What to do when your TYPHOON H suddenly FLYS AWAY!!!

[CAPTAINDRONE]

UPDATE:

I contacted Yuneec Customer Service a short while ago. They opened a Case Number on my report. I sent them my flight logs and a link to my video and a short explanation.

I also provided the suggestion in writing to link the GPS ON/OFF to the AUX button on the ST16.

 

[BroVari]

Captain,

Wonder if you were getting EM interference from the power lines you mentioned. IIRC you were standing under them/launching point.

I also was thinking of that. After all you were pretty close to them. I wonder if that could have any influence on this flyaway.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

I also was thinking of that. After all you were pretty close to them. I wonder if that could have any influence on this flyaway.

I don't think so because I've flown in the exact same spot many times before without incident. I've also flown extremely close to cell phone towers without incident as well. Power lines may cause interference (less range), but they certainly would not cause a fly away. And for the sake of speculation, if they were the cause (this one and only time), then when the Typhoon came back under my control and I brought it close to the power lines for the landing, it should then have shot off again out of control, but instead it was perfectly stable, so nope... power lines probably not the cause.

 

[BobW55]

Capt,
Thanks for sending Yuneec the suggestion about using the Aux button for GPS off/on.
Maybe we need to draft a formal letter and have all that want to sign it.

 

[Brian Mackey]

Capt,
Thanks for sending Yuneec the suggestion about using the Aux button for GPS off/on.
Maybe we need to draft a formal letter and have all that want to sign it.

Please ask them to put in a delay! I do not want to bump that button and have it go to NO GPS

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

Please ask them to put in a delay! I do not want to bump that button and have it go to NO GPS

No worries it was only a suggestion. You see the AUX button is a non latch button like the start/stop button. Non latch means it has to be held in place to engage. My thought is one could press the Aux button and hold for the GPS to disengage.... this way you can't mistakenly flick it on/off.

 

[Brian Mackey]

No worries it was only a suggestion. You see the AUX button is a non latch button like the start/stop button. Non latch means it has to be held in place to engage. My thought is one could press the Aux button and hold for the GPS to disengage.... this way you can't mistakenly flick it on/off.

Love that idea, and Brandon would too! I have to go out and try turning it off/on maybe tomorrow Ill risk it LOL would rather have an observer with me but ~~

 

[glider]

A quick and dirty way to determine if there may be ferrous material under your takeoff point is to use the compass feature of your phone (my iPhone has this app, I assume Android does too?). Stand somewhere away from metal structures and look at your compass. Now, set your phone on your takeoff spot oriented exactly the same way and see if the compass goes bonkers or not.

I've never had a TBE after 1000's of flights mostly on Arducopter powered MR's, although it was an issue 2+ years ago. It seems to me the Yuneec FC system is not as sophisticated as AC and lacks the ability to correct for compass errors, whereas AC uses EKF which, assuming there are no sensor failures, has nearly eliminated TBE even if the compass has interference. However, strong EMI can screw up any system.



Since Yuneec has chosen to be a closed system we can only speculate how they handle sensor data, but TBE should be a rare occurrence IMO.

One could imagine if

For some reason the Phantoms have a very sensitive compass compared to the Typhoon H. If you place a Phantom on your car, you can't take off due to the compass error. If you place a Typhoon H on your car... no warnings, you can take off.

And that may precisely be the problem.

 

[Pedwergos]

Captain drone,

Trying not to be boring here but 1) you're standing under a power line and 2) you're feet away from a busy road.

Is this an appropriate flying location? In my opinion where you've positioned yourself is dangerous and foolish.

Power lines do affect RF comms, it's just that most of the time the system is able to deal with this. On top of that you have nice reflective surfaces whizzing by and a whole heap of water to bounce any corrupted signal to the TH thus potentially amplifying it.

You may well have a hidden issue with your TH, but if I were to try and create a technical issue, with plenty of risk and a high chance of damage to persons or property if it all goes wrong, I'd fly exactly where you're standing.

I'm a radio engineer of 11 years, now commercial drone operator and I say the above not to have a stab at you but to hope that better practices will help us all out (myself included). As well as that I don't like the idea of an out of control TH forcing a car off the road and single handedly bring the industry down to its knees!

 

[Steve Carr]

Captain drone,

Trying not to be boring here but 1) you're standing under a power line and 2) you're feet away from a busy road.

Is this an appropriate flying location? In my opinion where you've positioned yourself is dangerous and foolish.

Power lines do affect RF comms, it's just that most of the time the system is able to deal with this. On top of that you have nice reflective surfaces whizzing by and a whole heap of water to bounce any corrupted signal to the TH thus potentially amplifying it.

You may well have a hidden issue with your TH, but if I were to try and create a technical issue, with plenty of risk and a high chance of damage to persons or property if it all goes wrong, I'd fly exactly where you're standing.

I'm a radio engineer of 11 years, now commercial drone operator and I say the above not to have a stab at you but to hope that better practices will help us all out (myself included). As well as that I don't like the idea of an out of control TH forcing a car off the road and single handedly bring the industry down to its knees!

While it's worthwhile to speculate on a cause, the description provided by @CAPTAINDRONE is exactly like many others that have been posted by pilots with all levels of experience. The sudden loss of control and the subsequent reestablishment of it are key indicators of an internal unpredictable failure rather than external influence. Those who were fortunate enough to have sufficient altitude to avoid a collision and were able to turn off GPS immediately regained control. Since Yuneec has been replacing either or both the GPS and Compass modules would indicate there is, in fact, an internal malfunction which they have identified.

 

[Pedwergos]

While it's worthwhile to speculate on a cause, the description provided by @CAPTAINDRONE is exactly like many others that have been posted by pilots with all levels of experience. The sudden loss of control and the subsequent reestablishment of it are key indicators of an internal unpredictable failure rather than external influence. Those who were fortunate enough to have sufficient altitude to avoid a collision and were able to turn off GPS immediately regained control. Since Yuneec has been replacing either or both the GPS and Compass modules would indicate there is, in fact, an internal malfunction which they have identified.

Yup, I have been following this closely as want to see this sorted too. It's the flying practice that I don't agree with here.

 

[raptorheli2]

Unfortunately you see a lot of videos where no one should be flying, this is indeed one of them imo too, but it still shouldn't error like it did.

 

[BobW55]

Capt.
I have been giving a lot of thought to the video you posted of your flight log.
If you are providing RIGHT stick inputs, but the log is NOT showing them, this has to be a ST-16 fault NOT the aircraft. Either the ST-16 just stopped reading the inputs or the pots in the stick have failed.
Will be very curious to hear Yuneec's take on it all. Most of this started for users from the last ST-16 firmware update.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

Captain drone,

Trying not to be boring here but 1) you're standing under a power line and 2) you're feet away from a busy road.

Is this an appropriate flying location? In my opinion where you've positioned yourself is dangerous and foolish.

Power lines do affect RF comms, it's just that most of the time the system is able to deal with this. On top of that you have nice reflective surfaces whizzing by and a whole heap of water to bounce any corrupted signal to the TH thus potentially amplifying it.

You may well have a hidden issue with your TH, but if I were to try and create a technical issue, with plenty of risk and a high chance of damage to persons or property if it all goes wrong, I'd fly exactly where you're standing.

I'm a radio engineer of 11 years, now commercial drone operator and I say the above not to have a stab at you but to hope that better practices will help us all out (myself included). As well as that I don't like the idea of an out of control TH forcing a car off the road and single handedly bring the industry down to its knees!

Thanks, I know what you mean, however I, like all drone or RC pilots, must accept the risk and use common sense. First I can use simple logic and say the power lines are not the issue because when the Typhoon finally came under control, I brought it to within 15 feet of the powerlines and all was well. Second, I've flown in this exact location many times without incident.

As for the location and all the obstacles. Normally there is next to no traffic but on that day at that moment people were all taking their boats out of the water for the winter. If I'd had seen all that traffic, I would have never taken off. The Typhoon was intended to fly over the water where the boats were sitting, but during it's flyaway it ended up on the other side of the road. It did not crash because I kept it above the trees. I'm extremely confident in my flying abilities and fly pretty much in any location. I've never taken what I would call "stupid risks", but with the Typhoon H being the first drone in my catalog to go bezerk I'm now reevaluating my risk taking filming locations.

Since you brought this topic up, I'll add my two cents. The drones that will have an NEGATIVE impact on the industry are the new pocket style drones. The DJI Mavic is one. People (amateurs & pros) will be flying these in places never imagined before (indoors and out) and there will be plenty of crashes and possibly some media coverage. The problem is that the media is clueless when it comes to drones. They classify all drones the same, from pocket drones to drones the size of a car, so this could become a big issue in the next year when they say a drone flew into a lady in a Walmart & the media shows a photo of a Phantom, Inspire or Typhoon H on the screen... and then the public screaming begins.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

Capt.
I have been giving a lot of thought to the video you posted of your flight log.
If you are providing RIGHT stick inputs, but the log is NOT showing them, this has to be a ST-16 fault NOT the aircraft. Either the ST-16 just stopped reading the inputs or the pots in the stick have failed.
Will be very curious to hear Yuneec's take on it all. Most of this started for users from the last ST-16 firmware update.

Agreed. I'm at a lost as to why the H would ignore stick input even in cases where it is trying to sort itself out. It has to be some firmware issue which is looping in an error state until it recovers.

 

[Air One]

Capt. reading all the above input, it sounds more like a transmitter issue, I do have flown within 20 feet of a cell tower no issues, and also close to power lines where there was not a problem, I have been lucky to have no issues as of yet. However I just did the newest update a last week and have made 3 flights only all at the same location. I have never had a flyway on any of the RC planes I have flown over the past 30+ years, however I have seen others with their RC planes have a flyaway.

It may be a combination of several things all at once to cause a fluke in the signal. weather, KP index, surrounding environment, or just a plain combination of equipment blurbs. It does make me a bit nervous now the H with all the problems that have been stated here. Never ever an equipment issue with any RC plane or transmitter that I have owned. These are flying cameras/ computers and as well all know at least myself I get issues with my laptop or desktop often

Now I have been in an area flying with not a car, person, animal or anything close by when I get there and start flying, then all of a sudden they show up. That is why we all need to fly safely, and I think most here try to.

I also agree with your statement of ( I've never taken what I would call "stupid risks ) nor do I period.

I while back before I got my H was flying my Q5004k to take photos for a promo at a car junk yard, the area I was flying at was open ground in the back of the junk yard with several junk cars piled up for the photo shot. Everything was checked before take off, low KP, good weather, no power lines , cell towers, obstructions etc. just an open filed in that back of the junk yard., Transmitter and drone all good strong signals. Did the flight all went well, second flight I moved about 75 feet from my original take off spot from the first shoot, again all signals were strong, took off flew good and when as I was landing I came in from the opposite direction to land and as I was about 20 feet away and 15 to 20 feet high it went crazy for a few seconds, transmitter flickering , drone flying crazy, I was able to regain control and land. After a few days of trying to find the cause nothing, I then went back to the site to see if I had missed something and with talking with the workers they said the area that I had the problem with that just a foot or so below the ground there is a ton of all kinds of scrap metal. So was that my issue with a lot of metal under the ground that I knew nothing of ?????

Sorry for rambling just thinking out loud in trying to help figure out issues.

 

[Tecneek]

First let me say to YUNEEC... You have a "flyaway" problem with the Typhoon H.

My Typhoon H did what many others on this forum have been saying... It literally flew away out of control!!!! I'm running the latest Firmware.

I have the flight data and when you replay it, you can clearly see that the Typhoon H does not have a clue where it is. Each time I switched it into RTH it was like it went through a time portal and appeared elsewhere.

Here is what happened, and here is what I did to save it:

1. Travelled to 4 separate areas about 10 km apart from each other. Flew a battery at each location and everything was as it should be.

2. Arrived at fourth location. 4th battery inserted. Camera connected, plenty of satellites with screen showing READY. Took off in ANGLE mode (I never fly in SMART MODE). As the Typhoon H raised up between trees it was drifting to the left so I gave it full power to rise above the trees before it crashed into one. At about 30 meters it immediately QUICKLY started drifting to the left. All yaw & directional stick input had ZERO effect.

3. I could tell that the Left stick to ASSEND or DESEND was working, but with slow results. The Right stick input DID NOT produce desired results. It was as if the right joystick was not working.

4. I switched it into Return To Home (RTH) mode and it shot off at a 90 degree angle AWAY from me. It did not perform any of the RTH movements (i.e., rise and turn around, etc). I noticed that by hitting RTH it would cause the FLY AWAY to go in a different direction, so I kept flicking in and out of Angle mode and RTH mode.

5. Since there were people, cars, trees, swamp, water all around I kept the Typhoon H above the trees so that it would not crash. If you panic and bring it lower to the ground while it's out of control, it will crash.

6. Finally after a few minutes of flicking in and out of the modes it began to fly less erratic at HIGH SPEED until finally it just flew erractic at a SLOWER SPEED and began to drift. I finally was able to get it to begin a true RTH process where it rose up and came to my location (slower than normal). I put it back in Angle mode and landed it safely. As it was coming down it was flying perfectly as if nothing was ever wrong.

If any Typhoon H pilot encounters their Typhoon H doing the FLY AWAY thing, then I suggest to do the following:

1. Don't Panic
2. Raise it above all objects surrounding you (the left joystick hopefully will work to raise it)
3. Keep trying to regain control by switching between RTH and ANGLE & SMART mode (but don't leave it in SMART mode)
4. Try the RIGHT joystick and expect it to not produce the desired results, but keep trying as you don't want it to keep flying in the same direction or you may never see it again.
5. It may take two minutes for the Typhoon H and ST16 to begin to work as per normal.
6. Once you regain control and all is well, crack open a cool one.... You deserve it!

Yes I'll be in touch with Yuneec this week to advise them that they have a problem.

Here is the video of the incident:

Use the GUI to check the motors.

 

[JohnL]

Agreed. I'm at a lost as to why the H would ignore stick input even in cases where it is trying to sort itself out. It has to be some firmware issue which is looping in an error state until it recovers.

@CAPTAINDRONE @BobW55 and others, allow me to put my 2¢ in here. I'm sort of a bitter TH owner so take it with a grain of salt if you will.

Since my original and functioning ST16 was replaced with a "new" (ie, regifted defective unit from a previous customer) one from the incompetents at Yuneec Europe, I have experienced some strange behavior while flying that I'm just now attributing to faulty switches on the Tx itself. The other day upon initialization I noticed the CGO3* camera facing almost straight down instead of pointing forward like it should after bootup and initialization is complete. No movement of the camera pitch slider control (full up to full down and back again) would bring it back to its default position. Going into Hardware monitor I could see that I was only getting the servo signal in one direction, but zero in the other despite full slider movement.

So first I tried the Gimbal Calibration to see if that would fix it...it didn't. Then I went into the ST16's calibration mode by tapping the About tab several times until the hidden calibration menu appeared. I then proceeded to recalibrate all switches and sliders until everything was in the green. I turned off the TH and the ST16 and then on again. Now all of a sudden the CGO3+ was behaving as expected.

Later that day I noticed the Rabbit/Turtle control was beeping if I even touched the slider (not actually moving the slider mind you, just touching it). Going into Hardware monitor again and touching the slider until I heard this beep again showed the servo moving in partial or full direction towards Turtle, even though the slider had NOT been moved and was full detent in Rabbit mode! Do you all realize the significance of this?

I have at times while flying briefly lost command authority of both my right and left sticks (never both at the same time). I used to think this was a signal issue but inspection of my flightlogs RSSI doesn't seem to bear this out. Now I'm convinced my strange and usually nonrepeatable issues are with my crappy ST16 and defective controls. I literally have come to hate this thing and am convinced I will lose the aircraft before I have a chance to get it sold off here on Ebay España. But I just wanted to relate my own experiences with the group because I'm convinced there are a large number of TH owners out there with defective ST16 controllers. Don't think this explains the Captain's flyaway, but dodgy controls on a Tx are without a doubt a concern that some of us should keep in the back of our minds.

Sorry for the long and wordy post.

 

[Steve Carr]

Capt.
I have been giving a lot of thought to the video you posted of your flight log.
If you are providing RIGHT stick inputs, but the log is NOT showing them, this has to be a ST-16 fault NOT the aircraft. Either the ST-16 just stopped reading the inputs or the pots in the stick have failed.
Will be very curious to hear Yuneec's take on it all. Most of this started for users from the last ST-16 firmware update.

The ST16 has it's own log files which will show the stick inputs. You have to do a time comparison of the two logs to determine if the H is moving while receiving no input or if it's not responding to the inputs.
I suspect this is a similar behavior to the Q500 when an ESC is going bad. The flight controller is so busy trying to maintain position it ignores input from the ST10.
With the anomaly that seems to occur with the H, the compass and GPS are in some kind of conflict and resulting in the FC ignoring the ST16 inputs.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

@CAPTAINDRONE @BobW55 and others, allow me to put my 2¢ in here. I'm sort of a bitter TH owner so take it with a grain of salt if you will.

Later that day I noticed the Rabbit/Turtle control was beeping if I even touched the slider (not actually moving the slider mind you, just touching it). Going into Hardware monitor again and touching the slider until I heard this beep again showed the servo moving in partial or full direction towards Turtle, even though the slider had NOT been moved and was full detent in Rabbit mode! Do you all realize the significance of this?

Yup, it's not great to have a drone where each time you fly you're wondering if it's gonna do what you want it to do.

I did experience the beeping thing. The problem is with the trim controls (the D-Pads). Since the new firmware has added the trim controls, there is a conflict with the Turtle control (you can't play with the trim controls and Turtle Controls at the same time or else it beeps. To stop mine from beeping I just tapped on the right D-Pad several times to disengage whatever input the trim control was giving.