Risk and Reward

Ian Fraser · Apr 8, 2015

I have decided to ground my Inspire 1 until DJI come up with a firmware that actually works.

There are lots of users out there having no issues at all and there are others like myself who have lost an Inspire 1 to the dreaded "Fly Away" incident. I don't care about the argument put forward by "Experts" that its just switching to ATTI mode. The simple truth is the Inspire 1 for what it cost should stay in the selected mode and present no surprises by deciding to drop GPS signal.

The root cause of this problem is piss poor software engineering by DJI. I know a little about this topic as its what I do for a living I am on the Quality side of the process. The things I have seen from DJI indicate to me that they do have proper software quality processes in place. There is further evidence to this in their Product Support process which is the worst I have ever experienced.

I doubt DJI will ever have decent software engineering processes and the only way the Inspire 1 will be fixed is by end user flight log data from crashed Inspire 1's

damoncooper · Apr 8, 2015

DJI is doing pretty well on the innovation front, but I agree: when it comes to Quality Engineering and Support, they need to bring in some outside help to get their ship in order.

I could help them get straightened out, but I already have a day job and I can't move to China.

Sure wish they'd recognize their issues though and recruit some senior software executive talent and give them free reign to get DJI on track in terms of quality and support. Having a CEO who was the chief innovator and original engineer may be their blind side in this regard.

A company can only ride the innovation train for so long with serious quality and support issues before more customer-focused competitors begin to catchup and erode their market position.

World Media · Apr 8, 2015

One point I'd like to make re the dreaded fly away.
it isn't simply a matter of changing modes, whether by itself or as a result of accidental switching. The points that even in a switched mode you should still be able to fly under control and have your inputs cause a reaction on the aircraft.
I have had the flyaway once, mine was one foot off the ground and merely resulted in hitting a pole and breaking a couple of props.
I do expect it to happen again, don't know where ... don't know when ... but I know its gonna happen again.

Ian Fraser · Apr 8, 2015

World Media said:
One point I'd like to make re the dreaded fly away.
it isn't simply a matter of changing modes, whether by itself or as a result of accidental switching. The points that even in a switched mode you should still be able to fly under control and have your inputs cause a reaction on the aircraft.
I have had the flyaway once, mine was one foot off the ground and merely resulted in hitting a pole and breaking a couple of props.
I do expect it to happen again, don't know where ... don't know when ... but I know its gonna happen again.

The point here is the Inspire 1 should not drop out of GPS mode and force people to switch flight modes. I would expect this kind of thing from a cheap drone not something as expensive as the Inspire 1.

But it does drop out and its purely because DJI can't manage the quality of its software development.

There is no good excuse for a product in this price range to fly off on its own accord. There are accounts of people switch to ATTI mode and thing still flys off so ATTI is not the answer.

Crap development processes is the reason these things fly away.

Tpoze41 · Apr 8, 2015

World Media said:
One point I'd like to make re the dreaded fly away.
it isn't simply a matter of changing modes, whether by itself or as a result of accidental switching. The points that even in a switched mode you should still be able to fly under control and have your inputs cause a reaction on the aircraft.
I have had the flyaway once, mine was one foot off the ground and merely resulted in hitting a pole and breaking a couple of props.
I do expect it to happen again, don't know where ... don't know when ... but I know its gonna happen again.

You are next to a car, person, tree or water, the expert flying this would not have a Inspire 1 to be an expert to fly with lol.

Tpoze41 · Apr 8, 2015

Ian Fraser said:
The point here is the Inspire 1 should not drop out of GPS mode and force people to switch flight modes. I would expect this kind of thing from a cheap drone not something as expensive as the Inspire 1.

But it does drop out and its purely because DJI can't manage the quality of its software development.

There is no good excuse for a product in this price range to fly off on its own accord. There are accounts of people switch to ATTI mode and thing still flys off so ATTI is not the answer.

Crap development processes is the reason these things fly away.

I agree but heard the firmware update is out but hidden in the phantom 3 haha

World Media · Apr 8, 2015

Some of the fly aways are just not recoverable, mine included .... look I have a helicopters pilot licence and have also been flying quads since they first came out. The advances in reliability and technology has been great but I agree the software that controls theses things must go through a thorough testing cycle before hitting the market place.
This technology is just not something to be played with.
They are only as good as the weakest link, I for one would rather have less software features and more reliability.

Ian Fraser · Apr 8, 2015

World Media said:
Some of the fly aways are just not recoverable, mine included .... look I have a helicopters pilot licence and have also been flying quads since they first came out. The advances in reliability and technology has been great but I agree the software that controls theses things must go through a thorough testing cycle before hitting the market place.
This technology is just not something to be played with.
They are only as good as the weakest link, I for one would rather have less software features and more reliability.

Given what I know and the fact that I come from an aviation background there is a simple question.

Question: Would I fly this Inspire 1 near people (assuming briefed in participants)
Answer: No

With the current firmware there is to high a risk to anyone standing around and DJI should have made that simple risk assessment before they released the Inspire 1

qbizzy · Apr 9, 2015

I have been flying a few times a week for the past 6 weeks. I get a Compass Error Switch to ATTI Mode error about 60% of the time.

I've adapted by staying even further away from People and Property. In a way, the error helps with my in-flight troubleshooting. You know - that cold sweat panic that you feel when you see $3k flying away. But then it comes back, like a loyal dog with a dead rabbit in its mouth. You want to scorn it for running away but you're happy its back!

Dang it DJI!! You're supposed to be a Billion dollar company this year. Fix your $hit !!!

Tahoejmfc · Apr 9, 2015

No matter what, you still have to be able to fly the copter in manual. GPS goes out with or without software issues. 2 weeks ago we had very bad solar weather or several days and gps flight was not recommended by many seasoned pilots. Many Many people do not check Solar weather every time they fly and this type of behavior puts you at risk, DJI's software cannot do anything about bad GPS data coming from Satellites.
Minimize your risk of flyaway, by learned to fly in manual and actually pilot the copter when needed.

When the regulations come out. you will need to be certified as a pilot, not just a operator that cannot fly in manual.

http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

KP above 6, be very careful

Tahoejmfc · Apr 9, 2015

qbizzy said:
I have been flying a few times a week for the past 6 weeks. I get a Compass Error Switch to ATTI Mode error about 60% of the time.

I've adapted by staying even further away from People and Property. In a way, the error helps with my in-flight troubleshooting. You know - that cold sweat panic that you feel when you see $3k flying away. But then it comes back, like a loyal dog with a dead rabbit in its mouth. You want to scorn it for running away but you're happy its back!

Dang it DJI!! You're supposed to be a Billion dollar company this year. Fix your $hit !!!

Have you updated your firmware yet, this problem went away when I updated

Volcom09 · Apr 9, 2015

I've never had any issue with mine. It came with the new firmware out of the box and then a few weeks later the new update came and did both the inspire 1 and controller and it's still performing solid. No dropouts in gps or any error. I'm very happy with mine but it's still very scary when you hear people having issues with it when their flying. Hopefully Dji will bring out a new firmware to fixed this issues.