nigelw Posted at 2016-2-19 04:37
Yep, that's almost certainly what happened...

Well ive had 4 worst case scenarios on a creepy area with suppernatural history and it didnt happen to me elsewhere in 10 hours of flight...

nigelw Posted at 2016-2-19 04:37
Yep, that's almost certainly what happened...

Well ive had 4 worst case scenarios on a creepy area with suppernatural history and it didnt happen to me elsewhere in 10 hours of flight...

Buy Low Posted at 2016-2-19 12:46
I believe Trackimo requires you to be in cell coverage for the tracking to work.  No good if you a ...

That's correct. Everywhere I fly has plenty of cell coverage.

leanlinao Posted at 2016-2-19 04:53
Well ive had 4 worst case scenarios on a creepy area with suppernatural history and it didnt happe ...

I'm not sure the supernatural works on the same wavelengths...maybe the drone just got scared & froze.

Well I'm new to all the tech of the p3p. I only just discovered that the RTH height is separate to the max height set. If I'd of had a RTH due to signal loss mine would have come back at only 30m gulp!  Even thought it's set to max flight altitude of 120m. I think that needs to be made clearer that the RTH altitude is set separately. Maybe it is and I just missed it! I really thought it was set at the max height altitude until yesterday.  Glad I found that one out ;)

Buy Low Posted at 2016-2-18 18:49
State Farm, just got mine insured for up to $1,500 to include extra batteries etc.  Annual premium ...

I have the same insurance.

Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thoughts, really ("unkind" or not - I don't question the ones being helpfull ;))
I haven't recovered it. I don't think I'll ever will...
I've uploaded all my data to the cloud as suggested.
I've uploaded the last flight, as recorded by the app, to youtube for all of you to see.


I guess I'll buy a new one, and make sure to apply all your recomendations.
Again, tnx ALL!

meirzri Posted at 2016-2-19 11:40
Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thought ...

Why not look near that buildings? Are you afraid that you made some damage?! I joke, I hope that it just crashed on wall, but I think that before you will buy new one you can try again to find it
However I'm sorry for your lost

If you are flying your bird more than a 2 football fields away from you, for most people, they can hardly see it, so this "keep it in your sight" idea is hogwash.  If these birds were meant to be only flown within sight then there would be strict settings of a distance no more than 150m max.  

Here is the problem, and to be blunt.  People buy these with zero experience and zero game plan.  They do not have a pre-flight check list (setting proper RTH (which is set back to the standard value after each upgrade), where they plan to fly, if there are any issues with wind, buildings...etc).  

I have flown my 50+ times in a variety of settings and not once have had any issue.  DJI is not responsible for ill planning on the operators part.  My advice, go buy a cheap one and learn.  I will never understand how people buy these expensive birds and lose them and then want to blame DJI for it.  

meirzri Posted at 2016-2-19 04:40
Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thought ...

Did you ask the building owners or grounds keepers? Did you look in the water?

DrACE Posted at 2016-2-19 13:37
If you are flying your bird more than a 2 football fields away from you, for most people, they can h ...

"If you are flying your bird more than a 2 football fields away from you, for most people, they can hardly see it, so this "keep it in your sight" idea is hogwash"

In the UK, keeping the aircraft in visual line of sight is the law.  I can see mine at 500m as long as I take a ground reference point before I look away.  I always thought it was the same in the States but you may know better.  The reason isn't so much for aircraft control, it's so you can see other aircraft approaching & take action to avoid a collision if necessary.

Agreed on the rest though.

Bhujang Posted at 2016-2-19 04:22
Well I'm new to all the tech of the p3p. I only just discovered that the RTH height is separate to t ...

1 quad possibly saved by this thread!

good luck and have fun flying!

meirzri Posted at 2016-2-19 05:40
Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thought ...

Meirzi:

truly sad to see your loss,
your attitude here about learning from this flight is really awesome!

you have taken some licks and have only been receptive to the help and critique.

when you get you new one , I am sure you will be a way better operator for it.

take care,

good luck and have fun flying!

meirzri Posted at 2016-2-19 18:40
Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thought ...

Meirzri, I'm willing to bet that your quad is stuck on either a  balcony or rooftop of one of the two tall buildings, possibly the second one.

Don't Give Up looking. For it. !    (I would really like/want you to find it - such an intriguing mystery)
And I understand if you want to get a new one.

Here's a thought.., when/if you get a new one you may be able to fly over the buildings to check/find it if it's stuck on the roof. - but always keep LOS.
Best wishes and good luck!


......and get a tracker for the new one.

meirzri Posted at 2016-2-19 05:40
Hi,
THANK YOU ALL, for your kind and imformative replays
I'm greatful for all your help and thought ...

So sad to lose your bird like that.
Great video and please get another one!  Chalk it up to an Opps and fly again.
Your video makes me think, it went into a hover mode until the battery went dead.
So if you are able to, look into that pond area just before you lost video.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-17 16:07
"For example: one fact that seems to have been overlooked in this instance is that before flying be ...

"No one tells you that if you fly behind a building, hill or whatever that you may lose signal, and ... "

Hold on: this is what "fly line-of-sight" means, and we're told this numerous times if we read the manual and/or several other materials on 'basic' rules of flight.

I'm not dumping on the OP -- I have had RTH automatically engage once myself due to signal loss when I let a building get between me and the bird -- but I knew what it was when it happened.

microcyb Posted at 2016-2-19 08:09
So sad to lose your bird like that.
Great video and please get another one!  Chalk it up to an Opps ...

"Your video makes me think, it went into a hover mode until the battery went dead."

Only if the RTH was set for that. If it was set to return to home, it would be on a balcony or rooftop of the building.

OP: people don't look at their balconies every day.

Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-2-19 11:49
"Your video makes me think, it went into a hover mode until the battery went dead."

Only if the R ...

Just throwing it out there as a place to look.
I know, my first flights when the signal was lost on the Phantom 3 Standard, it just hovered instead of the RTH action kicking in.  After learning more and going through the setting, yes the RTH works, but the initial default had it just hover.  

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-2-17 20:24
I don't know where you get your information from but I think almost every single RTH failure has be ...

"Actually I don't know of one single case of a P3 fly away. If anything gets screwed up the aircraft automatically goes into ATTI mode and you are expected to know how to fly in ATTI mode. "

Ken, I have had two incidents that I will tentatively call fly aways. Once between sky-scrapers in an urban setting, once in an open park with strong magnetic interference. I didn't lose or damage the P3P in either case, but it went hay-wire and crashed.

What the bird did: right after take off, instead of slowly going up as instructed, it started veering off to the side at a high-rate and the controls were of no use, then a crash within a few seconds.

I have since learned to keep a fore-finger near the Mode switch in such questionable situations so that I can move it to ATTI mode and fly the thing manually (note to newbies: go to an open field and learn how to fly by stick in ATTI mode).

Now you say that that it automatically switches to ATTI. I understand that when the Mode switch is on P and it loses GPS signal, it will automatically switch to ATTI (and the DJI Go controller app will state "ATTI mode").

But what about when you do not lose GPS signal, such as in an urban setting between several tall buildings. Is there a situation where it can get bad (but strong enough to not trigger a loss) GPS signals to cause it to fly erratically?

Because that is what I feel I have experienced: loss of control with no ATTI ability to regain the control. I realize I could be wrong: time from launch to crash in both cases was just seconds and in my frantic attempts to control the craft, I might have missed controller indications.

But this is why I now keep a finger on the Mode switch, for manual switch to ATTI mode.

Note to all: this scenario doesn't related to RTH functionality, especially as depicted in the OP's first post.

Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-2-19 12:05
"Actually I don't know of one single case of a P3 fly away. If anything gets screwed up the aircra ...

You nailed it on the head.  
As a newbie myself at least, a fly away has never happened, and I have striven to learn to fly without using the RTH even for landings.   The beginner mode is one of the best features so take advantage of it for your first 10+ flights, then slowly learn each and every feature of the bird. Also, You tube channel such as Tom's Tech Time is awesome as others as they have given me so much knowledge.

Never give up, Never surrender!

Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-2-20 01:05
"Actually I don't know of one single case of a P3 fly away. If anything gets screwed up the aircra ...

If you lose GPS because of buildings then it will go into ATTI mode and. The GPS is going to get good readings or none at all. And the GPS works along with the compass so the aircraft will never freak out and dart of UNLESS you do not have a good compass or IMU calibration or if you fly next to major interference like right next to a high power line or other things that would cause interference to cause the GPS and compass to stop working,

microcyb Posted at 2016-2-20 01:31
You nailed it on the head.  
As a newbie myself at least, a fly away has never happened, and I hav ...

There would be less incidents if people just learned everything about their aircraft (manual, tutorial videos all in the app) and took their time.
I have literally seen some rich kids get a brand new Inspire Pro and open it up and start flying with no clue how it all works. It smashed into the side of a wall and they all laughed.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-2-19 12:59
There would be less incidents if people just learned everything about their aircraft (manual, tuto ...

Yeah, too many people like that sadly.  They get one and think they are suddenly a professional.

I have the same story. I found him in the 250 meters from the place of signal loss.

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... 36769&fromuid=15762

Mick Posted at 2016-2-20 03:17
I have the same story. I found him in the 250 meters from the place of signal loss.

http://forum.dj ...

When it goes into RTH failure, don't panic and push any buttons. When it regains signal you can cancel RTH if you want to take over, or just let it fly back (as long as you set the RTH settings to your flying area)

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-2-18 00:24
I don't know where you get your information from but I think almost every single RTH failure has be ...

My drone did not went into ATI mode. At a certain moment it did not respond anymore at all. Creating a leap of over 2 minutes in the flight data.

The article is in Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryan ... naire/#2328636c210c

"DJI is a long way from reaching the level of perfection in Wang’s Japanese artifact. The CEO openly acknowledges that his Phantom is “not a perfect product” and that some models have been known to fly away from users because of software malfunctions. “We do have room for improvement,” concedes Wang, who says that he’s adding to DJI’s 200-plus support staff."

You are more than welcome to analyze my flight data. I am stuck in a catch 22, Best Buy protection plan in place only pays off when you can hand over the drone (not covering losses).............difficult if it dropped into the ocean caused by malfunctioning.

wim.berends68 is my account.

Wim.berends68 Posted at 2016-2-20 03:36
My drone did not went into ATI mode. At a certain moment it did not respond anymore at all. Creati ...

Make that flight a favorite and sync your flight to the cloud.
I will give email this info and have your logs read. What is your email and I will have someone contact you.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-2-19 16:27
Make that flight a favorite and sync your flight to the cloud.
I will give email this info and hav ...

It is already synced and analysed.

It was in return home. Above me it started moving weird. Tried to get control. Than it took off in one straight line over 2 minutes. Leaving a jump over 2 minutes in flight data.

So the drone lost contact with the remote otherwise there would have been flight data.

My account is wim.berends68@gmail.com

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-2-18 00:36
"Dji CEO publicly admitted fly away problems."

That sounds highly unlikely.

There you go

The article is in Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryan ... naire/#2328636c210c

"DJI is a long way from reaching the level of perfection in Wang’s Japanese artifact. The CEO openly acknowledges that his Phantom is “not a perfect product” and that some models have been known to fly away from users because of software malfunctions. “We do have room for improvement,” concedes Wang, who says that he’s adding to DJI’s 200-plus support staff."

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-2-18 00:36
"Dji CEO publicly admitted fly away problems."

That sounds highly unlikely.

There you go

The article is in Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryan ... naire/#2328636c210c

"DJI is a long way from reaching the level of perfection in Wang’s Japanese artifact. The CEO openly acknowledges that his Phantom is “not a perfect product” and that some models have been known to fly away from users because of software malfunctions. “We do have room for improvement,” concedes Wang, who says that he’s adding to DJI’s 200-plus support staff."

meirzri thanks for posting the video.  You were doing great until you flew behind and below the top of one or more very tall buildings.  There was probably LOTS of 2.4 GHz RF and metal in those buildings.

Did we ever determine that RTH was set as the failsafe, and if so what height RTH was set at?  That area behind the tall buildings would have required a very high RTH to get home safely.