was flying on Sunday night and lost signal looking for a little direction flight recorder link attached.
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/QJ7JNCF5LU09M1ZW7ROO/#
I know this is too little too late, but I think next time you should heed the warnings early in the flight and land, especially when it’s giving you compass warnings. Also, it’s generally not a good idea to climb so sharply and so high above the launch as it can cause connection problems.
It obviously is headed north at 17 mph with plenty of battery when you lost the wifi connection. The fact that it’s in ATTI means it would hover and blow away with the wind after you lost the control signal. I’m not sure where exactly you lost control, but weather underground says the surface wind Sunday night at Ft Worth was 15 mph from the south, so it appears likely it was in a hover and the wind took it away to the north at the wind speed until the battery put it into autoland. Wind blows stronger up high, and you were 260 feet high. So if you wanted to try to find it, you’d have to calculate how many minutes passed before it went into auto land and then how far it would have been blown north during that time. It will be very tough to find. You might consider a GPS tracker next time. Sorry for your loss.
Good luck.
Is there a way to see when it was put in auto land
You lost the connection. That’s why the log ended. But your drone likely drifted with the wind to the north with no connection. So no, there’s no way to see when it was put into auto land. You have to make a calculated guess. Let’s say it stayed aloft for 15 minutes after it lost connection drifting north at 17 mph. So how far is that? It would have landed around 4 and a quarter miles away, right? Roughly due north from where you last saw it as shown on the map. That would put it just on the other side of the lake, right? If it’s not in the lake, maybe it’s near the shore around Thunder Bay Rd. Chances are not good you’ll find it. Sorry. It’s worth a look though, IMO. You have nothing to lose. Good luck.
I really appreciate the help
At the end of your flight log, the Phantom was traveling in the direction of this orange line:
Based on the altitude it was flying at and the time it would have taken it to land, I’d recommend you look inside of this yellow box:
Can you expound on this, msinger? I was thinking that without a control signal and without satellites to enable RTH, it would hover as a priority over the autoland. You seem to be saying you believe it would autoland as a priority over the hover. I have no experience in this and I don’t recall any threads where this sequence of events happened.
Thanks!
In this case, the Phantom was flying in ATTI mode when the remote controller disconnected from the Phantom. RTH is auto initiated 3 seconds after the remote controller disconnects. Since the Phantom was not using the GPS data at the time, it would have auto landed at its current location. While landing, it would have continued drifting away with the wind.
Had the OP set the “Remote Controller Signal Lost” setting to “Hover” in DJI GO (people rarely change this setting), the Phantom would have drifted away with the wind at its current altitude until the battery reached the critically low level. At that point, it would have auto landed at its current location (while continuing to drift with the wind).
Ok - great explanation, thanks! There is a chance, of course, that the AC still sensed the control signal after losing the wifi, which means the landing would have been delayed a bit. But yeah. Thanks again.
Of course. After the flight log ends, all you can do is take an educated guess. In this case, assuming the remote controller also disconnected allows one to estimate the closest possible landing spot. If the Phantom is not at that spot, then you would continue searching in the direction it was heading.
Late to this discussion, and a newbie, so please excuse a possible uneducated question…but, why wouldn’t you have the Remote Controller Signal Lost set to “Return-to-home”? Would that option fail in this situation anyway?
thanks
That’s the best setting for most flights. If you’re flying from a boat (for example), you might want to change it to “Hover” instead to prevent the Phantom from flying back to the last marked home point (which could be over water).
I’ve never seen it fail. The problem is that the Phantom does not always return home when RTH is initiated. It could also do things like:
- Auto land at its current location if flying in ATTI mode (like in this case)
- Auto land at its current location if the GPS signal is not strong
- Start flying back and need to auto land before it makes it back due to reaching the critically low battery level (happens often when flying in strong winds)
- Crash into an obstacle on the way back to the home point
Flying from a boat…ah ha! Hadn’t considered that scenario.
Thanks for the explanations.
Hey thanks for the replies and the help. Just the conversation between us has taught me and my friends a lot. I’ve yet to find the mia drone, but the property that it looks to have dropped on is gated so I’m waiting to get permission.
Thanks again.
Hi. I lost my phantom 3 st anyone can help me retrieve but I can’t upload the flight log pls helpp…
You can upload your flight log here. See the instructions on that page if you need help finding your flight log.