My first Fly-Away... was it me or the H?? Help (flight log attached)

[DoomMeister]

@WTFDproject , you did a good job summarizing all of the speculation and theories that went on. I second the opinion of changing the FC board as well as the compass/GPS struggle that started right after liftoff. There have been several instances of forum members having the FC go bad and cause problems that point to the GPS and or compass.

@REMedia I feel that is a good course of action to be followed. There were five of us bumping heads on this and we agree this is the best way.

 

[WTFDproject]

The members of the review team were:
@h-elsner
@Ty Pilot
@DoomMeister
@Steve Carr
@WTFDproject

 

[REMedia]

@WTFDproject , you did a good job summarizing all of the speculation and theories that went on. I second the opinion of changing the FC board as well as the compass/GPS struggle that started right after liftoff. There have been several instances of forum members having the FC go bad and cause problems that point to the GPS and or compass.

@REMedia I feel that is a good course of action to be followed. There were five of us bumping heads on this and we agree this is the best way.

Thank you for everyone’s time and input, I will definitely be switching out the FC Board and will do some test flights next week once all put together. I’ll probably upload log to see if anything looks off! Thank you!

 

[Ty Pilot]

@WTFDproject , you did a good job summarizing all of the speculation and theories that went on. I second the opinion of changing the FC board as well as the compass/GPS struggle that started right after liftoff. There have been several instances of forum members having the FC go bad and cause problems that point to the GPS and or compass.

@REMedia I feel that is a good course of action to be followed. There were five of us bumping heads on this and we agree this is the best way.

And I will second, . . . er - third all of that.

@REMedia one thing I have learned in doing real estate photography for over three years, is to never take off from a paved runway. Most times I try to get as far away from the house as possible. Many times I will use the carry case if the grass is wet and others, I do a hand launch and recovery (I am not recommending this to anyone), as I had an incident at one property where upon landing in the middle of the front yard I got to about 2 feet off the ground and the Typhoon took off horizontally in a straight line much like what you saw. I was fortunate that there was a slight slope and the aircraft touched the ground and tipped over stopping it - didn't even break a prop. I never did find out what may have been in the ground but it hasn't happened since.

Hope you get it fixed and back in the air with no problems, good luck.

 

[Fred Garvin]

So, the system is not "Fail-Safe"....in that when something like this disagreement happens, rather than just hovering in place, the drone will randomly take off at full throttle in some direction?

Now that there's been as much investigation to provide the next steps...Can any of you guys comment on this? It's concerning that this can happen....if a significant difference in GPS and compass signals to the FC...the aircraft will suddenly take off rather than just stop and hover.

Sounds like this has happened before (Ty in #44) so would be a very important characteristic to be aware of and have a procedure/reaction at the ready in case it happens to you.....

 

[Steve Carr]

It's concerning that this can happen....if a significant difference in GPS and compass signals to the FC...the aircraft will suddenly take off rather than just stop and hover.

Gosh Fred. You've never seen this happen with other aircraft? Mavic, Phantom, Inspire?

What you see here is the unsanitized discussion of real situations. We have the advantage of good techs in this group who can analyze data and find solutions. Thousands of hours have been invested looking at thousands of flight logs in order to provide reliable information.

 

[DoomMeister]

This a problem that has been around for as long as magnetometers and GPS units have been used on sUAS aircraft. When they disagree the system gets confused and you get a classic TBE or a relatively high speed race to where it thinks it ought to be.

The solution for this is deactivating the GPS input to the FC and unfortunately it is not easy to do in a situation like this. That is why we have requested time and again for the Aux button to be programmed to be a toggle for GPS input enable/disable. Some systems have a switch to enter a manual non-GPS assisted flight mode and allow recovery.

 

[Fred Garvin]

Well, the great majority of "fly aways" I've seen discussed aren't actually a real "fly away" and end up being pilot error. I guess what surprises me is the error-correcting ability that is lacking in the system. If the compass and GPS disagree, it seems the FC should. halt operations, rather than allow the aircraft to speed off in a random direction uncontrolled, just because it's confused.

 

[Steve Carr]

rather than allow the aircraft to speed off in a random direction uncontrolled, just because it's confused.

What you are describing is extremely rare if it's a hardware based malfunction. The problem usually is much less severe and appears to the pilot as unstable flight and difficulty with landing.

However, if you choose a poor launch location(mag interference), as soon as the aircraft rises above the influence, the compass sees a sudden change in heading which is in conflict with the accelerometer detected movement.

In the case under discussion, there is uncertainty about the cause until the OP has done more testing. If the problem follows the FC the solution may be confirmed. If normal flight is attained by choosing a different launch site a solution is also confirmed.

 

[Fred Garvin]

...What you are describing is extremely rare if it's a hardware based malfunction. The problem usually is much less severe and appears to the pilot as unstable flight and difficulty with landing...

Okay....THAT makes me feel better and restores some confidence. The way I was reading (into) it, there was a serious flaw.....

 

[DoomMeister]

The other brand has the same problem, but have a handy mode called ATTI that removes the GPS input to the FC. It allows altitude hold through the barometer, but without GPS you must correct for wind drift. There are many cases of it in our sister forums.

 

[Mrgs1]

The other brand has the same problem, but have a handy mode called ATTI that removes the GPS input to the FC. It allows altitude hold through the barometer, but without GPS you must correct for wind drift. There are many cases of it in our sister forums.

Plenty on facebook too, where it usually becomes abusive.

 

[NWSaint]

Gorgeous Estate!

Tony Soprano would approve..

 

[Data2225]

Did your realsense come with your H? I bought one aftermarket and soon after started getting those compass errors at different sites with little to no control. After I removed the realsense, never happened again.

 

[cabinfourus]

I have a quick question on this flyaway issue.
Have any of the newer cell towers been installed in your area? Within a 5 mile range?

I asked this because I have an H that I have never had an issue with, start acting crazy when they were testing a new cell tower in my area. I called Verizon and they told me when they install these towers they have to run them through FCC required testing that can cause problems with aerial RC. Once the testing stopped everything was back to normal.

 

[Rubik]

Here's one more possibility to consider. Perhaps you rushed to take-off after changing the battery. I had a similar problem on my 2nd flight of the day last February. First flight was flawless. We drove a couple miles down the dirt road and stopped when we saw a beautiful sunset happening. I whipped out the TH with a fresh battery and launched it as soon as I could. It went up 5 feet and then darted immediately off to the left at high speed and crashed into some bushes. The only damage was a couple of broken props. It has flown fine several times since. I think rushing to take-off was the problem in my case.

 

[Kingsley Opoku]

Hello everyone,

So I was out getting extra footage of a home I had been hired to do multiple real estate videos for. New mulch and leaves and flowers blooming meant fresh footage. I have never had GPS issues at this property as it is an extremely large property with no trees or obstructions. I put the H up and immediately started setting up a very nice CCC route. Successfully set about 15 waypoints and saved the route... continued on to take some manual footage of the home with the remaining battery juice I had left. Brought H back, changed out the battery, turned it on and waited until I had good GPS lock.
This is where it got "not fun", I took off straight up and at about 15 or 20 ft I noticed the orange LED notification indicating GPS issue. The H started drifting slowly in different directions so I simply tried to control it and lower it to land. That's when it simply started flying one direction at about 50% speed... at this point it was flying towards a neighbors house, so i just remember trying anything to get it to change directions. The H changed directions and took off (what seemed to be) 100% rabbit directly towards subject house. Being that the house is listed at 1.5 million ... I was slightly panicking. I tried my best to just raise it to hopefully get over the roof, nope... smashed directly into the brick home. If I did clear the roof, that drone was on a one way flight far away from me.
If someone could take a look to see if it was operator error (did I not wait for enough satellites to lock?), did it lose all gps signal when it was in the air? Did my ST16 controls jam (if that's possible)? Also, if I would have had my RealSense module on, would that have allowed me to control it if I lost GPS?

Any observations are surely appreciated as I'm lost with this one.

Subject property that took the blunt of the H... I was located in the front lawn. Shot this home 6 times never an issue with GPS :-(
View attachment 21912

I have been a member of this forum and own the Typhoon H with realsense for 3years now, and I have heard of this flyaways from some owners of the H. I have read numerous comment from the experts and I have learned a lot from them behind the scenes. The only comment and advice I will say about the H is, when you bring the Typhoon H back after a first calibration and flight only to change the battery for a second flight, do a second calibration. Do not just replace the battery and wait for more satellite and take it up in the air. "Do a second calibration before taking it up in the air". I cannot emphasize enough on my quote. I do it all the time and have not had any issues as of yet. It flies like a champ. I remember I made this comment before on this forum and a member told me a second calibration was not required if you are flying from the same location after a first successful flight. I am sorry for your loss, but from what I read in your comment, you change the battery waited for GPS lock and took it up. Where was the second calibration? Correct me if am wrong, but I think that was where problem came from. Calibrate!!. Calibrate!!. Calibrate!!

 

[Kingsley Opoku]

I have been a member of this forum and own the Typhoon H with realsense for 3years now, and I have heard of this flyaways from some owners of the H. I have read numerous comment from the experts and I have learned a lot from them behind the scenes. The only comment and advice I will say about the H is, when you bring the Typhoon H back after a first calibration and flight only to change the battery for a second flight, do a second calibration. Do not just replace the battery and wait for more satellite and take it up in the air. "Do a second calibration before taking it up in the air". I cannot emphasize enough on my quote. I do it all the time and have not had any issues as of yet. It flies like a champ. I remember I made this comment before on this forum and a member told me a second calibration was not required if you are flying from the same location after a first successful flight. I am sorry for your loss, but from what I read in your comment, you change the battery waited for GPS lock and took it up. Where was the second calibration? Correct me if am wrong, but I think that was where problem came from. Calibrate!!. Calibrate!!. Calibrate!!

I meant compass calibration.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

I meant compass calibration.

@Kingsley Opoku,

While I respect your opinion and your option to calibrate as you wish, I strongly disagree with the premise to continually calibrate, even if just for a “second battery “. Changing batteries should have nothing to do with flyways, let alone not calibrating before a second battery flight. Calibrating just to calibrate has a better chance if inducing more problems, i.e. a bad calibration.

Regarding the post just prior to yours, stating a “rush to flight,” the resultant crash was most likely due to some other factor not revealed by the poster. What sounds more likely, as documented in many “crash” threads... in his rush, the pilot may have inadvertently bumped the mode switch into Smart Mode. That is a more believable cause for “...darting off and into a bush” than a lack of an additional compass calibration.

This forum has many examples of post mortum analyses indicated a lack of understanding of Smart Mode.

Respectfully, another opinion.

Jeff

 

[Rubik]

@Kingsley Opoku,

Regarding the post just prior to yours, stating a “rush to flight,” the resultant crash was most likely due to some other factor not revealed by the poster. What sounds more likely, as documented in many “crash” threads... in his rush, the pilot may have inadvertently bumped the mode switch into Smart Mode.
This forum has many examples of post mortum analyses indicated a lack of understanding of Smart Mode.
Respectfully, another opinion.
Jeff

Well Jeff, in my case the Smart Mode error is not possible since I physically blocked that switch from going into "Smart" mode. I'm thinking that just because the TH "sees" satellites doesn't mean that it has actually received all the GPS data it needs to fly correctly from a new location. But, now that I think about the OP's flights, both take-offs were from the same exact location, so out-of-date GPS date is probably not what caused his erratic flight. Hmm....
I agree that compass calibration (and waiting 10-15 minutes for GPS almanac to update) is only required if the flying location is 100 miles or so from the previous location or it has been several weeks since the last flight.