Lost Aircraft

[RAC DJI]

Your message is very well articulated.
Keen to follow this thread.
Good luck..

Thanks but I think my luck ran out yesterday. LOL

 

[samysys]

Yep, that one is common too. It's sometimes quite tough to see any visible damage (like small cracks) in the prop hub area.

One thing is certain. Either the prop itself or the area of the motor where the prop attaches was damaged pre-flight or somehow became damaged after taking off.

And then I suppose one other possibility is that you didn't attach the prop properly. But, I'm thinking that one can be ruled out since the issue did not occur at/near the time of takeoff.

As OP's query has been satisfied, the below points are more like "academic" study...

First Point:

I once witnessed an incident of detachment of propeller due to improper fitting. That was a Phantom 4 and during training for newbies. After ard 20 minutes of uneventful flight, the drone was controlled to landing and one of the propellers deteached (after drone landed but before the motor stopped) and flew away up to 2-3 meter high. It was recovered and found to be prefectly normal (no damage on hub or blade). The drone motor was also found to be normal (can lock the propeller well upon post incident test). So, the only possiblilties was improper installation of the propeller.

I suppose the chance of having an incident for improper attachment of propeller would be highest in the initial stage of the flight, but would also be possible anytime during flight.

Second Point:

With all the safety feature and failsafe protections in the new drone, I think that there are (at least) 4 elements which must be checked by the pilot before flight:

Airframe
-to see if the airframe are firm and any demage on the exterior of the drone
Propeller
-to see if the motors rotate smooth and if propellers are properly installed and intact
Battery
-to see if there are any swelling on the battery, sufficient power level and if it is firmly installed
Payload
-to see if any additional payload (camera in most case) are securly installed (and if the cover had been taken off, lol)

There are other things that needed to be checked but these four seems to be the most important. Any failure of the above may result in immedate crash with no warning and no chance of emergency recovery. So these are on my essentail checklist before every flight.

Any further ideas to make the flight safe are very welcome and I am all ears~