Photo of a near disaster!!

[Daffypuck]

Im a newb with less than 12 flights of any kind under my belt. I **** near lost my new toy today.
Winds were calm, but brisk, 6-11mph. I go to make one last flight of the day and as soon as I get to 200ft, the winds jump to 20+mph! It took off like a bat out of ****. Nothing could stop it. I tried RTH, but at the lower power, it couldnt fight the wind. I kept watching it and it kept getting farther and farther away. At one point, it was 2600' away. I switched back to angle and went full power to me and got within 1300', but to no avail. Battery was dying. It finally made connection just as it was descending quickly. I immediately overlayed the telemetry data on google earth and drove to where it said it last was located. Lo and behold, I saw flashing lights in a field! The lights really helped because dusk was upon me. I am so lucky. It couldve gone down in the trees, but landed smoothly in a field. Lesson learned, dont fly if theres a chance of sustained winds over 10mph.

 

[John K. Fitzgerald]

Pretty cool, glad you got it back unharmed! how do you overlay the telemetry?

 

[Daffypuck]

COnvert your telemetry file from the ST-10+ using st2Dash, then go to GPSVisualizer and enter that converted file and it will overlay all the telemetry data the ST-10+ has. I got as far away as 2600' and still had RC signal. I also walked at least 300' towards where I thought it was to hopefully maintain a good signal. I was sweating it. Of all those trees, it sets down in a nice level field.

 

[Daffypuck]

Heres another feature of that site. Its my elevation data. Not my altitude, but my overall elevation. You can see where it fell out of the sky at the end. Or, landed quickly.

 

[John K. Fitzgerald]

Really amazing stuff, and good to know! Thanks!!

 

[OregonDrone]

Extremely helpful post and much appreciated. Is there a step-by-step of the whole process yet? This would make a nice little tutorial.

 

[MikeK]

Im a newb with less than 12 flights of any kind under my belt. I **** near lost my new toy today.
Winds were calm, but brisk, 6-11mph. I go to make one last flight of the day and as soon as I get to 200ft, the winds jump to 20+mph! It took off like a bat out of ****. Nothing could stop it. I tried RTH, but at the lower power, it couldnt fight the wind. I kept watching it and it kept getting farther and farther away. At one point, it was 2600' away. I switched back to angle and went full power to me and got within 1300', but to no avail. Battery was dying. It finally made connection just as it was descending quickly. I immediately overlayed the telemetry data on google earth and drove to where it said it last was located. Lo and behold, I saw flashing lights in a field! The lights really helped because dusk was upon me. I am so lucky. It couldve gone down in the trees, but landed smoothly in a field. Lesson learned, dont fly if theres a chance of sustained winds over 10mph.

Daffy -- you're a good pilot! Nice work.

(I could not have done that.)

 

[nomad33fw]

Should have just lowered the altitude then flew it back to you, if there weren't obstructions. I live by the coast and having wind under 12-15 is rare at altitudes over 300 feet. Just drop her out of the offending wind. Personally I only use RTH when I somehow manage to loose sight of her in the sun glare.

 

[Fezzik]

Thanks for the story! Good to know for us newbies...

 

[stan5686]

One of the most helpful post I have read. I had a similar thing happen. I had not learned about putting the SD card in the ST10 to record telemetry. There is one in there now believe me. Also I invested in a Trackimo. I am going to try the GPSVisualizer you mentioned.

 

[Daffypuck]

Trust me, I tried to lower altitude. It took off in the wind and could not fight it.

 

[KBflyer]

FYI
Just so you know you do not have to convert your telemetry file in ST2Dash as stated in post #3. GPS Visualizer
excepts just the telemetry file as is. Exmaps.com is also a great site.
There are a few more also. If trying to use dashware this in when you to convert it with ST2Dash.exe. Or download this file and it has many more options. q500log2KLM
Downloads