My H crashed this weekend! So bummed. You may have seen my post last week about how wonderful my first few days were with my new bird was. No firmware update problems at all. The only issue was Auto Pilot v1.30 did not allow me to change my height limit. Thanks to you guys, I was able to roll back to v1.29 but, that made her not respond to stick commands and had a few close calls. I'm prepared a quick note for the tech who will be examining her for possible warranty work. I'll just cut and paste it here to save me more typing. Please let me know what you guys think. I realized this may not get covered under warranty and I'm fine with it. I just want my H back ASAP.
TO YUNEEC TECH: RA# 12714
As stated to representative over the phone, I had some odd behavior with the H for a few days.
I did roll back Auto Pilot v1.30 to v1.29 via instructions from Yuneec to allow me to modify my 400 ft height limit temporarily. I film a lot of nature videos in mountainous regions and have to occasionally climb above this altitude for safety. I got odd behavior after the roll back with H not responding to right stick or left stick commands. I called support and was advised to reset all firmware and update Auto Pilot back.
This resolved my issues and will patiently wait for update to allow me to change my altitude limits in the future. The 1st time I flew the H after the reset, it flew with no issues except for getting random GPS Signal Lost warnings and to calibrate compass before flight. I did this each time I got the warning and everything was fine. At the end of the flight I did tip the H slightly upon landing on grass – chipped one prop. My bad.
The second day of flight I got one warning about GPS signal lost even with 13 satellites showing on the ST16. I waited for warning to go away and calibrated my compass again. I started flying conservatively for the next few minutes in a canyon park. I wanted to test the Intelsense/collision avoidance feature and flew very slowly towards a tree branch. I noticed the ST 16 was not giving me any warnings of the branch which was about 5 to 10 feet away so I stopped and let the H hover in place. It suddenly started to drift towards the branch by itself. One rotor hit the branch unfortunately. The H still hovered perfectly and was relieved knowing it could fly in 5 rotor mode. I gave it left stick to return to me and it started coming back but, started to look unstable. As it got about 7 feet from me I was going to put the landing gear down and hand catch it.
As I reached out I noticed the rotor that got damaged started to vibrate and the whole motor assembly spun itself off the carbon arm and she luckily dropped on a bush, breaking another prop. Gear was still up. I noticed that the cables twisted about 2 times and the motor was very hot to the touch and seized. After letting it cool it was able to spin the motor by hand again. I have loaded a video of the crash. I started the record button when I noticed H drift closer to the branch. As you can see it flew perfectly fine and had the rotor motor not come off the arm, I would have been able to catch it. It looks like there is damage to the gimbal too. I'm hoping the flight date/telemetry will mirror my observations accurately.
Summary:
1. H Intelsense did not seem to be working during the test
2. ST16 did not give me any audible or visual warnings the H was getting close to the obstacle.
3. H did drift into the branch with no commands to the right stick. After commanding it to fly backward away from the branch it was too late.
4. ST16 did not indicate H was in 5 rotor mode and to RTH ASAP. I had to manually fly it back to me in angle mode.
Thanks for your time and I hope you guys can figure out what happened. I have been flying my Q500 for almost a year and have become very skilled and NEVER crashed it. I was disappointed the H crashed even with all the fail safes. I understand this could totally be my fault too.
TO YUNEEC TECH: RA# 12714
As stated to representative over the phone, I had some odd behavior with the H for a few days.
I did roll back Auto Pilot v1.30 to v1.29 via instructions from Yuneec to allow me to modify my 400 ft height limit temporarily. I film a lot of nature videos in mountainous regions and have to occasionally climb above this altitude for safety. I got odd behavior after the roll back with H not responding to right stick or left stick commands. I called support and was advised to reset all firmware and update Auto Pilot back.
This resolved my issues and will patiently wait for update to allow me to change my altitude limits in the future. The 1st time I flew the H after the reset, it flew with no issues except for getting random GPS Signal Lost warnings and to calibrate compass before flight. I did this each time I got the warning and everything was fine. At the end of the flight I did tip the H slightly upon landing on grass – chipped one prop. My bad.
The second day of flight I got one warning about GPS signal lost even with 13 satellites showing on the ST16. I waited for warning to go away and calibrated my compass again. I started flying conservatively for the next few minutes in a canyon park. I wanted to test the Intelsense/collision avoidance feature and flew very slowly towards a tree branch. I noticed the ST 16 was not giving me any warnings of the branch which was about 5 to 10 feet away so I stopped and let the H hover in place. It suddenly started to drift towards the branch by itself. One rotor hit the branch unfortunately. The H still hovered perfectly and was relieved knowing it could fly in 5 rotor mode. I gave it left stick to return to me and it started coming back but, started to look unstable. As it got about 7 feet from me I was going to put the landing gear down and hand catch it.
As I reached out I noticed the rotor that got damaged started to vibrate and the whole motor assembly spun itself off the carbon arm and she luckily dropped on a bush, breaking another prop. Gear was still up. I noticed that the cables twisted about 2 times and the motor was very hot to the touch and seized. After letting it cool it was able to spin the motor by hand again. I have loaded a video of the crash. I started the record button when I noticed H drift closer to the branch. As you can see it flew perfectly fine and had the rotor motor not come off the arm, I would have been able to catch it. It looks like there is damage to the gimbal too. I'm hoping the flight date/telemetry will mirror my observations accurately.
Summary:
1. H Intelsense did not seem to be working during the test
2. ST16 did not give me any audible or visual warnings the H was getting close to the obstacle.
3. H did drift into the branch with no commands to the right stick. After commanding it to fly backward away from the branch it was too late.
4. ST16 did not indicate H was in 5 rotor mode and to RTH ASAP. I had to manually fly it back to me in angle mode.
Thanks for your time and I hope you guys can figure out what happened. I have been flying my Q500 for almost a year and have become very skilled and NEVER crashed it. I was disappointed the H crashed even with all the fail safes. I understand this could totally be my fault too.

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