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Now I understand the "Fly Away"

I pretty much figured the battery was going to be done for.


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Sorry to hear of your mishap. And you were so careful with it. Any chance it could be condensation?
 
Pat, I'm so sorry to hear about this and I hope you're somehow able to retrieve it. My H in Iceland is still flying in a very flaky way. I flew 3 batteries yesterday the first two were great flights...with the third battery it
started drifting horribly from side to side...I almost hit the top of a glacial calf but pulled it back in time...it took a while to catch land it...I guess it's good it started drifting early in the flight...your situation is very sad and I hope somehow it works out for you....I'll be interested to hear if you ever figure out what the problem was.
 
Just signed up here so I could post to this. I'm a veteran from 2 branches and sorry to hear of this. I've had a flyaway at low altitude (repaired). Look online for a ham radio group and seek assistance from them. May sound funny, but many hams deal with high trees for antenna support and have high reach poles, etc. May be able to loop your Typhoon H. You can tell them to blame KD0OAL.
 
Pat, I'm so sorry to hear about this and I hope you're somehow able to retrieve it. My H in Iceland is still flying in a very flaky way. I flew 3 batteries yesterday the first two were great flights...with the third battery it
started drifting horribly from side to side...I almost hit the top of a glacial calf but pulled it back in time...it took a while to catch land it...I guess it's good it started drifting early in the flight...your situation is very sad and I hope somehow it works out for you....I'll be interested to hear if you ever figure out what the problem was.
One thing I now do since my fly away a few months ago is power off the ST16 each time I change the battery in the Typhoon H. I never used to do this. I'd always land, leave the ST16 on and change the battery in the H and take off again. My theory is that by powering up the ST16 & H each time, previous settings are removed. Not sure if it helps but so far all has been well.
 
The tree is not mine and the size of the thing suggests the owners might not like hacking at it. Best boom truck option has a 60' boom at a couple hundred $$ for rental but it could not get close enough to make use of it. Too much snow on the ground, property access is restricted, and a fair amount of damage to the property getting in and out is assured. There would need to be a couple trees removed to get to it. Closest the truck could get to the tree is about 80', before extending the boom. I'm tight with local emergency responders but that's a no go regardless for the same reason, poor access and they don't want to risk the equipment or damage private property. A friend has a Hughes 500 but the H is well nested and would not get blown off the tree.

Being in a tree sounds like an easy thing to recover from until you start looking at all the factors involved. Climbing will likely be the only way, but that only works if the tree branches getting to it will support the climber. I won't put someone in a position where they could take a 40' fall for a toy, nor generate a few thousand $$ in property damage to recover it. It's not worth a broken back or a death. Frustrating to be able to see it. So close yet so far away.

As for determining what went wrong, even if I recover it and send it in the odds of Yuneec telling me what failed are pretty slim. There's a trouble ticket started. Anyone know what error flag 32 represents?
 
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My quick "Macgyver" thought suggestion would be...

Take one of your other drones out to the location. Tie some fishing line to the drone leg. Fly the drone up one side of the tree and over the area where your Typhoon H is, then down the other side. The fishing line will now form a line up one side of the tree and down the other.

Tie a thicker nylon cord to the fishing line and pull it up one side of the tree and down the other. Now with plenty of luck you can pull both ends of the rope downward and outward through branches and hopefully to your Typhoon H, causing it to fall out of the tree.
 
I'll bet you did not realize you had so many friends here...:)

I did not, but I'm grateful to have them. I think the battery finally died. Tree didn't erupt in flames so it's not coming down that way. Amazing how long that battery stayed above 15v sitting in the tree.

I have a couple people looking into it to see how it might get done. Yuneec has the tel files. Not much more to do for the moment. That was the first time I put the ND8 filter on that thing. It was a test flight to do some filter comparisons with a reflective snow covered area shoot.

Captain,

Like you I always perform a full shut down between batteries or take offs.

Vortex and others,

When you think about it, unless an aircraft is on an automated way point mission, loss of compass or GPS should not be cause for the aircraft to take off on it's own. This is something I've been curious about for some time now. Unless being commanded to follow a route or go to a location a hover capable aircraft should just loiter roughly in place and drift with the wind. Become somewhat unstable in altitude and wander a bit but not suddenly head out on it's own. There are no lost comm routing provisions in these things.
 
My quick "Macgyver" thought suggestion would be...

Take one of your other drones out to the location. Tie some fishing line to the drone leg. Fly the drone up one side of the tree and over the area where your Typhoon H is, then down the other side. The fishing line will now form a line up one side of the tree and down the other.

Nice idea and one that I've used before, almost getting my aircraft stuck trying to recover one that belonged to someone else in the process. Unfortunately I packed up all my other aircraft and took them to my home in California 4 weeks ago. 4 months from now my plans are to be back home and doing aerial photo work for a living.
 
I did not, but I'm grateful to have them. I think the battery finally died. Tree didn't erupt in flames so it's not coming down that way. Amazing how long that battery stayed above 15v sitting in the tree.

I have a couple people looking into it to see how it might get done. Yuneec has the tel files. Not much more to do for the moment. That was the first time I put the ND8 filter on that thing. It was a test flight to do some filter comparisons with a reflective snow covered area shoot.

Captain,

Like you I always perform a full shut down between batteries or take offs.

Vortex and others,

When you think about it, unless an aircraft is on an automated way point mission, loss of compass or GPS should not be cause for the aircraft to take off on it's own. This is something I've been curious about for some time now. Unless being commanded to follow a route or go to a location a hover capable aircraft should just loiter roughly in place and drift with the wind. Become somewhat unstable in altitude and wander a bit but not suddenly head out on it's own. There are no lost comm routing provisions in these things.

I agree but something seems to trigger the H to misinterpret it's GPS position. It happened to me in this video go to 6:20. It happened when I turned on GPS so I figured it is a GPS glitch. Now after the retract glitch I wonder if they are related like a bus message that gets corrupted or something, I see this in modern CAN bus systems.

 
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Certainly understand your reasoning. Unfortunately none of these outfits outside of the Ardu community like to share what they have going on inside.


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Sorry to hear about that. A flyaway is my most dreaded fear with this thing. So far I've been lucky. I emailed Yuneec about it expressing my concerns and they said this is a rare occurrence whatever that means in true numbers. Yuneec also said they would take care of it if it did happen so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. You may just end up with two birds out of this or at least a bunch of spare parts. I hope Yuneec takes care of you.
 
It appears the temperature dies affect flight. I had an issue I with my Q5004K.... not quite to the extent of yours though.

Tell the fire department that it's your cat in the tree ;)
 
Just signed up here so I could post to this. I'm a veteran from 2 branches and sorry to hear of this. I've had a flyaway at low altitude (repaired). Look online for a ham radio group and seek assistance from them. May sound funny, but many hams deal with high trees for antenna support and have high reach poles, etc. May be able to loop your Typhoon H. You can tell them to blame KD0OAL.

There's a lot more of you multi branch folks around than most might imagine. I've met people that have done three. Don't how you folk do it.
 
Good thought Cranky but around here they know cats can climb trees in both directions. Tomorrow is a new day. Perhaps something effective will come to mind.
 
Good thought Cranky but around here they know cats can climb trees in both directions. Tomorrow is a new day. Perhaps something effective will come to mind.

or tell em it's your son, Ty... ;)
 
Sorry to hear about your problem Pat. I don't think that temp should cause a problem. I asked tech support what the temp limit was and they said 14 F, so I figured I'd push it and flew at 6F over Lake Superior and the only thing it affected was my flight time. I was going to try and fly this morning , right now the air temp is -25F and the wind chill is -35 to -40 or to F....in cold. After hearing of your problem I think I'm going back to bed insted. I don't know what it would do to my battery. Could it be a combo of temp and humidty in your area?
 

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