Yes, this is the one of the basic rules.
I fly the Phantom 3/A more than two years now and thought I will never do such a stupid thing.
But I did.
I hit branches of the tree. It was around 500 m away and I could hardly see anything on display because of the reflection of the bright sky (you are all familiar with that).
While looking the screen I lost the drone out of sight. As I wanted to catch the picture of the nice castle while the drone is flying away from it and there was a clear air line all the way to the take off point, I did not see any problem. The castle was visible on the screen all the time and that was my orientation point.
Lately (too late!) I discovered, that the way the drone was returning, was about 20 degree to the left of the line I predicted. When I noticed leaves of the tree, it was too late.
The drone felt down in the wood at the most inaccessible terrain - almost vertical stone walls.
I located the drone by GPS signal but it was unreachable. The next day, while I began to think about the new drone, my and my sons wife showed extreme enthusiasm. They took the rope and other climbing gadgets and go for it up into that wood.
And ... they found it! The most fascinating thing was, that the drone wasn't damaged at all. The battery felt out and was lying beside the drone. Just one propeller was broken.
After the replacement of the propeller I turned on the switch and the drone acts normally. I tested it in the air next day and everything was OK!

So, what is the message out of this?

Don't think you will never do the stupid things.
The drone which you can't see, is never at the place, it supposed to be.
It is good to have such action-willing wife,  I'm waiting to get the bill for it

Congratulations to DJI! The Phantoms are apparently very damage resistant.
I'll put the video to show what the drone was going through.

This is the first time I am going to attach the video, I am not sure, if this will do.

Best regards
Andy

nhttp://"C:\\Users\\Andrej\\Videos\\My Movies\\Crash for web.mov"ow

Thanks for posting your experience Andy, very good of you.
And glad your family retrieved it and it's up and flying again.
Happy and safe flying.

Glad it ended well!

Tip: where possible (and allowing for the higher possibility of props in shot), fly towards the subject and reverse the clip in post

PaulSouthport Posted at 2017-5-18 11:08
Glad it ended well!

Tip: where possible (and allowing for the higher possibility of props in shot), fly towards the subject and reverse the clip in post

Unless there's people walking or cars in the shot.

You will have to upload the video to youtube or vimeo (or similar) so that others may view it.   The link provided is a direct link to the hard drive on your computer and not visible to us.

Cannot fix stupid, and excitement does not help ;) Thx for sharing - hopefully it will reinforce the rest of us, to remember how stupid our lizard brain is, so if it takes over, we can check it if the drone is off the ground ;)

I fly backwards all the time and never hit anything yet.

Could somebody tell me, how to put the video from Vimeo to this forum?

Thanks!
The person from the past century

andy10 Posted at 2017-5-19 11:14
Could somebody tell me, how to put the video from Vimeo to this forum?

Thanks!

Hi Andy, and glad it was not damaged!  I think the best way is to copy the URL where your video shows on your browser, and post that link here.  

Flying backwards or sideways is inherently dangerous obviously because you cannot see where you are going. Whenever I attempt something like that, I am hyper vigilant of things around the drone (preferably there should be nothing around the drone).  Be sure and before you start shooting to spin around and look in all directions to make note of any obstacles.   And be conservative, stop well before you think you are getting close to something.   
Glad you got it back OK!  

Glad to hear everything turned out alright,.

KM5RG-Robert Posted at 2017-5-19 15:09
Flying backwards or sideways is inherently dangerous obviously because you cannot see where you are going. Whenever I attempt something like that, I am hyper vigilant of things around the drone (preferably there should be nothing around the drone).  Be sure and before you start shooting to spin around and look in all directions to make note of any obstacles.   And be conservative, stop well before you think you are getting close to something.   
Glad you got it back OK!

Here's to flying sideways and backwards.

Thanx for Sharing. That's good advice and a greater learning experience for the others..  Video link didn't work. upload it to your youtube account and then copy the link, then paste it here.

Sorry I was not at home for a few days.
Now here is the video, I promised. If it works.

By

https://vimeo.com/home/myvideos

andy10 Posted at 2017-5-29 11:23
Sorry I was not at home for a few days.
Now here is the video, I promised. If it works.

All I see is a generic home screen. Not linked to your video.

Sorry. I'm not doing such things often.
Maybe this will work on YouTube.

andy10 Posted at 2017-5-30 10:29
Sorry. I'm not doing such things often.
Maybe this will work on YouTube.

I think it's a lesson learned. should be flying within LOS. Have you seen my video? I also do the backward flying but i make sure that it's line of sight.


Here's the 2nd video with small tutorial. If you're not confident enough, don't try this.

Well done, even if it is reverse video (the cars can be added later), but I think this is the best way to crash.
P4 has the obstacle avoiding system but in spite of that, this is a very tricky business.
How can you fly between all that trees with no direct visual control - or more precisely with NO visual control at all. You can't see backward!?