1st ever failure

virtualphotographers · Jul 6, 2020

Brian D said:
So tell me ... how does pilot error come into play when I'm on an unobstructed flight path and all of a sudden , CRITICAL MOTOR FAILURE pops up on my controller .... please explain oh wise one !!! My rant is that these things shouldn't be death machines if it comes down too it ... Maybe DJI needs to integrate a failsafe into their 2 pound projectiles that deploys a chute or something when something that is out of the pilots realm of avoidance is incurred

You can add a chute, they are a bit spendy but if you feel the need...
I too fly over water and uninhabited spaces because of the ramifications. OK to be honest there have been a few exceptions but they worried me so much, I goth those desires out of my system pretty quick

ages ago, I had a phantom v1.2 take off from a hover of about 6 feet... it shot up then took off south over the rooftops. An hour of combing the neighborhood, thinking of the possible harm I might have caused convinced me how important it is to be Uber vigilant and fly carefully( even though I was not “flying yet”. To this day I still feel on high alert at all times and try to expect the unexpected.

I don’t condemn your flying practices per se, moreover, I applaud the responsibility you take for your actions. These “toys” have become so capable but no matter how solid they seem, it’s on us to take responsibility for the situations we put ourselves in.

much respect

peterc4 · Jul 6, 2020

At least you got it back

virtualphotographers · Jul 6, 2020

peterc4 said:
At least you got it back

Both of our birds came home broken. Mine eventually struck a tree and landed in a neighbor’s yard. ( Mod Removed Remark), I was thankful my lesson was learned without someone getting hurt

jimmy_jak · Jul 6, 2020

Wonder if a bird smacked it good. Did you get any proximity warnings b4 it took a dive?

OliverDrool · Jul 6, 2020

Dave Maine said:
The most likely cause is fireworks debris in one or more motors. There is all manner of bits and pieces fluttering about after a fireworks blast. Much more after several

. As usual, get the date from the log files and let’s stop speculation without the data that is available.

This is what I was thinking. Operating a drone with near all the ash and left-over bits is very risky. I presume something got into the drone motors' air cooling holes and it ( Mod Removed )anguage i t up. It sucks that it happens, but I can't imagine flying the way the OP pilot described "...3500 ft away....at night...", that type of operation would scare the crap out of me.

OliverDrool · Jul 6, 2020

As someone who replied suggested, I'm guessing there was some smoke/dust/firework bits flying around and it interfered with the mechanics of the motor. I honestly can't think of a good way to mitigate that type of risk, even being up-wind, you never know what happens up there. I thought about sending my MP2 just straight up so I could get some shots of my rich neighbors across the street shooting fireworks into the ocean, but night flights scare the crap out of me. I only do them for work related activities and even then I have to go out during daytime and do at least 2 test runs of a saved waypoint flight.

I don't suppose there was any kind of insurance policy in place? I have general liability and will even add on using the AirMap app option (although I'm not nearly familiar enough with what that actually covers). It would be convenient if you did.

OliverDrool · Jul 6, 2020

virtualphotographers said:
....I got those desires out of my system pretty quick...

Well said. I remember when I decided to try going up at night. It was in a very rural area that I had already flown in earlier during the day so I thought I'd be good. Nope. Even with the navigation lights on the arms - I don't know what it is about night time flying - but I seem to lose 95% of my orientation abilities. I hated it. I was very careful to manually get back to the home point and end the flight.

I will do night flights for work (with waiver of course), but as I mentioned in my reply to OP: I have to go out to the site and test run a waypoint flight at least twice to feel comfortable doing it at night. Usually the first run I find some "tweaks" to make to the route, then I run it again post-tweak to make sure I like what I see.

apeel · Jul 11, 2020

Frankly, I just wonder why anyone on this forum would even want or try to help the original poster. Sorry, but his 'disrespectful' responses and challenges to 'old man mavic' are simply uncalled for.

StumpyBloke · Jul 11, 2020

apeel said:
Frankly, I just wonder why anyone on this forum would even want or try to help the original poster. Sorry, but his 'disrespectful' responses and challenges to 'old man mavic' are simply uncalled for.

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been watching this thread with anger I have to be honest. The OPs attitude is deplorable. I often wonder if this type would be so brave when face-to-face.

Kudos to old man mavic and others for remaining so courteous! I’m afraid I couldn’t and wouldn’t.

ajkm · Jul 11, 2020

OP is clearly not intending to provide flight logs for analysis, and without that, everything else is speculation. Nor does he accept the results of the limited analysis possible (Given the information he provides) by the experienced members here. If, additionally, he will not accept that flying BVLOS at night counts as pilot error, then I don’t think there’s much else to be said and I’d invite the mods to close this thread.