emergency 'FLY-AWAY' remedies ?

[Robert walker]

I have had 3 'fly-away' incidences out of about 100 flights. The last one resulted in a crash which luckily only broke a prop and threw my camera about 25 feet from the crash site. I was able to reattach the camera and am ready to fly again. I plan to be more vigilant on compass and IMU calibrations. I have tried to re-update my firmware and get an 'abort' response so I am assuming that my firmware is in order. I also deleted and re-loaded my pilot app and only take off with fully charged everything.

For all 3 fly away events at take off it was immediately obvious that I was in trouble as the craft seemed to have a mind of it's own. It quickly drifted sideways, unable to safely land at that speed, I had to quickly climb to avoid obstacles. On my first fly away event the return to home button seemed to have some effect in reducing it's efforts to fly away. After a considerable fight I was able to wrestle the bird home for a barely safe landing. On my second fly away it appeared that after the bird got about a mile away that it lost radio contact and that may have initiated the RTH function resulting in a fairly safe landing.

The third event was more violent and the bird was far more uncooperative than before. I fought with it for about 5 minutes and was only able to get it to fly past me at probably about 50 feet away at an altitude of about 50 feet going at full speed. Despite my efforts to climb to a safer altitude it kept losing altitude until it eventually crashed into the ground.

I'm now reading that I should enable multiple flight modes and simply toggle the 'P-A-F' switch from P to A to go into 'atti mode' to stop the insane fly-away behavior.

I'm also reading that when experiencing a fly-away that simply unplugging the mobile device from the remote control will bring the bird under control.

It sounds like quite a few people have had similar experiences, any suggestions would really be appreciated. I don't want to crash my bird and I really don't want it to crash into somebody or their property.

 

[sanderx]

My recommendation....don't fly in GPS mode, only when you need to line up a shot or need to use RTH in case of signal loss.....video is smoother that way and you take GPS fighting the compass out of the equation. It will also improve your piloting skills when flying in atti mode. Again, just my pov.

 

[go fast]

I don't know maybe it's just me , these things seem too finiky for now i'll just continue to enjoy my P2

 

[sanderx]

Not really....I flew p2's and other DJI based (e.g. tbs discovery) and mikrocopter (e.g droidworx etc.) stuff and the instances of fly-aways were similar. I do notice that there are quite a few people for whom the inspire is their first experience with flying rc quads and therefore there is a steep learning curve vs people who have flown phantoms and other quads before. It seems that people don't always take the time to master their piloting skills first but want immediate perfect results and use all the features the inspire has to offer. I crashed my fair amount of quads before I made the jump to the inspire but by doing so I gradually learned to fly these things and then secondly focused more on learning how to shoot halfway decent video and pictures (still a lot to learn in that category though).

 

[Machoman]

Did you calibrate you compass each time directly before the fly-aways happen?

 

[Robert walker]

Did you calibrate you compass each time directly before the fly-aways happen?

No, I am aware that you shouldn't keep calibrating the compass once it's calibrated properly. I will carefully calibrate it before flying again. I guess I'll go ahead and enable multiple flight modes and switch to atti if I run into problems.

 

[Machoman]

I dont believe this. I think the compass must be calibrated with each flight (except you just land and start again with the same battery). Additionally download an app which shows the magnetic field around the drone just to make sure its a good place for calibration. This may be necessary only if you are very near powerlines, on aconstruction site .......... but I never got high values anywhere outside if i am not directly standing it on a metal plate.

Most fly-aways seem to happen after a battery change without new compass calibration however there are no real statistics available.

 

[Scotflieger]

I dont believe this. I think the compass must be calibrated with each flight (except you just land and start again with the same battery). Additionally download an app which shows the magnetic field around the drone just to make sure its a good place for calibration. This may be necessary only if you are very near powerlines, on aconstruction site .......... but I never got high values anywhere outside if i am not directly standing it on a metal plate.

Most fly-aways seem to happen after a battery change without new compass calibration however there are no real statistics available.

If you read the many other threads, especially those by Editor, you will see there are good reasons not to calibrate the compass before every flight. If the values are between 1400 and 1500 there is no need to calibrate except after a FW update. If you are in the wrong location with metal or electrical interference around you could cause a compass fly away.

 

[Machoman]

I know about these opinions but I dont believe them. There are not many "wrong locations" outside. I just was on a construction site yesterday, I was scared about the many metal around but surprisingly high magnetic values were only a few centimeters away of actual metal parts. Even 1m away they were already normal.

Until now I only found fly-away reports where the compass was not calibrated.

Unfortunately there are no full statistics available. Also diversification in countries woud be interesting. I believe that fly-away reasons are.

a) compass not calibrated
b) jamming device - especially in countries where they can easily be bought
c) hijacking - also in countries where the equipment is easy to get
d) user fault - probably batteries not updated with firmware, many seem not to know that also each battery needs to be updated with each firmware (actually DJI does not publish the changes of a new version and if plane/remote/battery is affected)

 

[Robert walker]

Interesting, I did suspect battery update. I believe that my bird has taken the update. Additionally I have repeated the process of upgrading the bird's firmware with each of my five batteries installed, doing this I get a fast yellow LED flashing. .....I very well could not have updated the batteries.... How do you update the batteries ? I may have lost track but I am suspecting my battery #2.

 

[Machoman]

I think your batteries are updated correctly. It should be enough to leave the firmware on the stick, the update also does not take very long. I think the fast yellow LED flashing is normal I also had this.

As long as I dont have a fly-away with fresh calibrated compass I more consider this the problem. Especially if the fly-away happens just after start.

I think there is a 60g difference between TB 47 and TB 48 I dont know if 60g are already enough to make a compass problem if not calibrated new. Its also possible the compass to be affected by transportation in the car or switching on at home or whatever even if the fly location is then always the same.

Until now I did not find any report of a fly-away immediately after start where the compass was calibrated directly before that flight in an area with normal magnetic field.

 

[Scotflieger]

Interesting, I did suspect battery update. I believe that my bird has taken the update. Additionally I have repeated the process of upgrading the bird's firmware with each of my five batteries installed, doing this I get a fast yellow LED flashing. .....I very well could not have updated the batteries.... How do you update the batteries ? I may have lost track but I am suspecting my battery #2.

Exactly as you describe. With the .bin file on the MicroSD simply start your aircraft with each battery installed. You will get a quick DD..D update for about 90 secs followed by the confirmation DDDD. The last formal FW update was 1.2.1.06 which updated the battery.

 

[Robert walker]

I appreciate the input. I am starting to suspect my compass calibration. The attached photo shows where I experienced the 'fly-away' behavior. I actually calibrated my compass on the cement pad which contains rebar. I probably got a poor calibration. I then sat at the table you can see inside the metal shop building with my RC plugged into a 45" monitor. For the most part I had a line of sight situation however the bird would get out of direct line of sight with the RC which didn't seem like much of a problem at the time. It seemed like a spectacular set up. I had many enjoyable flights, maybe 50. I couldn't understand why I it would work just fine MOST of the time.

Apparently I had created the 'perfect storm' with the combination of a questionable compass calibration, flying back and forth over and around a large steel structure, AND having the RC inside the steel building......it was only a matter of time before I wound up in trouble.

I did unplug my RC from the 45" monitor and run outside the building to try to regain control but I guess that once you get into this bind you can't expect an 'in air' recovery to happen easily.

I appreciate the members helping with this problem and am interested in hearing more comments on this issue. ALL observations are welcome.

I realize that every precaution humanly possible should be followed to avoid one of these terrifying incidences,....I am still wondering if anyone knows if anything can be done to bring the aircraft under control once a 'fly away' event has begun.

 

[Machoman]

I dont think the cement pad is a problem as you hold the Inspire up 1,5m when calibrating the compass. However you can test it easily. Download a Metal detector app - there are lots of free - and test the magnetic filed on the floor and 1,5m up. I have three of them on my tablet and phone and if i am not sure about the area I just measure it but I never found any outside place with high magnetic field except 5cm from the metal.

I think the risk is extremely overvalued same with power lines (except 380+ kV). I really must go extremely near to get a higher magnetic field.

 

[Robert walker]

I guess this is basically the information I was looking for......

EMERGENCY PROCEDURES

Any sign that inspire is not responding to input PUSH RTH Button

Check Antennas are in correct position and facing the Inspire.

If Inspire is still not responding switch to ATTI MODE

If still not responding turn off Controller

and see if Inspire activated AUTO RTH

Restart Controller and see if reconnects with Inspire & Pray

(and start thinking about getting a Trackimo or similar tracking device)

 

[Robert walker]

That sounds too drastic. Why are you on this site ?

 

[SultanGris]

compass calibration before every flight is a complete waste of time and is only required after updating your firmware. It is very important to do your imu calibration and a flat level surface. Also it is very important to make sure you set your inspire on the ground before powering it on and dont touch it until the self test completes. If you power it on and then start moving it around whilst its doing its power on self test calibration you will have issues. Do not move it until the camera gimble stops spinning around and the app reports its ready to fly or it will through your compass out of wack and cause erratic flight, flyaway, crash issues. Also i wouldnt worry about metal objects, ive been launching my inspire from the bed cover of my truck for 8 months with zero issues and ive only calibrated my compass twice since then. I highly recommend you learn to fly proficiently in ATTI mode and not fully rely on gps mode when you fly. Invariably at some point you will lose gps signal for a bit and if you arent able to fly in atti mode you will be in trouble.

Id guess 99.99% of these flyaway problems are due to moving the inspire during its imu calibration or its power on self test it performs before every flight.

 

[sanderx]

I was wondering that as well. He has 19 posts on this forum of which 15 of them are bashing DJI. I get it when you had a bad experience and are frustrated with them but it is not really productive /constructive.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[Robert walker]

compass calibration before every flight is a complete waste of time and is only required after updating your firmware. It is very important to do your imu calibration and a flat level surface. Also it is very important to make sure you set your inspire on the ground before powering it on and dont touch it until the self test completes. If you power it on and then start moving it around whilst its doing its power on self test calibration you will have issues. Do not move it until the camera gimble stops spinning around and the app reports its ready to fly or it will through your compass out of wack and cause erratic flight, flyaway, crash issues. Also i wouldnt worry about metal objects, ive been launching my inspire from the bed cover of my truck for 8 months with zero issues and ive only calibrated my compass twice since then. I highly recommend you learn to fly proficiently in ATTI mode and not fully rely on gps mode when you fly. Invariably at some point you will lose gps signal for a bit and if you arent able to fly in atti mode you will be in trouble.

Id guess 99.99% of these flyaway problems are due to moving the inspire during its imu calibration or its power on self test it performs before every flight.

You make an excellent point - I may well have moved my bird during the power up procedure, thank you sir !

 

[Robert walker]

I was wondering that as well. He has 19 posts on this forum of which 15 of them are bashing DJI. I get it when you had a bad experience and are frustrated with them but it is not really productive /constructive.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

Reminds me of the argument that spoons are responsible for overeating !