So earlier today I was flying my Phantom 4 around, when I realized that the colder weather drastically degrades the performance of the Phantom's battery. Was out a little too far, and realized I couldn't bring her home. I originally took off at the end of a hayfield, and flew out past the field, eventually reaching a stretch of about 3/4ths of a mile of thick forest. There's a road on the other side, to which I normally fly much farther than. Things went south when I was about 2 miles out.
I made it back to that road, and knew of a clearing to which I could fly to before the battery ran out. I flew there, and set the Phantom to auto land. It was at about 22% battery when I initiated the auto-land. Slowly my beloved Phantom descended below the treeline, to which its connection with me was interrupted, and my video and control links dropped out. At that point it was on its own.
My question is, if the pilot initiates the auto-land, will the Phantom override that command and put itself into return-to-home mode and try to fly itself back if it loses connection with the transmitter? I went to that clearing to retrieve the Phantom, and discovered that there wasn't anything there. I know for a fact it wasn't stolen, because there's about 50 acres of corn and hay surrounding the clearing. Only a small road connects the central clearing with the legitimate public road. Nobody's even around to see it fly over. Plus, I was at the clearing within 10 minutes of losing connection with it. I took the exact GPS coordinates from the DJI app, and went to that spot. Nothing there. I called 4 people to help search the area for nearly 3 hours in attempt to find it- we didn't. The last bit of information I have before it disconnected is that the battery was at 17%, it was descending by itself from 743 feet (come at me FAA), its last GPS coordinates, I was 6,584 feet away, and that it was in landing mode.
I'm thinking it overrided my auto-land command and tried to fly itself home, hit critically low battery, and auto landed somewhere. It couldn't have gotten very far with only 7% battery left, especially on a cold battery (it automatically lands at 10% battery, right?). I took the coordinates of the home point, and the last coordinates from where it was auto-landing under my command, and connected a line between the two. If it tried to fly back, it should be somewhere along that line, correct? The coordinates are accurate, because I was 6,584 feet away when it lost connection, and my line is 6,583.98 feet long.
Thanks!
-Franklin
I made it back to that road, and knew of a clearing to which I could fly to before the battery ran out. I flew there, and set the Phantom to auto land. It was at about 22% battery when I initiated the auto-land. Slowly my beloved Phantom descended below the treeline, to which its connection with me was interrupted, and my video and control links dropped out. At that point it was on its own.
My question is, if the pilot initiates the auto-land, will the Phantom override that command and put itself into return-to-home mode and try to fly itself back if it loses connection with the transmitter? I went to that clearing to retrieve the Phantom, and discovered that there wasn't anything there. I know for a fact it wasn't stolen, because there's about 50 acres of corn and hay surrounding the clearing. Only a small road connects the central clearing with the legitimate public road. Nobody's even around to see it fly over. Plus, I was at the clearing within 10 minutes of losing connection with it. I took the exact GPS coordinates from the DJI app, and went to that spot. Nothing there. I called 4 people to help search the area for nearly 3 hours in attempt to find it- we didn't. The last bit of information I have before it disconnected is that the battery was at 17%, it was descending by itself from 743 feet (come at me FAA), its last GPS coordinates, I was 6,584 feet away, and that it was in landing mode.
I'm thinking it overrided my auto-land command and tried to fly itself home, hit critically low battery, and auto landed somewhere. It couldn't have gotten very far with only 7% battery left, especially on a cold battery (it automatically lands at 10% battery, right?). I took the coordinates of the home point, and the last coordinates from where it was auto-landing under my command, and connected a line between the two. If it tried to fly back, it should be somewhere along that line, correct? The coordinates are accurate, because I was 6,584 feet away when it lost connection, and my line is 6,583.98 feet long.
Thanks!
-Franklin
