Air 2S Crashed in the Lake. Why?

[Ryan_MA2]

Curious if switching to maven at disconnect would work?

 

[Ryan_MA2]

Could active track be the issue?
Here’s a screen shot of my flight right before I lost signal on a lake. 24’ up, overcast, muggy 80F “active track” following me in a canoe. Never even close to 100’ away, didn’t calibrate GPS, didn’t change home point to RC. But this popped up on screen, didn’t see it at time of flight because I was thinking of your video and was paddling to save birdie from landing in the drink! Even with visual line of site, about 50’ away , it was hard to control in attitude mode. Then….. reconnected after a 2 minute terror. You did mention you where active tracking the boat when you disconnected ? Is active track causing this ??

I was using iPhone 11 also.

 

[Rogat19]

Can I just ask why has this thread been allowed to come ntinye for the last 3 pages?? No input from original poster, no txt file forthcoming, ( he obviously doesn’t want to share!) can someone perhaps close this thread?

 

[51 Drones]

Glad that the iPhone log retrieve worked for you..

Not sure if your going post your log here, the extra analysis could prove interesting, but its your call..

You have a great channel, hopefully you'll get your MA2S replaced if you had it covered in some fashion.

Editing the video now, and I will show the log there. This incident was 99% my fault, and 1% VPS accuracy.

 

[51 Drones]

When it happened to me it was a bad stick on controller. When I got home my logs said I was holding the stick DOWN when in fact I wasn't. I went into stick calibration and the screen showed the stick was down when it was in the center. DJI would not cover the drone under the DJI Care because I couldn't retrieve it and they didn't care about logs. To add insult to injury they even MADE ME PAY to fix the controller.

Thanks! I'm going to check that out! That absolutely could have been part of it!

 

[51 Drones]

Sorry about your loss Russ and your video may help some. You asked what we think happened, Pilot Error, which is the case for most crashes.

You are spot on.

 

[51 Drones]

So far, no-one has seen the data except you.
There is a lot more in the flight data than a casual look at it will find.
Everyone else is just making guesses, and most of them will be wrong.
How about posting the .txt file to let people that are experienced at analysing flight data look into the actual cause of your incident?

The actual cause was me being an idiot. Not paying attention. So I'm embarrassed to post, but I am currently editing my follow up video.

 

[Meta4]

Editing the video now, and I will show the log there.

Are you planning to make the data available for analysis, or just show something of it in a video?

 

[umanbean]

Video is coming within the next 24 hours showing the log.

So you're doing a video of the log instead of posting it, or a link to it on PhantomHelp or Airdata?

 

[51 Drones]

I will post the log after the video has gone live.

 

[dirkclod]

Can I just ask why has this thread been allowed to come ntinye for the last 3 pages?? No input from original poster, no txt file forthcoming, ( he obviously doesn’t want to share!) can someone perhaps close this thread?

Well for 1 reason I just saw it as it was posted in the wrong section
but is in the right one now .Had it been reported it would have been moved , the data posted and not be so long.
As soon as 51Drones post the data you will all know what happened.
Now guys let’s stay on topic from here out.
Thanks

 

[umanbean]

I will post the log after the video has gone live.

And there is the Crux of the biscuit...

 

[51 Drones]

Alright, feel free to rip me a new one. This crash was a result of basic arrogance. "I'm a good pilot, so nothing will ever happen to me!" That's the gist of it. One thing - please explain why the VPS altitude only displays in segments. Why doesn't that display the entire flight?

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[Tufargon]

I'm not rippin' nor was I but if you post your flight logs the experts may be able to tell you why and explain.

 

[dirkclod]

I'm not rippin' nor was I but if you post your flight logs the experts may be able to tell you why and explain.

He did you overlooked it.

 

[Tufargon]

He did you overlooked it.

Oh crap I did. I apologize!

 

[dirkclod]

Oh crap I did. I apologize!

Links are hard to see at the bottom of post at times. ?‍?

 

[Meta4]

One thing - please explain why the VPS altitude only displays in segments. Why doesn't that display the entire flight?

I'll look into the flight data soon, but will answer this easy one right away.
The VPS sensors have a number of limitations and cannot work perfectly in al circumstances.
Page 18 of your manual lists some of these and a few are likely to apply to your flight:

The Vision Systems may not function properly when the aircraft is flying over water or snow-covered ​

areas. ​

The Vision Systems cannot work properly over surfaces that do not have clear pattern variations. ​

The Vision Systems cannot work properly in any of the following situations. ​

​

Operate the aircraft cautiously when:.​

a. Flying over monochrome surfaces (e.g., pure black, pure white, pure green).​

b. Flying over highly reflective surfaces.​

c. Flying over water or transparent surfaces.​

d. Flying over moving surfaces or objects.e. Flying in an area where the lighting changes frequently or drastically.​

f. Flying over extremely dark (< 10 lux) or bright (> 40,000 lux) surfaces.​

g. Flying over surfaces that strongly reflect or absorb infrared waves (e.g., mirrors).​

h. Flying over surfaces without clear patterns or texture.​

i. Flying over surfaces with repeating identical patterns or textures (e.g., tiles with the same design).​

j. Flying over obstacles with small surface areas (e.g., tree branches).​

​

Higher speeds might also make things more difficult for the sensors as the tilt angle increases and the sensors aren't looking down vertically.​

 

[Meta4]

Alright, feel free to rip me a new one. This crash was a result of basic arrogance. "I'm a good pilot, so nothing will ever happen to me!" That's the gist of it.

Looking at an early part of the flight, the VPS is giving a good height indication.
From 6 seconds the drone is down low and hovering, VPS height closely matches the height from the barometric sensor up to 53 feet.

Beyond 11.8 seconds, the drone is picking up speed and the accuracy of the VPS altitude becomes patchy.
Note how it snaps back to a good height at 19.7-19.8 secs when the speed drops to approx 15 mph and a little later when the speed is back around 20 mph, it's quite inaccurate again.

But later at around 41 seconds when the speed drops to zero, the VPS height fails to snap back to an accurate level and right up to the end of data at 90.5 sec, it shows the same inaccurate number, with no change to match the decreasing IMU altitude.

The IMU altitude is reasonably accurate, but often changes by 10 or more feet over the duration of a flight, however it should accurately show changes in altitude even if the indicated altitude is not correct.
It looks like yours ended up being a little out at the end of the flight and the actual water level was at an indicated height of 8-9 feet, which is where the drone's pitch and gimbal pitch data indicates contact with the water.
This happened after you had descended from an indicated height of 17 ft, which would have been a true height of about 8 ft.

This shows the importance of keeping a safe distance from any obstacle, including the water surface.
It's easy to be distracted by the subject matter on screen and fail to see where the drone is relative to obstacles, particularly with the wideangle lenses that make things look further away than they really are.
It also shows the problem of relying on VPS or barometer for accurate heights when over water.

 

[Ramar43]

I would be interested to know your thoughts? I’m still not 100% certain what happened.

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Sorry, pilot are

I would be interested to know your thoughts? I’m still not 100% certain what happened.

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So sorry pilot error. For what it's worth what I think happen is confusion on control direction. I don'y know why no one has not complained about the controls. On any aircraft when you want to go up you pull back on the stick. I have never been able to get use to pushing forward to gain altitude. I'M SURE YOU ARE A BETTER DRONE PILOT. But in that situation I would have probably (pulled up) and went down.