My new Q500 Typhoon flew away

[Photomaker]

About two weeks ago, I purchased a new Q500 to replace one that had crashed. While flying, I noticed the drone was not responding well – the drone was reacting sluggish and not responding quickly. It did respond to triggering the camera, but the movement of the camera up and down, and the direction of the drone and height adjustment was slow to respond. This was an issue I had with my previous Q500, and was told by Yuneec that that was normal.

Yesterday, I was photographing a home in the country with my new Q500, I flew up to about 300 ft with no issues. Shortly afterwards the drone started acting erratically, and not responding to the controls and started drifting away. I tried bringing it down but got no response, even after going into the home position.
In the monitor, I noticed the drone rotating and moving further away, until it went out of sight. And, because it had a new, fully charged battery, it had plenty of flight time available to travel, possibly a couple of miles. Because of the wooded area, it was impossible to find.
I was under the impression that the drone would return to home if it lost a signal. has anyone had this issue with their drone, and is there any GPS tracking device I can attach to my next drone so I can find it if it flies away again.

 

[Steve Carr]

About two weeks ago, I purchased a new Q500 to replace one that had crashed. While flying, I noticed the drone was not responding well – the drone was reacting sluggish and not responding quickly. It did respond to triggering the camera, but the movement of the camera up and down, and the direction of the drone and height adjustment was slow to respond. This was an issue I had with my previous Q500, and was told by Yuneec that that was normal.

Yesterday, I was photographing a home in the country with my new Q500, I flew up to about 300 ft with no issues. Shortly afterwards the drone started acting erratically, and not responding to the controls and started drifting away. I tried bringing it down but got no response, even after going into the home position.
In the monitor, I noticed the drone rotating and moving further away, until it went out of sight. And, because it had a new, fully charged battery, it had plenty of flight time available to travel, possibly a couple of miles. Because of the wooded area, it was impossible to find.
I was under the impression that the drone would return to home if it lost a signal. has anyone had this issue with their drone, and is there any GPS tracking device I can attach to my next drone so I can find it if it flies away again.

If you install an sd card under the battery of the ST10, all of your flight data will be recorded. You might check to see if there is a card in there already. If so, contact Yuneec to see if they will help you recover the flight data and analyze it to see what is going wrong.
Perhaps this is a problem with the ST10 and not with the Q500 since it occurred with 2 aircraft. It is very rare for a Q500 to drift away and not respond to the controller or to RTH.

 

[Dave Derby UK]

Hi Photomaker,
Sorry to hear you've had a fly away. I too own the Q500 (6 months) and although no issues as yet I have mounted a small pet GPS tracker on one of the landing feet just in case.
I use the Tractive GPS module (meant for a dogs collar), its small, fully waterproof and provides live tracking via the website or smartphone app. You can also use the smartphone app to activate a flashing strobe LED and buzzing alarm from the module to assist in finding it in woods or when dark. Works a treat.
The GPS module is about £49 and available direct from Tractive or other retailers such as Amazon. There is a yearly subscription to access the website but much cheaper than paying out for a new bird.

 

[Photomaker]

Thanks Dave, I will look into the GPS tracker.
As per this forum, I called Yuneec and spoke to a tech (very nice people) and told them about my fly away. They informed me they don't cover fly always or crashes, but wanted me to remove the card from the transmitter. I asked where it was located,and removed the battery compartment-cover and battery. When I looked inside, I told them there was no card. The tech told me to hold on and spoke to a manager.
A few minutes later, the tech asked for all my contact information and mailing address. They said they were sending me a replacement which I received last week. they then helped me bind the new drone with my transmitter. They also told me to always do a compass calibration if I don't fly in the same location or more than 25 miles from my last calibrated flight.

if Yuneec didn't replace the drone, I was going to switch to a DJI Phantom 4. But, I was so pleased with their customer service, that I ordered more props, and more batteries (which for some reason, after a few months of charging, becomes bloated and are hard insert into the drone, also their flight time becomes substantially reduced to about 5 min). . I try not to leave the batteries on the charger for more than two hrs. I don't know if anyone else experiences this.

 

[Jeremy Stocker]

Thanks Dave, I will look into the GPS tracker.
As per this forum, I called Yuneec and spoke to a tech (very nice people) and told them about my fly away. They informed me they don't cover fly always or crashes, but wanted me to remove the card from the transmitter. I asked where it was located,and removed the battery compartment-cover and battery. When I looked inside, I told them there was no card. The tech told me to hold on and spoke to a manager.
A few minutes later, the tech asked for all my contact information and mailing address. They said they were sending me a replacement which I received last week. they then helped me bind the new drone with my transmitter. They also told me to always do a compass calibration if I don't fly in the same location or more than 25 miles from my last calibrated flight.

if Yuneec didn't replace the drone, I was going to switch to a DJI Phantom 4. But, I was so pleased with their customer service, that I ordered more props, and more batteries (which for some reason, after a few months of charging, becomes bloated and are hard insert into the drone, also their flight time becomes substantially reduced to about 5 min). . I try not to leave the batteries on the charger for more than two hrs. I don't know if anyone else experiences this.

I had a similar problem. Just took it out of the box (after charging the batteries) It took off on me, and ran into a fence. I called Yuneec and they had me ship it out to them. I am still waiting for its return.

 

[Photomaker]

I found my experience with customer service, productive and they were more than helpful. But, there were times, (after purchasing my first drone) that I had to contact them a few times before receiving an answer, or no answer at all. I also read that some of the repair times are quite long.
I just purchased some carbon props in hope that my Q500 is a little more responsive than with the standard flexible props.

 

[Jeremy Stocker]

That's good to hear. Part of the reason why we bought the yuneec was what we had heard about the customer service. They told me that once they check it in, that it will take 7 days at the most. It was delivered to them on Wednesday. I haven't received anything saying that it has been checked in yet.

 

[Photomaker]

One of my friends in CA is a manager of a Camera store and sells both Yuneec and DJI. He said that the customer service at DJI is horrible and had to wait on hold for over an hour. He said the customer service at Yuneec was excellent and great to deal with.
Some of my aircraft pilot friends fly drones, and like the performance and electronics of DJI, but have experienced terrible customer service.

 

[Lattieg]

About two weeks ago, I purchased a new Q500 to replace one that had crashed. While flying, I noticed the drone was not responding well – the drone was reacting sluggish and not responding quickly. It did respond to triggering the camera, but the movement of the camera up and down, and the direction of the drone and height adjustment was slow to respond. This was an issue I had with my previous Q500, and was told by Yuneec that that was normal.

Yesterday, I was photographing a home in the country with my new Q500, I flew up to about 300 ft with no issues. Shortly afterwards the drone started acting erratically, and not responding to the controls and started drifting away. I tried bringing it down but got no response, even after going into the home position.
In the monitor, I noticed the drone rotating and moving further away, until it went out of sight. And, because it had a new, fully charged battery, it had plenty of flight time available to travel, possibly a couple of miles. Because of the wooded area, it was impossible to find.
I was under the impression that the drone would return to home if it lost a signal. has anyone had this issue with their drone, and is there any GPS tracking device I can attach to my next drone so I can find it if it flies away again.

Two weeks ago I had a similar issue where drone wasn't responding to my command, the only thing that save me was several friends were able to run after the drone before it completely got out of site. Not sure what's going on and the email address that is on the Yuneec website does not work, I purchased two new batteries thinking that's perhaps the battery was the cause of the flyaway since prior to the drone flying away the low battery came on. This time I kept the drone about 3 feet off the ground and it start to fly away after about 4 minutes, I try to control it and wasn't getting any response other than using the kill switch. I am now thinking about another brand of drones, any advice?

 

[Lattieg]

Two weeks ago I had a similar issue where drone wasn't responding to my command, the only thing that save me was several friends were able to run after the drone before it completely got out of site. Not sure what's going on and the email address that is on the Yuneec website does not work, I purchased two new batteries thinking that's perhaps the battery was the cause of the flyaway since prior to the drone flying away the low battery came on. This time I kept the drone about 3 feet off the ground and it start to fly away after about 4 minutes, I try to control it and wasn't getting any response other than using the kill switch.I am now thinking about another brand of drones, any advice?

 

[Lattieg]

Thanks Dave, I will look into the GPS tracker.
As per this forum, I called Yuneec and spoke to a tech (very nice people) and told them about my fly away. They informed me they don't cover fly always or crashes, but wanted me to remove the card from the transmitter. I asked where it was located,and removed the battery compartment-cover and battery. When I looked inside, I told them there was no card. The tech told me to hold on and spoke to a manager.
A few minutes later, the tech asked for all my contact information and mailing address. They said they were sending me a replacement which I received last week. they then helped me bind the new drone with my transmitter. They also told me to always do a compass calibration if I don't fly in the same location or more than 25 miles from my last calibrated flight.

if Yuneec didn't replace the drone, I was going to switch to a DJI Phantom 4. But, I was so pleased with their customer service, that I ordered more props, and more batteries (which for some reason, after a few months of charging, becomes bloated and are hard insert into the drone, also their flight time becomes substantially reduced to about 5 min). . I try not to leave the batteries on the charger for more than two hrs. I don't know if anyone else experiences this.

Yes, I have 5 batteries with the same issue

 

[Photomaker]

Two weeks ago I had a similar issue where drone wasn't responding to my command, the only thing that save me was several friends were able to run after the drone before it completely got out of site. Not sure what's going on and the email address that is on the Yuneec website does not work, I purchased two new batteries thinking that's perhaps the battery was the cause of the flyaway since prior to the drone flying away the low battery came on. This time I kept the drone about 3 feet off the ground and it start to fly away after about 4 minutes, I try to control it and wasn't getting any response other than using the kill switch. I am now thinking about another brand of drones, any advice?[/QUOTE

 

[Photomaker]

I experienced that issue of drifting. I landed my drone, and re-did the compass calibration. after that, the drone started to fly more stable.

I do notice that with my new Carbon props, (which I only tried once) the drone was more responsive, but looked like it was a little unstable while hovering. I need to see if I mounted them correctly, as I almost felt like they were cross threading, but they did seat.

 

[Jeremy Stocker]

We have now had fly away three times. 2 of the times it has crashed. It appears to be when the battery is low. Once the battery gets low we are not continuing to fly around but return to the controller when it seems to happen. The last time this happened, we were trying to land, holding down the left stick when it then went up (vertical) then forward and crashed. Yuneec has done a good job helping us, but this is a major concern.