this so called fly away ?

[Eric]

Hey Eric!!
I'd love to come fly with you guys , but just won't have enough time for the long drive..
But I'd like a rain check!!
Turbo....

Understandable. Sounds like at lease few are in for for the same spot on May 30th.

 

[_Abe]

Hey Abe!!
Welcome to the forum!!
What do you think caused this behavior??
Turbo..,,

Hi Turbo and Eric, thanks for the welcome!
We don't know what caused it, there were some deviations from normal procedure leading up to this flight.

-----
Updated firmware in the morning, everything good. IMU and gimbal calibration.
Move to location, compass calibration.
First flights on battery 1 all ok.
Did some flights on battery 2 (new battery, charged before use), ran it down to about 30%
Disassembled, put everything in car, drove 1.5km to second location.

Second location, put battery 2 (already @ 30%) back into the craft.
All seemed clear, no new calibration performed.
Normal take-off and hover. Then, on first stick input, away she goes.
Wrestle for control, manage to land safely after 3 minutes.
Changed battery, check all values, re-calibrate compass.
Next flights (2 packs, also brand new with latest shipment) uneventful.
-----

Different from previous flights :
* The firmware (but first flights of the day were ok)
* Battery packs 2-4 (pack 2 performed well during previous flights of that day)
* Using an already partially drained battery (a big no-no I have come to understand).
* I did get a brief flash of a battery error, went away immediately and all read fine after that.
* Did not perform compass cal @ second location
* Camera operator's remote was powered on before flight remote (was not disassembled, just put in back of car. Don't know if it matters...)
* Only did cursory check of values (as the craft had been doing fine just 15' ago)

Lessons learned for our procedures :
* Do not use partially drained battery pack (it has since been suggested to me that lower voltage might have prevented electronics to initialize correctly)
* Take all error messages seriously, even those that go away. Re-do whole setup and verify.
* Calibrate, and check compass behaviour with map after each relocation.
* Perform all checks between battery changes (to consider : after each power down, even if battery has remained in craft?)
* For now, everybody watches the craft as it takes off
* I should switch to Atti mode if any unexpected behaviour occurs. Did not think of that at the time.

For now, that battery 2 reads ok without errors (have put it in the craft for some time, stationary), but I'm still debating whether to use it in flight again.

I'm perfectly willing to write this up to pilot (my) error, if it explains what happened so I can avoid the situation in the future. Any thoughts are more than welcome!

 

[turbodronepilot]

Hi Turbo and Eric, thanks for the welcome!
We don't know what caused it, there were some deviations from normal procedure leading up to this flight.

-----
Updated firmware in the morning, everything good. IMU and gimbal calibration.
Move to location, compass calibration.
First flights on battery 1 all ok.
Did some flights on battery 2 (new battery, charged before use), ran it down to about 30%
Disassembled, put everything in car, drove 1.5km to second location.

Second location, put battery 2 (already @ 30%) back into the craft.
All seemed clear, no new calibration performed.
Normal take-off and hover. Then, on first stick input, away she goes.
Wrestle for control, manage to land safely after 3 minutes.
Changed battery, check all values, re-calibrate compass.
Next flights (2 packs, also brand new with latest shipment) uneventful.
-----

Different from previous flights :
* The firmware (but first flights of the day were ok)
* Battery packs 2-4 (pack 2 performed well during previous flights of that day)
* Using an already partially drained battery (a big no-no I have come to understand).
* I did get a brief flash of a battery error, went away immediately and all read fine after that.
* Did not perform compass cal @ second location
* Camera operator's remote was powered on before flight remote (was not disassembled, just put in back of car. Don't know if it matters...)
* Only did cursory check of values (as the craft had been doing fine just 15' ago)

Lessons learned for our procedures :
* Do not use partially drained battery pack (it has since been suggested to me that lower voltage might have prevented electronics to initialize correctly)
* Take all error messages seriously, even those that go away. Re-do whole setup and verify.
* Calibrate, and check compass behaviour with map after each relocation.
* Perform all checks between battery changes (to consider : after each power down, even if battery has remained in craft?)
* For now, everybody watches the craft as it takes off
* I should switch to Atti mode if any unexpected behaviour occurs. Did not think of that at the time.

For now, that battery 2 reads ok without errors (have put it in the craft for some time, stationary), but I'm still debating whether to use it in flight again.

I'm perfectly willing to write this up to pilot (my) error, if it explains what happened so I can avoid the situation in the future. Any thoughts are more than welcome!

Hey Abe! !
I'd say compass but the fact that you weren't very far from your 1st flight would make most pilots think it wasn't compass related ,but the fact you recalibrated it and it flew fine makes me think differently. .
I think Eric had a similar issue and his flew well all day today ,if that's the same Eric that OC flew with today..
Also if you haven't installed and use a screen recoding device get one so you can see if there's a pattern to what's going on.
There's no way you can watch your i1 and your tablet at the same time..
Turbo. .

 

[Eric]

Trust building day went well, that was fun Outta Control. Thanks for the details Abe, I've never really considered Battery output in it's lower percentages. I've never attempted flights after 50% though. My suspect battery was in the high 80's when Bella started tweaking out, leading me to believe that wasn't the issue for me. I believe it was some sort of flight control glich, very possibly throwingout my compass readings multiple times as she was banking hard in random directions.
As for pilot error, I don't buy that! I went through my same checks and had the same solid numbers from my sensors as all of my previous hour+ of flights from that spot. I very cautiously flew my suspect battery (#4) yesterday and had 0 issues this go around. I've worked on and operated 200 million dollar planes that ALL have had some sort of flight control software glitch at some point that stump everyone. #1 fix is to power down and reboot. Thankfully 99.9% of the time it won't cause the erratic flight behavior that I experienced Monday. A F22 flight test at Edwards comes to mind.

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[Outta Control]

hey Eric. Here is your new Avatar.

 

[Eric]

Yes sirrrrr. Thanks!

 

[Outta Control]

I like this better.

 

[Eric]

Done. Still LMAO