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Reported Increase in Flyaways

If you have recently experienced a 'Flyaway' incident did your I1 also suffer 'Drop into Atti' bug

  • I have suffered a flyaway and yes, my Inspire reguarly used to drop into atti.

    Votes: 9 6.3%
  • I have suffered a flyaway but my Inspire never used to drop into atti.

    Votes: 11 7.7%
  • I have suffered a flyaway but I cannot remember if my Inspire went into atti prior to v1.2.1.0

    Votes: 10 7.0%
  • I have never suffered a flyaway but my Inspire did used to drop into atti on prior firmware

    Votes: 29 20.3%
  • I have never suffered a flyaway or had the Inspire drop into atti.

    Votes: 84 58.7%

  • Total voters
    143
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Whilst there are more and more Inspire owners daily (And more members joining this forum) moving dynamic statistics are always a difficult animal to try to manage.

However, feedback may suggest that there has been an increase in "flyaway" incidents since the last firmware update.

Could users who are running the most up to date public release (v1.2.1.03) and have experienced a recent flyaway scenario please post on here whether their aircraft also suffered the random 'drop into atti' bug that plagued a large proportion of I1 owners prior to FW v1.2.1.0.

Thank You
 
Hey editor. .
I recently updated to the v1.2.1.03 and noticed an evaluation drop while flying near or over water.. (hard to tell)
I never had this issue prior to the update..
Not sure if I was in atti or gps at the time ..
After reviewing the flight recording I wasn't able to detect the moment when it happened..
For me the last firmware worked perfectly. .
I don't have much confidence in this version. .
turbo..
 
i found an interesting page on a Phantom 2 flyaway recently where they had a data logger recoding and showed the data getting corrupted during flight. Kind of interesting to see what happened:

http://www.ianwood.com/docs/anatomy-of-a-dji-flyaway-v1.pdf
My best guess has been my i1 FC to be the culprit. I thought maybe due to corrupted compass data being fed to the FCC. After your great info I'm now thinking it's acting alone and effecting some inspire 1's. I will note that both .01 & .03 FW attempted flyaways I had high 1700's and then high 1300's compass readings after my white knuckled landings (1500's before flight). I would rather have .17FW installed, 1M toilet bowling after take off and "compass errors" dropping to Atti and all! One of which occasions I hit a tree luckily only loosing my first and only prop ever lost. I do enjoy the new stability when I have it but it's really hard to shake the 45 degree pitches and little missions she has tried to take.
 
Last edited:
I had an interesting experience.

I used 1 battery and the entire flight went perfectly, I changed batteries and re checked all my settings. I took off and for first 1 minute it was fine then all of a sudden my inspire start doing it's own thing, I had very little response to any of my control inputs on the transmitter. I flicked it into atti which was better, I got the inspire back to me and managed to land. I powered the motors off then before switching off rechecked my mod values and compass. All was normal/within range. I powered off completely then powered back on and re calibrated the compass. The values went from about 1450 before calibration to 1550 after. I took off and it flew a lot better, my third battery also was great.

I have flown since then with no issues, anyone got any ideas?
It was in a nature reserve close to the ocean.
 
I had an interesting experience.

I used 1 battery and the entire flight went perfectly, I changed batteries and re checked all my settings. I took off and for first 1 minute it was fine then all of a sudden my inspire start doing it's own thing, I had very little response to any of my control inputs on the transmitter. I flicked it into atti which was better, I got the inspire back to me and managed to land. I powered the motors off then before switching off rechecked my mod values and compass. All was normal/within range. I powered off completely then powered back on and re calibrated the compass. The values went from about 1450 before calibration to 1550 after. I took off and it flew a lot better, my third battery also was great.

I have flown since then with no issues, anyone got any ideas?
It was in a nature reserve close to the ocean.
:-( sounds like what I had. >50% commands ignored both my (her?) flights. Great job on thinking of switching to Atti. My first one was on battery 6, 2 minutes in and the second time was 15 seconds in on batt 2, third flight. I wish I had a fix the problem, I'd change the FC if DJI would let me. Not fun not knowing when it will happen next :-(.
 
Whilst there are more and more Inspire owners daily (And more members joining this forum) moving dynamic statistics are always a difficult animal to try to manage.

However, feedback may suggest that there has been an increase in "flyaway" incidents since the last firmware update.

Could users who are running the most up to date public release (v1.2.1.03) and have experienced a recent flyaway scenario please post on here whether their aircraft also suffered the random 'drop into atti' bug that plagued a large proportion of I1 owners prior to FW v1.2.1.0.

Thank You

I own three(3) i1's. The flyaway issue is VERY real AND very serious. I have resources available to me such as high-end spectrum analyses equipment. I've worked with some of the best engineers the field has to offer to eliminate variables. We now clearly know what the issue is NOT. However, we don't know what it is (yet). I'd be happy to talk to anyone that wants to about the data we have collected and the methodology we used to methodically process hypotheses after hypotheses. I have also consulted with a top consumer electronics manufacturing executive. I'd love to correlate missed behaving aircraft with manufacturing runs. That one would be easy to prove/disprove. More and more this is pointing to an serious software issue OR a critical defect in the flight controller hardware. I would love to hold a conference call with a few folks close to this issue to discuss. There are some VERY thoughtful people looking into this.
 
I own three(3) i1's. The flyaway issue is VERY real AND very serious. I have resources available to me such as high-end spectrum analyses equipment. I've worked with some of the best engineers the field has to offer to eliminate variables. We now clearly know what the issue is NOT. However, we don't know what it is (yet). I'd be happy to talk to anyone that wants to about the data we have collected and the methodology we used to methodically process hypotheses after hypotheses. I have also consulted with a top consumer electronics manufacturing executive. I'd love to correlate missed behaving aircraft with manufacturing runs. That one would be easy to prove/disprove. More and more this is pointing to an serious software issue OR a critical defect in the flight controller hardware. I would love to hold a conference call with a few folks close to this issue to discuss. There are some VERY thoughtful people looking into this.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

This is an old thread now and the problem associated with the Inspire dropping out of P-GPS into Atti has been addressed some time ago.

I do not think anyone really seriously associated 'Fly-aways' with an rf problem! FHSS technology is a suitably mature form of R/C control that it is tried, tested and trusted and any sort of 2.4ghz interference can be discounted. Additionally, there is receiver advanced protection written into the Inspire flight controller that will initiate an RTH in the event of anomalous perceived stick inputs relayed by the receiver to the FC.

A very large proportion (but not all) of 'Fly-Away' incidents can be put down to pilot error. Inexperienced pilots become disorientated or are just not used to an aircraft's behavior in atti mode. They then panic and over compensate on the sticks causing what they believe is a fly away.

Nearly all of the non pilot related incidents I have seen have been caused by a bad compass calibration with the tell tale TBE and ever increasing circles that manifests itself in these types of scenarios. Again, pilot inexperience causes the individual to not understand why a given stick input does not correspond to a given reaction of the aircraft. Left unchecked, the TBE increases and can cause the aircraft to crash. Switching to atti in these circumstances takes both the GPS and compass out of the equation and will restore control of the aircraft but in a moment of panic many pilots do not do this.

Bad IMU calibration can cause another problem with the use unaware of anything wrong until the Inspire pitches in a certain direction. A form of integral wind up then occurs with the craft unable to correct itself but trying harder and harder to do so. Again this type of scenario can be avoided by ensuring a good IMU calibration is done and ALWAYS checking mod values before each and every take off.

That brings us to the final number of fly aways that are caused by faulty flight controllers/IMU units. There have been a few but thankfully they are very few and far between. In these instances, other than some experienced piloting skills not very much will save the aircraft since there is little or no stabilization going on. Very few pilots coming to the Inspire platform other than collective pitch helicopter fliers would be familiar with unstabilsed flight and thus crash their aircraft.

The above is a very simplistic breakdown of categories but I believe covers 99.99% of the problems people experience.

In my opinion (and it is ONLY my opinion - people need to make up their own minds), I believe DJI have got it wrong when they say calibrate the compass in every new flying location. By far this has been the biggest problem I have seen with TBE, skewed compass data and users experiencing 'non controllable' aircraft.

Like I say, DJI will officially say you should always calibrate you compass at every new flying location. My views are well documented throughout this forum as to the reasoning behind my theory/practice so I wont type it out again (cos my fingers get tired :p) however, I will say this as I have said many times before..

  • You DO NOT need to calibrate the IMU more than once unless the craft has suffered a physical shock or you have completed a firmware update
  • You DO NOT need to calibrate your compass at every new flying location if you already have a good calibration but you should do one after a FW update
  • You DO need to have a comprehensive pre-flight checklist that you follow each and every time you are about to go airborne
  • You DO and MUST check you mod values EVERY SINGLE TIME you are about to take off - if they are wrong do not take off from that location
  • Whenever you do a firmware update as well as an IMU and compass calibration it is good practice to additionally do a stick calibration

I hope the above comments help. :)
 
Whilst there are more and more Inspire owners daily (And more members joining this forum) moving dynamic statistics are always a difficult animal to try to manage.

However, feedback may suggest that there has been an increase in "flyaway" incidents since the last firmware update.

Could users who are running the most up to date public release (v1.2.1.03) and have experienced a recent flyaway scenario please post on here whether their aircraft also suffered the random 'drop into atti' bug that plagued a large proportion of I1 owners prior to FW v1.2.1.0.

Thank You
Hi I recently experienced a flyaway or more luck a partial loss of control over water resulting in a forced landing on a sandy park land. Resulting damag was two broken prop blades and bent actuator screw.
 
Reading this, I'm so pleased I came from 3D heli's. IMHO the biggest cause of prangs is panic, stay cool and climb, altitude is your friend ;-)
 
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Reading this, I'm so pleased I came from 3D heli's. IMHO the biggest cause of prangs is panic, stay cool and climb, altitude is your friend ;-)


The human race has a perfect record of never leaving someone in the sky, below space.
 
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Reactions: AndrewH
My understanding was that he had a flight recorder that was able to record for a phantom. As far as I know no one has something set up for the inspire and no one has been able to decider the flight logs that the I1 records on the unit other than DJI.
 
My understanding was that he had a flight recorder that was able to record for a phantom. As far as I know no one has something set up for the inspire and no one has been able to decider the flight logs that the I1 records on the unit other than DJI.
It's IMO that DJI would benefit way more by giving us the power to decipher the data, than it would it would loose from withholding it. I do see their reasonings but wouldn't they prefere a safer aircraft!!! F N greed is the only plausible explanation for them to withhold. Still haven't dove into Autopilots Black box recordings but plan to soon. My hopes are usually let down from what most tech companies should do and usually do do
 
Thank you Editor for that excellent summary of the potential causes of the sometimes "alarmist" "My Drone Flew off By ITSELF!" "I'm sending it back" posts we see from time to time.

Excellent summary and advice.
 

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