I glad you were able to recover your drone safely. Will be interesting to see your video if you have it from that experience and also the flying log.
Firstly, sorry for taking a while to reply. I had a busy day or two and didn't get around to sitting down and writing proper responses to everyone. I'll try to multi-quote to avoid spamming the forum all at once.
Secondly, I'm going to be honest about the circumstances of my mishap, even though I know my actions would be frowned upon by many in this community.
So, to answer
@zeusfl ... I actually forgot to hit record when I took off (doh!) so I have no footage directly from the drone. I do have some screen recording that I will not share, because the truth is that I was doing a range test that day. Although I live in an area of China where drone regulation is very relaxed, flying so obviously beyond VLOS is not technically allowed by the CAAC (China's FAA). For the same reason, I won't share the flight logs, because I more or less know my mistake, and I'd rather not leave evidence of behaviour that is far from typical for me.
Do I strictly obey the VLOS rule? Honestly, no... I'm not sure how that's even possible in a practical sense. But I do the vast majority of my flying in theoretical visual range (direct line of sight between drone and controller) and within 1km. I do consider myself a careful pilot and make the extra effort to find suitable locations to fly from to minimize the risk of accidents.
The reason I was doing a range test on this occasion was that I recently discovered that I had been holding my controller wrong up till now, which explained why I experienced connection problems well short of the advertised range in the past. I assumed it was just interference from my urban-ish environment and didn't think much of it. When I discovered my mistake, I was immediately curious just how far my drone could go in my environment. In addition, I've seen FCC vs CE mentioned a lot here. I bought my drone in China, which didn't label my drone as either FCC or CE, so I wanted to find out which version mine was.
I believe the route I chose mitigated the bulk of the risk to third parties. Namely, I flew off the roof of my 30 storey apartment, which is tall enough to provide direct line of sight facing south further than the potential range of my drone. Furthermore, once I reach the shore of Songshan Lake 2km away, the majority of the flight is above water, so there's little risk of third party injury or property damage. Finally, before I took off, I already decided that if there was any doubt about whether I could make it back to my roof, I will land either on an island in the lake (if I was well short), or the hotel that I did land at.
At no point was I going to risk my drone limping back to my high rise neighbourhood through an urban area and risk it crashing onto people/roads/homes. Was I as prepared as I should have been? No, I wasn't planning to push my drone to its limit, so I didn't scout the hotel in advance to check for ideal landing spots. I just knew that it was very easy to spot from the air thanks to its swimming pool.
Not sure what you mean about killing motors since it does that (or is supposed to) upon landing. If you then try to stop them when they're already stopped, which I assume you're referring to use of CSC, you'll actually start them.
Ah yes, you're right. I confused myself because in my situation, I lost connection on the final descent, so I didn't have confirmation that the drone landed and the rotors switched off.
Based on the speeds you indicated, that didn't seem to be that significant. I suspect you would have made it if you had not ignored the call for RTH.
As mentioned above, I decided that if in doubt, I would land at the lakeside hotel instead of risking a flight through an urban area back to my roof. Too many things could go wrong. I'm glad I made that call, because even if my drone limped back to building, it definitely did not have enough power left to maintain the altitude to land on the roof. It shocked me how fast the final 15% bled out as I looked for a good landing spot at the hotel.
How far were you from the hotel? How far out had you sent your drone?
I was 2km from the hotel. My drone had reached 9km when I turned around with 55% battery left.
I hope you switched into sport mode when you saw you could only reach 25km/hrs?
I did not, because it was only momentary. As soon as I reduced altitude, I was achieving around 35km/h or more most of the time. The main problem wasn't speed, it was the fact that the battery was draining much faster than I expected.
In the range test linked below, Dustin turned around at 49% and got home with 13% battery. I thought that DJI designed the batteries to give pilots a little extra juice in an emergency, like how a car will run for a while longer after the fuel meter hits zero. In hindsight, Dustin must have been flying into the wind on the way out and had the wind behind him on the way back. I also misremembered the range he achieved... I thought he flew for 6 miles. Had I known that he turned around just before 8km, I definitely wouldn't have pushed it that much further!
