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I will try not take make a novel of this, so here's what happened in bullet points:
GENERAL INFO:
- Flying with the Inspire 1 Pro and X5 camera.
- Bought it about a month ago.
- Been flying great.
- Purchased DJI Care for 1 yr before leaving on a 2 week trip around WY, CO, UT and MT.
THE DAY OF THE FLIGHT:
- Flying in Castle Valley, UT, trying to get a shot of a large Mesa
- Went through Pre-Flight Checklist, checked props, camera settings, drone calibration etc.
- Flying entire time in P-GPS mode.
- Took off.
- After we took off, the winds picked up. But we had flown in heavy winds before with no problems. (And I dont think the wind was a problem here), except that a couple times we received a message saying the Props had reached their max speed (which just told me it was fighting against the wind, but posed no immediate threat, other than maybe not being able to fly it forward as much as we wanted (not a big deal).
THE CRASH:
- Then, 2mins and 29 seconds in the flight we got a message saying "Aircraft Disconnected" and the video display went black.
- I immediately hit RTH. Upon disconnection, the drone is supposed to RTH anyway. RTH altitude was 130m (450ft approx) and because we were in the desert, there were no objects between us and the drone.
- Needless to say, the drone did not RTH.
- My Co-worker and I spent 90mins walking around this desert area over hills and valleys in 90 degree weather and were unable to locate the drone. We went to its last known GPS location and followed it along the path the wind might have taken it, but found nothing. Sundown came so we had to call off the search.
- The Flight log shows show the following at the time of disconnection:
a. Flight Distance = 2910.9ft
b. Flight Time = 02:29mins
c. Height = 1508.8ft
d. Distance = 2182.9ft
e. Horizontal Speed = 12.5mph
f. Vertical Speed Upward = 6.0 MPH
g. 69% Battery
It was somewhere out here in the foothills beneath the Mesa:
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We went out again in the morning expecting to spend a good part of the day searching for the drone. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We prayed for direction, and God blessed. We were searching for no more than 10 minutes and found the drone. It had dropped from 1508ft. 3 Props were broken. Legs were bent sideways. Gimbal was snapped in two and shattered in parts. Lens was covered with dust and I'm sure damaged beyond repair, along with the drone itself. In our estimation, it was totaled.
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WHAT WENT WRONG? OUR ANALYSIS:
- We recovered the memory card and footage (Thank God!) And the last clip shows the camera blacking out at 1508ft high. No video of any wobbling, no footage of it falling to the ground. It just stopped in mid-air, as if power to the entire drone had been cut.
- We were not out of range, we had not experienced any intermittent image transmission, we had 69% battery. As far as we knew, despite some high winds, the drone was fully operable with no critical warnings or error messages. Give this information, we believe it was a hardware failure, but we still don't know why. None of the information we have access to gives us any inkling of what went wrong, either with the battery? the drone? overheating? Who knows.
A FEW PUZZLING QUESTIONS:
1. The morning of the flight, we flew in other areas without problems, except that we noticed the drone activated the low battery warning and auto-return to home message while the battery was still at 40%. Usually this happens at 30%. After another flight, it said low battery and popped up with the RTH message when the battery was at 50%. This was puzzling, as the DJO Go App was set to have it activate at 30%. Any ideas what was going on with this? Or how/if it had anything to do with the crash?
2. Will DJI Cover this under warranty or DJI care? I'm guessing they will as it seems to be pretty clearly a hardware malfunction and not operator error. How does DJI reimburse people under these circumstances? With a replacement drone? A Check? How long does it take? I'm only asking this here right now because its Sunday and DJI is closed and we are trying to make decisions about the rest of our trip here and knowing this information will help us figure out our plan.
3. While we were searching for the drone, I carried the remote with me, walking toward the last known GPS point. It beeped steadily like an EKG machine, but every once in awhile, I would hear a series of two beeps in in an upward tonal progression. (Beep BEEP). I couldnt figure out what the rhyme and reason for this other toned beep pattern was. Is this a game of hot and cold? Why was it doing that?
4. Based on all the information, do you guys have any idea what might've gone wrong? I definitely dont want to run into the problem again and have the same thing happen. Was it a fluke, or what happened?
/\/\ichael