70 flights and first app crash

[Auspete]

Bit concerned had first app crash today in 70+ flights. Was half km away videoing and using FPV when iPad Air 2 went blank. After 10 seconds of panic the app came back and I high tailed it home. Replay of video shows no break other than me doing circles trying to find out which way my girl was facing.
Only odd thing was just before take off the iPad changed to a compass calibration screen which I cancelled and it returned to the pilot app. I do not have the apple compass app loaded on the iPad. ??? Maybe a coincidence. Any advice would be appreciated - have gone from a confident /cautious 64 year old pilot to heart attack material!!!!!!!

 

[The Editor]

Bit concerned had first app crash today in 70+ flights. Was half km away videoing and using FPV when iPad Air 2 went blank. After 10 seconds of panic the app came back and I high tailed it home. Replay of video shows no break other than me doing circles trying to find out which way my girl was facing.
Only odd thing was just before take off the iPad changed to a compass calibration screen which I cancelled and it returned to the pilot app. I do not have the apple compass app loaded on the iPad. ??? Maybe a coincidence. Any advice would be appreciated - have gone from a confident /cautious 64 year old pilot to heart attack material!!!!!!!

Welcome to the world of flakey DJI software
It happens (thankfully not that often). The important thing is that the Inspire is not reliant on the app to fly so you maintain full control of the aircraft even with no app.

 

[ajohnsonlaird]

Only odd thing was just before take off the iPad changed to a compass calibration screen which I cancelled and it returned to the pilot app. I do not have the apple compass app loaded on the iPad. ??? Maybe a coincidence. Any advice would be appreciated - have gone from a confident /cautious 64 year old pilot to heart attack material!!!!!!!

Are you talking about that circle of radial lines with the red ball that requires you to "roll the ball" around the circle? That's certainly the Compass calibration (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203301) -- but what "apple compass app" are you referring to?

The iOS compass calibration comes up when the iOS device detects that the compass data it is getting from the internal iPhone/iPad compass is outside of normal parameters -- usually because of local interference from magnets, iPhone earbuds etc. I would not dismiss that compass calibration, but take a few seconds to "roll the ball" -- it works better if you roll it slowly (at least in my experience).

 

[Auspete]

Thank you Editor and ajohnsonlaird for your replies.
Will certainly calibrate the apple compass next time - not that this caused my problem - but you never know what the link between them might be
Of course when in a fix we always have the RTH function which I didn't even think of in the heat of the moment yesterday.
I absolutely love this thing and the technology
Thanks again

 

[DCGOO]

Another thing, even though you lost video, chances are good the AC will still display its location and orientation on the map. You just could not see out the window. Kinda like flying in the clouds.

 

[damoncooper]

On Air 2 disable HW decoding. It's got enough brute horsepower to handle the graphics without the HW decoding and it's pretty much a known best practice at this point for Air 2.

 

[John Alan]

Yeah... don't forget that RTH feature on the RC...
Used it today in fact to get mine headed back in the right direction...
Was 400ft up and 5000+ ft out when I pulled up to a stop... stopped taking video and snapped 2 stills I wanted...
Switched back to taking video... Then started to turn for home... Just then my signal cut outs...
It was kinda funny watching the video pulled off the card latter...
Bird would turn a bit then stop... bit more then stop... bit more then stop... say 15 degrees each time...
The app shows no video feed and it's not responding to my commanded right turn...(not showing turning on app)
About then I mashed RTH on the RC and held my breath...
Video shows it paused a bit... turned hard for home and started fighting a 15+ mph head wind inbound...
I'm standing there eyeballs dancing between the Ipad and trying to pick out the bird in the distance...
Finally the signal come back strong and I can see It's inbound with plenty of battery remaining...

Can't wait to get that DBS antenna to help stop these "heart attack" moments...
Was not in a good spot to have to try out my Marco Polo's...

Pic I was after...
Resized to 20% but I left EXIF data in if anyone wanted to look it up on Google maps...
And yes... we have had a wee bit of rain in these parts...

 

[Scotflieger]

don't forget that RTH feature on the RC...

The other option is the failsafe RTH. If you are brave enough simply turn off your RC and the Inspire will initiate RTH 3 secs after losing the signal. I was asked to do this on my Flight Assessment and having practised it I was happy to do so. Once the Inspire is heading home, you can power up the RC to control the final approach and landing.

 

[huppe]

This freakin' app crashes more then I want.Have done a factory reset and went back to an older version of the app.Sometimes I have no crash at all,but like today I had about 4 crashes.It happens on every flight after about 10 minutes.The only solution was to fly about 3 minutes and land,shut down motors and start a new filght.Nothing happend after that.When changing batteries the app also crashed.Can't see the "DJI pilot stopped"sign anymore.But indeed you're not losing control and the app restarts itself.But when your about 1 mile away you don't want this ********.
So DJI solve this ASAP