Has anyone experienced a fly-away with H Pro?

[RBC]

This is enough to take away the joy of flying your H Pro.

I flew one battery and then another. My H Pro flew without any concerns. I flew both batteries to 14.7v and then changed out for the 3rd. Each time I took off in Angle Mode with O/A off. Went up to about 20 ft and raised landing gear. I did the same thing on the 3rd battery. Took it up to 20 ft, did not even have the chance to raise the landing gear, when suddenly the H tore off like "a bat out of ****" to the east at an incredible rate of speed as if GPS was not on. On my ST 16 is said GPS was on. The H would not hover and continued to fly with a mind of its own. I tried to reverse the direction. It did respond a little with a lot of lag and flew wildly and continued to drift even when the direction was reversed. So I think somehow there was something that was interfering with the GPS and ST 16 commands.

The H then took off to the west at a high rate of speed. I was able to increase its altitude to about 170 feet; all while I was trying to bring the H back to me but it would not respond. It kept going this time to the southwest. I could see it LOS but it was quite far away, about 1,500 ft. just barely on my development's side of one of the busy streets. I lost telemetry on the ST 16. Everything said NA on the left (drone) side of the ST 16. I tried RTH and it would not respond. I tried to turn on OA but got no signal that it was on. Then I got an alert that said Real Sense was not on and to restart the aircraft. (Not sure what that meant, but I knew I had better not touch the red button!!! If I had done that, props would have stopped and it would dropped like a rock!!!) I switched GPS off and then back on. I tried smart mode, then put it back into angle mode. I moved the OA switch on and then off. I had no control over the craft. I was watching the battery voltage and it was down now to about 14.9v then 14.8v. . I was worried the battery would run down. I was thinking I would never see this H again.

I then switched the Tilt Mode of the camera. I then was able to move the camera straight down and saw that the H was still inside my development but still quite far away. I could see the craft was now hovering in the same spot because the image on FPV with camera pointed down was not moving. I tired RTH again and now saw the H start to come back in my direction very slowly (about 7 mph). I started to feel less worried now as I knew I could get to the craft if the battery got too low and it landed on its own. But I was able to get it to come back to me. However, not trusting it now that it would behave, I wanted to land it as soon as possible.

I brought it to about 30 feet from me and landed it. What a relief. Until it happens to you, you have no idea what it is like. As I said it is enough to change your "love of flying" to "fear of flying". I just don't trust it anymore.

Please let me know if you have had a similar experience with your H Pro.

 

[JCFlippen]

I feel for you, what an experience.You must send in the flight log so Yuneec can identify the problem. In theory I think there is no difference between the ADV and the PRO for control by the ST16.

 

[Peter a]

I've had the same thing on a naza controller , where after it got off the ground it would rocket in one direction about 30-40 feet then just hover.
I worked out that the controller would tell you with the leds it had a gps fix , but after getting a little hight would move to wherever it thought it had started from.

Yep just a standard fly away.

 

[Steve Carr]

This is enough to take away the joy of flying your H Pro.

I flew one battery and then another. My H Pro flew without any concerns. I flew both batteries to 14.7v and then changed out for the 3rd. Each time I took off in Angle Mode with O/A off. Went up to about 20 ft and raised landing gear. I did the same thing on the 3rd battery. Took it up to 20 ft, did not even have the chance to raise the landing gear, when suddenly the H tore off like "a bat out of ****" to the east at an incredible rate of speed as if GPS was not on. On my ST 16 is said GPS was on. The H would not hover and continued to fly with a mind of its own. I tried to reverse the direction. It did respond a little with a lot of lag and flew wildly and continued to drift even when the direction was reversed. So I think somehow there was something that was interfering with the GPS and ST 16 commands.

The H then took off to the west at a high rate of speed. I was able to increase its altitude to about 170 feet; all while I was trying to bring the H back to me but it would not respond. It kept going this time to the southwest. I could see it LOS but it was quite far away, about 1,500 ft. just barely on my development's side of one of the busy streets. I lost telemetry on the ST 16. Everything said NA on the left (drone) side of the ST 16. I tried RTH and it would not respond. I tried to turn on OA but got no signal that it was on. Then I got an alert that said Real Sense was not on and to restart the aircraft. (Not sure what that meant, but I knew I had better not touch the red button!!! If I had done that, props would have stopped and it would dropped like a rock!!!) I switched GPS off and then back on. I tried smart mode, then put it back into angle mode. I moved the OA switch on and then off. I had no control over the craft. I was watching the battery voltage and it was down now to about 14.9v then 14.8v. . I was worried the battery would run down. I was thinking I would never see this H again.

I then switched the Tilt Mode of the camera. I then was able to move the camera straight down and saw that the H was still inside my development but still quite far away. I could see the craft was now hovering in the same spot because the image on FPV with camera pointed down was not moving. I tired RTH again and now saw the H start to come back in my direction very slowly (about 7 mph). I started to feel less worried now as I knew I could get to the craft if the battery got too low and it landed on its own. But I was able to get it to come back to me. However, not trusting it now that it would behave, I wanted to land it as soon as possible.

I brought it to about 30 feet from me and landed it. What a relief. Until it happens to you, you have no idea what it is like. As I said it is enough to change your "love of flying" to "fear of flying". I just don't trust it anymore.

Please let me know if you have had a similar experience with your H Pro.

Contact Yuneec and send them the telemetry file from that flight so they can determine what was causing the problem.

 

[Rayray]

Holy Moly! Had my Pro since July 17, nothing like that has happened. I'm in a rural area, not much radio interference.
Was the weather hot? How many GPS birds do/did you have on the H? On Rabbit or Turtle? Probably you had everything calibrated.

On startup, I have had (rarely) the "Unable to contact RealSense, restart the craft" warning, even though the OA switch was not on. Don't think that had any connection to your problem.

The above advice to contact Yuneec is the way to go. Best wishes, hopefully next time your news will be good.

 

[Brian Mackey]

I am wondering if its heat messing up the works, three flights in a row without cool down time , seems like the H would get REALLY hot

 

[Markinter]

My H did a sudden right turn and headed for some trees and when I switched the gear down switch it stopped. I told CS and mentioned that I watched the flight with the new telemetry app and he responded that the app isn't a reliable method for checking what happened during a flight. He was kinda rude about it for some reason. I was just trying to convey the sudden right turn was not from the pilot. He pretty much dismissed the fact that my H flew in a direction without input from me. I know they get their share of people blaming them for everything. I am more cautious now after that short experience.

 

[Twowingers]

Sent my in would not respond to land and had the bowl affect they replaced my gps module shud get back weds hope all is well

 

[Steve Wall Morris]

Do you know what the KP level was on the day you had the fly away. If it was over 5 then that is classed as an electromagnetic storm and can cause problems with gps lock. Your ST16 may say 14 satellites are locked in but they are not going to help in those conditions

 

[Rayray]

Do you know what the KP level was on the day you had the fly away. If it was over 5 then that is classed as an electromagnetic storm and can cause problems with gps lock. Your ST16 may say 14 satellites are locked in but they are not going to help in those conditions

Steve, being a Ham I am familiar with your post. This info can be found at various web sites, the one I use is spaceweather.com . Down on the left side of the page they give the current Kp number. Also, at the top left the Solar Wind speed and density is noted.
Thanks for the post.

 

[Steve Wall Morris]

Luckily enough I have only lost video at distance and not had the pleasure of a fly away as yet. I am curious to find out if other pilots check the flying conditions first. I am reading a lot of negative feedback on the Typhoon and want to see if it's the pilots lack of preparation, rather than the hardware.

 

[pczekalski]

Isn't it like the safety landing procedure has triggered?
I've experienced it on my second flight actually - while manually landing, my Typhoon didn't want to come closer to me than about 20m away (and there were trees nearby). This possibly could be the reason it won't land close to you and the GPS fix of the ST16 was presenting other position than real.

Regarding Kp - there is also another nice site, including quite readable form and a forecast:
www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-forecast/

Best regards,

P.

 

[Dewster]

After watching two of my home built multis crash for one reason or another (broken prop/bad lipo battery) and seeing the glide ratio of a rock has also left me with a fear of flying...but I do. I can't imagine the flurry of hard and soft button presses you went through to regain control of your craft. That is scary. I haven't heard of too many fly away incidents with the H though. It's one of those dark things that stick in my mind when flying. That and the craft just dropping from the sky (like my two home builds).

 

[pczekalski]

Well - my Typhoon crashed just today on its 5th flight!
Once I took off and hovered for about 10s (about 4m AGL), it just "decided" to fly away and crashed on nearby trees about 100m away. I didn't even touch the ST-16 once it started. It started running on full speed forward. No control could be done - I was trying to rescue it but there was no control from ST-16 to the drone. It has happen in Smart mode.

The result is broken two blades, broken camera (gimbal actually), broken leg, some scratches and broken body - I think the 1000$ toy just destroyed itself.

This is disaster.
I cannot even imagine what exactly has happen. The only message I could see on the screen when I was already running, trying to get to this tree was "GPS signal lost".
Do you know if there is any help from Yuneec on investigating the reason and covering the damage?
This drone is totally non-reliable and moreover it is dangerous.

Regard,

P.

P.S. Great behavior, no comment. Thank you Yuneec, ma patience is over... I'm really disappointed with this piece of ....

 

[pczekalski]

This is enough to take away the joy of flying your H Pro.

Please let me know if you have had a similar experience with your H Pro.

It just happened to me today but I had no luck and my H was broken on the nearby tree. I had no time, no altitude to regain the control as you did...
Interestingly, I was flying within the countryside where there is no WiFi networks and even cellular coverage is very poor. So I do not believe there was an interference problem (how would you interfere GPS signal, BTW?) it seems to be serious problem in the control algorithms.
It was my 5th flight and previous didn't show up any problems until this disaster.
The most scary thing is that you cannot trust it anymore - considering repair costs, I would not trust it to fly over the people as it may do something "stupid" in any moment.
I was in the Smart mode BTW, when switched to Angle, it seemed to slow down but it was already too
late...

Regards,

P.

 

[Drone_Video]

I just had a Fly away also... waited since Jan 9th for this thing, and got a few battery's of flying time, and it decide to take off and run away all on its own..... I'll have to call on Monday to see if they can recover the GPS data in the controller and what can be done to recover the unit or replace it... I had heard of a few people having this issue and thought it was isolated.... I'm not sure about that any more.

 

[pczekalski]

Well - seems to be common problem on this platform.
I'm really disappointed.
I'm on RC for about 10 years already (formerly mostly on fixed wing) and have build some autonomous systems based on Ardupilot 2.6 and Ublox NEO 5/6 receivers (GPS Navstar).
And even if community says Ardupilot is not so stable, I still have ALL my planes in my garage, while this one (Typhoon H) decided to run away on its 5th flight...

On the other hand this device is/was considered to be semiprofessional product that should be highly reliable.
I cannot imagine now flying above people doing some aerial video nor flying over the sea ...
It Yuneec Typhoon H was the concurrent to the Phantom 4, sorry saying so, but Phantom appears to be much more reliable even if having 4 rotors only.

Polish distributor told me I'm 3rd person experiencing this problem (they don't sell them much, about 50 sets total).
So this seems to be some general design/implementation problem, not an isolated one...

Regards,

Piotr

P.S. The telemetry logs from the crash are located here - any help in analyzing would be appreciated:
Typhoon H - Google Drive

 

[THenry]

I had mine fly away today.

Scared the crap outa me. I took it for a test flight after it had been repaired for an unrelated incident.
This was first flight with first battery.
My remote started going crazy at me for 'compass calibration'. I use this for work so I had picked up a second H in case one does something like this and I'm not left without anything for like 4 weeks.
Also this is not the real sense system so u are all aware
(My other unit has been perfect for over 100 flights)

I had purchased 6 extra batteries so I can do a lot of flying in locations all over in short time. And also I put on long range antennas and thank god I did because I could still see the camera and it kept connected to the controller. It flew 5,000' away on its own FTH function didn't work UNTIL battery went low and then it just flew back and landed, and thank god also I took it to 200' up before things went bad. As I was totally helpless with the unit. I'm going to be recalibrating everything and going to a wide open area to try again tomorrow. So (not sure if it's the fix or not) but I'm going to be recalibrating a lot more often to see if this fixes this issue.

When it returned to home on its own I was able to control the landing of it.

When it took off on me it was in angle mode. And I kept it there. But nothing seemed to work. It was like someone took over it's flight and stole it. All I could do is see thru the camera where it was joy riding to. By act of God it did ultimately come back, the scare was aweful as I didn't want to hit somebody or something with it. I'll post a follow up after recalibrating and I pray this is the fix. I can see this being a bad idea on the purchase of it if it does this again.

Wish me luck

 

[Steve Carr]

I had mine fly away today.

Scared the crap outa me. I took it for a test flight after it had been repaired for an unrelated incident.
This was first flight with first battery.
My remote started going crazy at me for 'compass calibration'. I use this for work so I had picked up a second H in case one does something like this and I'm not left without anything for like 4 weeks.
Also this is not the real sense system so u are all aware
(My other unit has been perfect for over 100 flights)

I had purchased 6 extra batteries so I can do a lot of flying in locations all over in short time. And also I put on long range antennas and thank god I did because I could still see the camera and it kept connected to the controller. It flew 5,000' away on its own FTH function didn't work UNTIL battery went low and then it just flew back and landed, and thank god also I took it to 200' up before things went bad. As I was totally helpless with the unit. I'm going to be recalibrating everything and going to a wide open area to try again tomorrow. So (not sure if it's the fix or not) but I'm going to be recalibrating a lot more often to see if this fixes this issue.

When it returned to home on its own I was able to control the landing of it.

When it took off on me it was in angle mode. And I kept it there. But nothing seemed to work. It was like someone took over it's flight and stole it. All I could do is see thru the camera where it was joy riding to. By act of God it did ultimately come back, the scare was aweful as I didn't want to hit somebody or something with it. I'll post a follow up after recalibrating and I pray this is the fix. I can see this being a bad idea on the purchase of it if it does this again.

Wish me luck

Did you try to turn off the GPS to see if it would respond?

 

[THenry]

I didn't do that, because at least if it has GPS on and auto lands itself or crashes somewhere I can pull the telemetry out of the remote and see where it was when it landed/crashed. Plus if I'm not mistaken doesn't RTH function stop working when GPS is off??

I did think of turning it off, but no I didn't turn it off, it may be the only reason it did come back and land.