A Lesson Learned... The Hard Way

[Forby]

Agreed, but that requires a minimum reaction distance. It sounds (and I'm guessing), he was too close to react. That's why a nice wide perimeter is nice. I've seen plenty of drones go apesh_t on take-off. I am at least 10-12 ft away before I start my M600P (That thing is scary )and allow no one closer than my orange cones (20-25 ft). Same goes for my I1P.

This is good practice... I see too may operators flipping drones in the air by hand and catching them the same way. Drones need to be handled like they can cause severe damage to the body.

We use cones if we are in a location that is being traversed by people. I'm at least 10 feet away if not more. I always call out "CLEAR PROPS" before starting the motors. If a crowd gathers as sometimes happens, I call out "STAND CLEAR INCOMING DRONE" when landing.

I also have my drone lettered with "DANGER- SPINNING PROPS". Too many people are too stupid not to do this.

My habit is to take off vertically to about 10 meters and do a control check.

It's funny, I still get nervous when flying high and far or near obstacles. I think it's a survival instinct. Complacency is a noted pilot killer. Maybe drone pilots should control the complacency as well. None of this is meant to accuse the OP of any failure. It's just a conversation starter.

 

[Sharpshooter7]

Could there have been some metal interference. I once had a Phantom go crazy after taking off from what must have had rebar in it.

That's a good point. A month ago I had been flying my P4Pro most of the day, took a lunch/battery charge break and returned to the assignment. I took the P4P out and set it in the street about 10' from my car. I got a calibration alert, not the simple one where you rotate the drone in different attitudes, can't remember what the name was but it required hooking it up to my computer and recalibrating it, maybe IMU? Anyway, it was probably the proximity of mica, or rebar in the street that threw it out of whack. I tried to manually fly the short mission but the drone wanted to climb straight up, never wise to ignore those warning prompts.

 

[Chipdji]

This is good practice... I see too may operators flipping drones in the air by hand and catching them the same way. Drones need to be handled like they can cause severe damage to the body.

We use cones if we are in a location that is being traversed by people. I'm at least 10 feet away if not more. I always call out "CLEAR PROPS" before starting the motors. If a crowd gathers as sometimes happens, I call out "STAND CLEAR INCOMING DRONE" when landing.

I also have my drone lettered with "DANGER- SPINNING PROPS". Too many people are too stupid not to do this.

My habit is to take off vertically to about 10 meters and do a control check.

It's funny, I still get nervous when flying high and far or near obstacles. I think it's a survival instinct. Complacency is a noted pilot killer. Maybe drone pilots should control the complacency as well. None of this is meant to accuse the OP of any failure. It's just a conversation starter.

Last thing I would want to do is put letters on my props. That’s a very good way to have unbalanced props.

 

[DaBone]

I would say it was a compass failure, due to starting too close to some big steel structure. It may have been the car or was it drainage wells nearby?
I had this problem last weekend, when I started from a harbor. Most likely a lot of steel in the ground, where I started from.
My Inspire 2 showed no errors at first, but started to drift pretty soon.
So the first thing I did before it went off too far was to change to the ATTI mode and then try to get it down as quickly as possible.
After I got it down I drove far out of town and found an open field where I recalibrated it.
Then drove back and started from an other place to finish my work.

Had this problem a couple of times with my I1, but this was the first time with the I2.. The first time with the I1 I couldn´t do much before I switched to ATTI and I was in a little panic because the drone was on it´s way in full speed over a lake towards a big town and restricted airspace. All I can say is that in all my cases it has been a pilot error.. and I'm thankful that it never happened something and I got the drone back every time. Always check the surroundings both on the ground and around before starting.

 

[Forby]

Last thing I would want to do is put letters on my props. That’s a very good way to have unbalanced props.

Not on the props silly........... On the landing gear legs.......

 

[snowghost]

This is good practice... I see too may operators flipping drones in the air by hand and catching them the same way. Drones need to be handled like they can cause severe damage to the body.

We use cones if we are in a location that is being traversed by people. I'm at least 10 feet away if not more. I always call out "CLEAR PROPS" before starting the motors. If a crowd gathers as sometimes happens, I call out "STAND CLEAR INCOMING DRONE" when landing.

I also have my drone lettered with "DANGER- SPINNING PROPS". Too many people are too stupid not to do this.

My habit is to take off vertically to about 10 meters and do a control check.

It's funny, I still get nervous when flying high and far or near obstacles. I think it's a survival instinct. Complacency is a noted pilot killer. Maybe drone pilots should control the complacency as well. None of this is meant to accuse the OP of any failure. It's just a conversation starter.

I hand caught all my Phantoms, but wouldn't even think to try with the Inspire. I have a large piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting as a takeoff/landing pad.

Like your idea of "DANGER- SPINNING PROPS" and perimeter cones. How big are the cones--full sized orange ones like street crews use, or something more compact.

 

[Forby]

I hand caught all my Phantoms, but wouldn't even think to try with the Inspire. I have a large piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting as a takeoff/landing pad.

Like your idea of "DANGER- SPINNING PROPS" and perimeter cones. How big are the cones--full sized orange ones like street crews use, or something more compact.

I use full sized cones from Lowe’s . Yellow plastic chain between them to form a perimeter. I had to weight the cones with a loop of steel chain so the tension from the plastic chain didn’t pull them over.

 

[jpalamaro]

I'm even wary calibrating the compass that somehow the props will start spinning, for no apparent reason, but alas, too lazy to remove them for simple compass calibration; hmmm, maybe I should re-think that? LOL

 

[The Editor]

I'm even wary calibrating the compass that somehow the props will start spinning, for no apparent reason, but alas, too lazy to remove them for simple compass calibration; hmmm, maybe I should re-think that? LOL

There was this incident from 2015 I remember.....

Caution Compass Calibration Danger! Motors Started Turning!

They say experience is learning from our mistakes.. I gained some experience today! I checked my compass before flying and it was about 1450. The Inspire started having trouble holding position in an 8.5m/s wind. I checked the compass again and it was down to about 1250. I decided to calibrate...

inspirepilots.com

 

[eljefeatx]

We had a project that required launching from a boat. We hired a boat captain with a pontoon boat. Not ideal, but necessary. We fabricated a launchpad that straddled the rails of the open, front section of the boat. We lost a Phantom 4 when it lurched off the launchpad. The lesson we learned: put the top down. It hit one of the uprights, and the boat captain reached to catch it. He didn't and it's a good thing he didn't. The boat is mostly aluminum, and I guess that's metal enough. We also changed our procedure for boat launches to have the motor turned off, as I suspect it could have been RF interference from the electronic ignition system in the outboard motor.

 

[thePeter]

I almost injured myself trying to catch a crashing drone. I will never do that again, my well-being is way more important than a drone.

 

[Forby]

There are a few things that you never reach for when falling.....

A gun....

A knife.....

Anything with spinning blades including food processors and drones!!!