H520 dropped out the sky from 100ft without warning!

[Ayrshire UAV]

So, there I was flying as normal on a friday morning, taking lots of images of the pier and having a nice relaxing flight. Returned to my take off spot, chnaged batteries, quick check and away again. All was fine, no issues, no warnings, slightly increase the speed dial and without warning, beeps, messages or anything, and without a drop in connection or satelites and with not a bird in a 5 mile radius it dropped from the sky into the River Garnock. Thanks to the Coastwatch crew I was out there within 20 minutes in a small boat but with the incoming tide and the extremely poor visibility there was no chance of finding it. Even at its shallowest point of 8ft there was no sign of it.
So, Anyone fancy buying the following.....

ST16s controller. 2 months old.
2 x batteries. 2 months old.
1 x spare ST16s battery. 1 month old
E90 camera. 2 months old
CGOet camera. 2 months old.
Multiple packs of unsealed props.

and a shoulder to cry on.

Also, any idea how I retreive flight records etc without the actual drone?

Really having a nightmare day.

Beer??

 

[Graham]

Sorry to hear of your mishap. I wonder if there was a power loss? If you were flying over salt water, there wouldn't be much point in retreiving the craft. I assume you will have contacted Yunnec UK by now and have found out the ST16s stores flight telemetry in the DataPilot folder. Like you I would take this very badly if it happened to me, but in my case I prefer a whisky.

 

[Steve Carr]

The tlogs are stored on the ST16s.
See this thread for more information: Human Readable Flight Data

 

[c5chris1]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your drone. Keep us posted on the root cause, we would like to know what the reason was for the crash. If you were not that far, I would offer to buy the props and controller battery.

 

[Ayrshire UAV]

Cheers for advice and direction guys. Managed to retrieve the flight records as per your advice and ive emailed them and a detailed explanation of what happened to Yuneec and to the dealership i bought my kit from. Everything appears fine on the logs no issues but then it just all stops. I await their findings. Im guessing i will be up drone creek without my yuneec though.

 

[Mr. I]

ST16s controller. 2 months old

E90 camera. 2 months old

CGOet camera. 2 months old

How much would you sell these Items for ? I might take them off your hands.

Mr. I,

 

[arruntus]

Tough break, mate, I'm sorry.

So you're saying the battery might not have fitted properly?

Tell us what Yuneec tells you. Cheer up

 

[VETTE198620002000]

To bad you didn't have a drone buoy on it. i always use one when i fly over water.

 

[Wingman]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I believe it is a problem with swapping batteries and not reconnecting to a ST16s manually. Somehow a ST16S can reconnect when new batteries is inserted and may even show it is ok with GPS but it may be not all that good with GPS. I had something similar my last flight when my h520 became very unstable after I swapped to a new battery. After I put a new battery my h520 was still shown as connected to my ST16S and GPS was shown as perfect but the h520 was very unstable in the air and started drifting to a side. I could land, reconnected manually and I could fly in a normal way on the very same battery. However if I stayed in the air for a bit longer I would probably crash it too.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

Before selling everything, exhaust all possibilities as to cause, with Yuneec.

If all else fails, keep pressing for a bind and fly (aircraft only). They may not be available currently, but hopefully soon.

 

[FasterPastor]

I had the same think happen to mine.

In talking to a Yuneec repair dealer, it turns out that it you just have a total loss of data, you likely did not have the battery fully locked in. It looks like it is in, but it is not, and it will vibrate loose in flight. So I have been told, that when the data shows that. That Yuneec will claim that is pilot error, improper pre-flight check and will not repair your bird.

Sorry for your loss, it is quite disturbing to looks an aircraft (trust me I know too)



If anyone wants I have the following available;

St16S controller
New set of Props (never used)
3 batteries
CGOET
Case
and a Mashed (but repairable) H520

 

[Mr. I]

What are you pricing each Item at ?

 

[FasterPastor]

I have listed the camera, about a week ago, not sure what to list the items at ( the controller???). If you have some items you are interested in, send me a PM. Not much interest in the camera on this site so far. I would prefer to to send the items out together if someone wants them. I did speak with Vertigo drones, they said my H520 is easily repairable, and all the parts are available. Open to ideas, have not got around to acting on them yet.

 

[imagination Drone]

I have listed the camera, about a week ago, not sure what to list the items at ( the controller???). If you have some items you are interested in, send me a PM. Not much interest in the camera on this site so far. I would prefer to to send the items out together if someone wants them. I did speak with Vertigo drones, they said my H520 is easily repairable, and all the parts are available. Open to ideas, have not got around to acting on them yet.

Get it fixed and do something else in the next year possibly something better will come out!
Mine has acted strange after battery swap but actually this bird has been jumpy since update.
I always run the update incase something happens and investigation arrises covers your butt
I have had multiple issues but still runnin till I don’t!

 

[Dean@CSA]

Yuneec really need to lift their game with supporting pilots when these mishaps occur. I know they are a large corporate, but they won't stay that way unless they improve their relationships with their customers (stating the obvious I know). If there is a chance the battery vibrated lose, Yuneec is liable. You need to demonstrate that you completed adequate pre-flight checks, which a signed pre-flight checklist will do. We always do this with our equipment, and have it counter signed by a second operator. It seems like a lot of effort, but worth it when these things occur.

Good luck, please let the forum know Yuneec's response.

 

[FasterPastor]

Yuneec really need to lift their game with supporting pilots when these mishaps occur. I know they are a large corporate, but they won't stay that way unless they improve their relationships with their customers (stating the obvious I know). If there is a chance the battery vibrated lose, Yuneec is liable. You need to demonstrate that you completed adequate pre-flight checks, which a signed pre-flight checklist will do. We always do this with our equipment, and have it counter signed by a second operator. It seems like a lot of effort, but worth it when these things occur.

Good luck, please let the forum know Yuneec's response.

I did speak with a yuneec distributor who does a lot of repairs, and he said they see this quite often and if the flight data "just stops" their position is the battery was not properly secured ( and would vibrate loose ) . The concerning thing is they say they have seen this "a number of times"

This is an issue for the phantom 4 pro as well, where is is possible to have the battery partially engaged but not fully locked. According to the dealer that is Yuneec's history with my this type of issue is that they will not repair it. I assumed he has seen this several times am trusting that is the way it is. So it seems developed a company position for this type of failure.

After this mishap, I actually try to pull the battery out of all my drones as part of the pre-flight check.

Yeah, I am hoping Yuneec does well as I would like to several good choices of product for the pilot, I don't know if I have time in the spring to devote to fighting with a corporate entity.

 

[LongIslandSurveydrone]

Thanks for your post about the battery! The same exact thing happened to me yesterday, clear sunny day with no wind, on my 2nd set of shots and on it's way to the starting point (300' away), it lost communication and dropped to the ground. Only thing different was after setting the survey grid, ready to start the mission, the screen went black, then came back - the grid was gone and I had to re-set my spacing. I made sure all of my connections were good and that the return to launch was checked before starting the survey. Unfortunately, I sustained some damage to the arm which was repairable. I sent a full description to Yuneec and will be calling on Monday afternoon.

 

[arruntus]

Third person to report the same mistake in a few days. This cannot be by chance or simply because the battery is not tightened properly. This is starting to give off a really bad vibe.

If in such a short time we've already learned of 3 drones that have apparently crashed with the same symptoms...........................

I'm so sorry about that @LongIslandSurveydrone, tell us what news you have from Yuneec.

 

[javier Olalla González]

Yuneec, what's the matter with the H520?

 

[Peggy]

Yuneec, what's the matter with the H520?

What’s right with it more like??? Would be more truthful