Hi all.
Today I had a fly away situation but I was lucky and got away with it.
Here is what happened and a little background. This information may or may not be important if it happens to you.
I have never had an issue with my Inspire 1 while flying the craft, until today. I have had an issue in the past where it fried itself on my coffee table but that's another story and an ongoing issue with DJI and the Australian importer. I have posted that episode and the impending legal battle in these forums which you can read about if you wish. I was hoping someone on this forum could maybe shed some light on what happened, whether anyone else has found the same issue and perhaps point me in the right direction to whom I could and should contact about it. I would really like to help DJI and whoever else is interested in getting to the bottom of this issue because it seems it happens with far too much frequency and it would be great to be able to supply some relevant data which may solve this problem. I am now a believer in the flyaway and may or may not have some light to shed. Anyway, back to today.
My Inspire 1, my 2 RC's and my 6 batteries were all updated to the latest firmware a couple of days ago.
I am running the latest version of the DJI Go app as well on my ipads.
I did an IMU calibration after updating the firmware when the Inspire had cooled down.
The day after updating I flew 2 of my batteries and deep cycled them thereby recalibrating them as instructed. These 2 flights were conducted with no issues. The new firmware and my bird performed flawlessly.
The next day, today, I took 2 different batteries out to do the same.
Both were fully charged, the compass was calibrated and there were no issues prior to the flight. I had good GPS signal and I took off, marked a good home point and flew the Inspire from 100% charge down to 30% with no problem. At 30% I flew back to my location and kept the craft close until the 20% alarm as normal. At 20% the landing gear lowered and the auto landing alarm signaled. I held the craft off the ground at about 3 feet and was draining it down to 5% for the deep cycle. The whole time I had good GPS signal. At this point it is pertinent to mention that I was standing directly behind the craft (at 6 o'clock). At about 7% I thought I would just slide the craft a little to the right - in the direction of 3 o'clock. I moved the right stick to the right slightly and the craft moved towards 8 o'clock! Because I was attempting to move very slowly and I saw the weird movement I let go of the stick and the Inspire 1 stopped and held position as one would expect (except for having to hold more throttle to maintain altitude). From here it did not matter which way I moved the right hand stick, the Inspire always moved in the 8 o'clock direction. I was flying at an oval and tried multiple movements with the right stick to see if it would come good. It did not and as I was running out of room and the battery was now at 5% so I had to land the craft and switched it off.
Now here is the thing, If I was flying and this happened I am sure my response, like most people it seems, would have been to try and fly it back towards me and this would have resulted in it continuing in the one direction it wanted to go, a FLYAWAY. As I was out of battery I did not have time to switch to ATTI and see if that would have corrected the situation, nor did I or have time to try CL mode or RTH. In that 1 minute I didn't have the presence of mind to try and yaw the craft and see if that changed it's direction, I just didn't have the time. The one thing that was absolute was when the right stick was let go, everytime the Inspire pulled up and maintained it's position as it should. I am convinced this is the same issue that people are reporting but I was lucky it was not at speed, at great height or distance and I had sufficient safe landing area to work with (I was not over water or people). Imagine if this errant direction of travel was heading out over water or to inhospitable terrain.
I then placed the next battery (the other full one) in the craft, and took off and hovered at low altitude. All good, no weird movements, no errors and the craft appeared to be back to normal. I assumed and even hoped that the situation would present itself with this new battery when it dropped to the critical level as before (I thought this may have brought it on the glitch) but nope, this time the craft always responded as it should, all the way down to 5%. I was hoping to recreate it under controlled conditions to see what the best course of action would be should it happen one day and it was heading somewhere bad. This is the only time anything weird has happened in flight and needless to say I am just a little apprehensive now.
My questions to the community are;
Who, if anyone, should I contact about it?
I would really like to help the community and DJI get to the bottom of this issue and resolve the problem for us all. I would love to supply any relevant data but would need to know how to retrieve it or let someone else do it, and where to send it.
Any comments, answers or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Bradd
Today I had a fly away situation but I was lucky and got away with it.
Here is what happened and a little background. This information may or may not be important if it happens to you.
I have never had an issue with my Inspire 1 while flying the craft, until today. I have had an issue in the past where it fried itself on my coffee table but that's another story and an ongoing issue with DJI and the Australian importer. I have posted that episode and the impending legal battle in these forums which you can read about if you wish. I was hoping someone on this forum could maybe shed some light on what happened, whether anyone else has found the same issue and perhaps point me in the right direction to whom I could and should contact about it. I would really like to help DJI and whoever else is interested in getting to the bottom of this issue because it seems it happens with far too much frequency and it would be great to be able to supply some relevant data which may solve this problem. I am now a believer in the flyaway and may or may not have some light to shed. Anyway, back to today.
My Inspire 1, my 2 RC's and my 6 batteries were all updated to the latest firmware a couple of days ago.
I am running the latest version of the DJI Go app as well on my ipads.
I did an IMU calibration after updating the firmware when the Inspire had cooled down.
The day after updating I flew 2 of my batteries and deep cycled them thereby recalibrating them as instructed. These 2 flights were conducted with no issues. The new firmware and my bird performed flawlessly.
The next day, today, I took 2 different batteries out to do the same.
Both were fully charged, the compass was calibrated and there were no issues prior to the flight. I had good GPS signal and I took off, marked a good home point and flew the Inspire from 100% charge down to 30% with no problem. At 30% I flew back to my location and kept the craft close until the 20% alarm as normal. At 20% the landing gear lowered and the auto landing alarm signaled. I held the craft off the ground at about 3 feet and was draining it down to 5% for the deep cycle. The whole time I had good GPS signal. At this point it is pertinent to mention that I was standing directly behind the craft (at 6 o'clock). At about 7% I thought I would just slide the craft a little to the right - in the direction of 3 o'clock. I moved the right stick to the right slightly and the craft moved towards 8 o'clock! Because I was attempting to move very slowly and I saw the weird movement I let go of the stick and the Inspire 1 stopped and held position as one would expect (except for having to hold more throttle to maintain altitude). From here it did not matter which way I moved the right hand stick, the Inspire always moved in the 8 o'clock direction. I was flying at an oval and tried multiple movements with the right stick to see if it would come good. It did not and as I was running out of room and the battery was now at 5% so I had to land the craft and switched it off.
Now here is the thing, If I was flying and this happened I am sure my response, like most people it seems, would have been to try and fly it back towards me and this would have resulted in it continuing in the one direction it wanted to go, a FLYAWAY. As I was out of battery I did not have time to switch to ATTI and see if that would have corrected the situation, nor did I or have time to try CL mode or RTH. In that 1 minute I didn't have the presence of mind to try and yaw the craft and see if that changed it's direction, I just didn't have the time. The one thing that was absolute was when the right stick was let go, everytime the Inspire pulled up and maintained it's position as it should. I am convinced this is the same issue that people are reporting but I was lucky it was not at speed, at great height or distance and I had sufficient safe landing area to work with (I was not over water or people). Imagine if this errant direction of travel was heading out over water or to inhospitable terrain.
I then placed the next battery (the other full one) in the craft, and took off and hovered at low altitude. All good, no weird movements, no errors and the craft appeared to be back to normal. I assumed and even hoped that the situation would present itself with this new battery when it dropped to the critical level as before (I thought this may have brought it on the glitch) but nope, this time the craft always responded as it should, all the way down to 5%. I was hoping to recreate it under controlled conditions to see what the best course of action would be should it happen one day and it was heading somewhere bad. This is the only time anything weird has happened in flight and needless to say I am just a little apprehensive now.
My questions to the community are;
Who, if anyone, should I contact about it?
I would really like to help the community and DJI get to the bottom of this issue and resolve the problem for us all. I would love to supply any relevant data but would need to know how to retrieve it or let someone else do it, and where to send it.
Any comments, answers or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Bradd
