BearDrone
lvl.4
Flight distance : 2887251 ft
United States
Offline
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Okay, this is an odd one. Firstly, P4 was not damaged and it landed from an altitude of about 5 feet onto my grass lawn. I was 29 feet from the set home point when the Go4 App came up with a message that said, "Warning: There is only enough battery to return to home. Return to home now".
My low battery warning is set to 25%. My critical battery level is set to 10%. I rarely push the limit on either. I had just brought the AC back from a flight across the bay, and I was flying in my front yard just because I like to practice manuevering in tight quarters when I can. Nothing crazy, slow and easy. Just a bit of back and forth, maybe one loop of 20 yards.
When I got the above message, I thought, okay, I'll turn around (from 29 feet away) and come back to land. Again, I'm 29 feet away, and maybe 5 or 6 feet off the deck.
Then I get:
"Low power. Aircraft is returning to home"
Then there is a Landing symbol at the top left of the app, and she just goes down into the grass. Not a hard landing, but it certainly did not look controlled and gentle.
This all happened pretty quickly. Looking at the app flight record the time line was:
Flight Time 22:45- 25% battery. Low battery indicator tripped. 871.1 ft from home point. Elevation is 396.9 ft. I start bringing AC home.
25:31- 16% battery. Warning indicator telling me to return to home now (as discussed above). 58 ft. from home point. 13.1 ft. elevation
25:41- 16% battery. Two messages appear. One is a "Tip" indicating that obstacle avoidance will be disabled. The other is saying, "Low power. Air craft returning to home." 29.4 ft. from home point. 13.1 elevtion (this is above sea level, I am assumming. The AC is maybe 4 feet off the deck now). The word "Landing" also appears in the upper left at this point.
24:45- 15% battery. AC lands in the grass 17.3 ft. from home point. I did not try to override with the left stick up position. It happened so fast (4 secs.), I couldn't get my thumb on it in time.
This is odd behavior to me. I have certainly flown the AC close by when below 15% battery without this auto landing occuring. Again, I'm right in my front yard, not .5 miles away. I'm ready to land, but did not. My critical level is set to 10%, not 15% as it would seem.
What is concerning is the 4 seconds between the warning that says "Air craft returning to home" and then the air craft actually landing. It made it approximately 12 feet.
I also understand that the % usage left on the battery indicator is an estimate based on multiple variables. You would think the algorithm would take into account the proximity of the home point when the auto landing feature was tripped. I had no fewer than 16 satellites in the P mode during this entire flight.
If it matters, I was using a HiCap battery, fully charged the night before.
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