I just had a really interesting and strange inspire 1 crash. I use my drones for wildlife monitoring and counting, and was flying from a mountain top in Scotland, looking at deer herd movements. Conditions were ok, a little misty but more or less windless. Midges and flies were hellish! I had flown just over 6500 meters, in a series of legs, basically out and back checking various forest clearings, with me almost at the centre. I was just coming back from the last check point, my pal started chatting to me about what we had seen so i pressed return to home and it was doing fine. 13 minutes into the flight, 32% left in the battery and 320 meters out we saw it approaching at 118 meters (high so not to spook the deer) and it decided to lower its landing gear, which i thought was unusual. It stopped flight and hovered whilst it did this. A critical battery warning flashed, the screen went dead, and it fell like a rock, into a small valley behind some trees. Left thumb was now on the up lever, to no effect. It had clearly lost all power.
It took a while to find, as though the flight logs showed its last location, it was tough going to find, which we did, upside down in tall reeds, in one piece. The reed, heather and undergrowth were almost shoulder high in places and 2 of us took 2 hours with 2 dogs to search it. I flew 2 other drones over the area but they could see nothing. My pal almost stepped on it to find it. It was only 5 meters from where the line showed it to be, perhaps as a result of very light winds high up i guess. The battery, when turned back on still had 29 % in it, but it had been off since it fell for some reason. We recovered it back to the lodge by argocat, checked it over but it was unmarked, as were all the props. I changed battery, and it flew perfectly. I struggle to believe it fell 118/119 meters and is undamaged. I gave it another flight, with a full battery, but just short range, and then tried the dodgy battery in my inspire 1 pro, and it flew fine as well, though i did notice in both cases the battery did not click in, like all my other batteries do, so wonder if this is the issue. I struggle to believe this, as the battery pins are long, but clearly it suffered a power issue, and of course the telemetary shows nothing - it had literally no power for whatever reason. The 3 shorter pins may be the issue i guess and will do some research today. I would be interested to hear if anyone has any similar stories, or can add any insight to my issue. I note battery cell 3 was low all flight, i now see this, so think perhaps the effort of lowering the gear may have triggered something. I will flatten the battery, and do some testing and will update with my findings
It took a while to find, as though the flight logs showed its last location, it was tough going to find, which we did, upside down in tall reeds, in one piece. The reed, heather and undergrowth were almost shoulder high in places and 2 of us took 2 hours with 2 dogs to search it. I flew 2 other drones over the area but they could see nothing. My pal almost stepped on it to find it. It was only 5 meters from where the line showed it to be, perhaps as a result of very light winds high up i guess. The battery, when turned back on still had 29 % in it, but it had been off since it fell for some reason. We recovered it back to the lodge by argocat, checked it over but it was unmarked, as were all the props. I changed battery, and it flew perfectly. I struggle to believe it fell 118/119 meters and is undamaged. I gave it another flight, with a full battery, but just short range, and then tried the dodgy battery in my inspire 1 pro, and it flew fine as well, though i did notice in both cases the battery did not click in, like all my other batteries do, so wonder if this is the issue. I struggle to believe this, as the battery pins are long, but clearly it suffered a power issue, and of course the telemetary shows nothing - it had literally no power for whatever reason. The 3 shorter pins may be the issue i guess and will do some research today. I would be interested to hear if anyone has any similar stories, or can add any insight to my issue. I note battery cell 3 was low all flight, i now see this, so think perhaps the effort of lowering the gear may have triggered something. I will flatten the battery, and do some testing and will update with my findings