Fly away yikes!

[InvisibleName]

Thanks everyone, I never asked the drone to accelerate to max altitude I had piloted the drone to about 200 ft to clear the water tower and was in the process of setting the tower as a point of interest when it unexpectedly went skyward till it was gone from visual. I then hit the RTH button hopeful that it would come home. It did which was a huge relief. Btw I am also a licensed pilot and our ceiling is 400 ft in Canada for drones and as a pilot we are not to descend below 500 ft. I was operating well outside of any controlled airspace since the closest aerodrome is some 30km away. All in all I’m learning some of the quirks of drone piloting and trying not to lose my investment. Cheers all! Stay safe!

I ask again, if the ceiling is 400ft, why are you setting the RTH to 465ft?

 

[Fred Garvin]

I was operating well outside of any controlled airspace since the closest aerodrome is some 30km away.

Better dig a little deeper. Yes, you were outside Surface Controlled but you had an E700 above you. You violated that airspace.

Usually not an issue because of the 400' restriction....unless "something" happens.....I doubt anyone noticed, but it's always a good idea to know your airspace.

 

[Northwood Mediaworks]

BTW, the nearest controlled airspace CPL7 is 7km away not 30. And you did fly very high (sure, not deliberately) in two reg'd airspaces where small aircraft might well have been airborne. 122m is the height limit in Canada.

Just sayin;. Be careful. Fly Safe.

 

[Meta4]

did you update any firmware or perhaps even update the App? If so that is where you will most likely see that it was changed

When settings change as a result of a firmware update etc, they change to the factory default values.

 

[Meta4]

A fly away for me will always be this: Magnetic Interference / Atti mode / Failure of stick movement in Atti Mode to get it back. and RTH not engaging .

The cause of yaw error incidents has long been known and so are the ways to prevent them.
If you ignore this and place your drone and launch where it is likely to have a yaw error, you can't say that it flew away.
That's operator error.

NOTE: There is one tell tale I do look for right away when looking at the flight pattern and that is a circle that the drone makes before flying away , after I see that , than its a matter of finding if there were YAW errors to match up to what happened on the Phantom in Atti mode.

It's much more useful to look for the telltale that indicates incorrect gyro initialisation before launching and thus prevent having your drone zip off on an uncontrollable curved flight.
If the drone is facing a different direction from the drone icon on your map display (e.g. drone facing east, icon facing south), there is a problem and it should be powered off and moved away from the source of the problem.

 

[InvisibleName]

Thanks everyone, I never asked the drone to accelerate to max altitude I had piloted the drone to about 200 ft to clear the water tower and was in the process of setting the tower as a point of interest when it unexpectedly went skyward till it was gone from visual. I then hit the RTH button hopeful that it would come home. It did which was a huge relief. Btw I am also a licensed pilot and our ceiling is 400 ft in Canada for drones and as a pilot we are not to descend below 500 ft. I was operating well outside of any controlled airspace since the closest aerodrome is some 30km away. All in all I’m learning some of the quirks of drone piloting and trying not to lose my investment. Cheers all! Stay safe!

You say you are trying not to lose your drone, and say “stay safe”, but I’m STILL trying to understand why you would set a RTH that is 22m ABOVE the legal height for flying. That, coupled with other comments on here about the difference between your assessment of your local area & the actual flying constraints, suggests that you are heading for an actual loss of drone or, potentially a near miss with an aircraft ?

 

[monteolsen1]

I checked the log and it climbed from my desired height of 52m to 265m before I was able to get it to return home. Only message on the log was “gimbal overload”. Entire flight lasted only 8 min but it felt like an eternity when you lose visual of your drone. It only ventured 106m horizontally away from me but 265m vertical is exceeding my limit of 140m I programmed into it. It says it was connected at all times but I never asked it to go that high nor would I because of aircraft concerns. Just glad it came home when requested. I’m still freaked out! I’m nervous about launching it again without tieing a kite string to it (kidding).

I don't blame you for being nervous.

 

[InvisibleName]

I don't blame you for being nervous.

You should read the analysis results. The only reason the OP should be nervous is because he’s not to sure what he’s doing. Hopefully the learning from this will help him understand better about checking his drone’s settings & flying in less constrained airspace. This was definitely NOT a “fly away” as we have come to use the term.

 

[aokusman]

I ask again, if the ceiling is 400ft, why are you setting the RTH to 465ft?

Looks like a case of not paying attention to detail. A pilot should know all his settings and why they are set.

 

[Air_Deo]

xtampa will be a better pilot because of this incident ... and because of this thread.

Glad he was able to get the drone back; and that no one was injured or any property damaged POTENTIALLY as a result of this flight.

 

[Dorib]

Well I went out to do a film of our local water tower and as I sent my Mac air 2 up to 200 ft it took off straight up until it disappeared. I tried all the controls to reduce height but no response from the drone. I hit the home button on the remote but still nothing. As I was about to give up I heard my drone close by and turned and saw it behind me above a tree about 100 ft high. I took control of it and landed it. Scared the life out of me, I saw $1000 flash before my eyes. I’m going to do a bunch of test flights before I try the water tower again.

I was not that lucky my drone landed on a busy road and was run over,i lost control and tried my rth but no it dit not responce,i do not know what happened,my dji store is helping me an i hope i will get another one.

 

[Meta4]

I was not that lucky my drone landed on a busy road and was run over,i lost control and tried my rth but no it dit not responce,i do not know what happened,my dji store is helping me an i hope i will get another one.

There may be more to the incident than you realise.
You can find out more than DJI will tell you by posting your flight data here.
But start a new thread if you do.