Anyone want to list there drone crashes and why they happend. I am looking for help as a beginner pilot on not crashing / avoiding things like popup rain storms. (Also, How to avoid bird attacks?)
From threads I have read, reasons for crashes or lost drones.
In no particular order
1) switching the drone on NEAR magnetic metals, this can result in the drone thinking it is pointing in an incorrect direction and can result in a "yaw error" 'flyaway' which often ends in a crash.
2) pilot error, stemming from the pilot simply commanding the drone to deliberately or accidentally fly into something. This is sometimes coupled with
3) where it is available, placing too much faith in OA, obstacle avoidance, OR pushing the boundaries of what OA is able to detect and or avoid/solve.
4) Flying in wind that is too strong for the drone to fight and or flying the drone DOWNWIND on the outbound leg of a flight to significant distance. In general, loss due to wind is also coupled with the pilot not knowing how to deal with the wind.
5) Ignoring or over riding the low battery RTH, it's there for a reason and operates with some safety margin but you cancel a low battery RTH at your peril.
6) Setting an inappropriate RTH height, too low and it may lead to the drone RTHing into an object in its flight path home. Not all drones have OA.
Too high and you risk sending the drone up into strong winds. Wind speed generally increases with height.
You should reset the RTH height for each location.
7) Flying high in conditions that can lead to condensation/water on the downward looking sensors, this can lead to descent rates that are so low that the drone runs out of battery before it reaches the ground.
8) The pilot not knowing what control they have if, due to low battery charge, the drone enters a "forced landing/descent".
9) Flying the drone as per normal but on an 'old' battery charge, battery charge should be 'fresh'.
10) An inappropriate setting for "failsafe" i.e. what happens if the drone loses control signal connection with the controller. This setting IS recorded in the flight log.
11) Fairly rare but not unknown, an inappropriate choice of the emergency motor stop response. The default setting means that in a normal flight the motors can NOT be stopped with the drone in flight but the alternative setting WILL stop the drone's motors if the CSC position is held for the required delay period. Even though the CSC position results in 'acrobatics' it is thought that a few drones have been lost because the position was held with the drone in flight and the wrong emergency motor stop setting is presumed to have been set. THe setting is NOT recorded in the .txt flight log.
12) batteries not properly secured and dislodging during flight
13) Too low over breaking etc. waves, resulting in the drone being hit by spray.
14) Generally not knowing how the drone will behave in a given set of circumstances. READ THE DRONE'S MANUAL.
All of the above are basically pilot error in some form or other.
Other causes, that are not pilot error as such,
15) batteries that have been ejected because of battery swelling.
16) true software failures or
17) hardware failures, including props or blades coming off or breaking, but these are fairly uncommon.
18) bird strikes/attacks, rare but have happened.
I think that covers all the reasons I recollect having seen threads about.