Is this the GPS Firmware Bug? Yikes!

This piece of foam came in my Solo box:View attachment 159

Is it supposed to be used somewhere?
I've kept mine as well. However one of the official 3DR engineers who monitor the FB Solo Owner's group says this foam was only in place as a legal requirement for shipping of the lipo battery. He assuared everyone that you can safely store and transport your Solo without this piece of foam, and there is really no reason to keep it.
Like I said, I'm hanging on to mine.
 
At about 1:45 minutes into this Youtube video a Solo, apparently being flown by a 3DR employee seems to takes on a mind of its own, resulting in a close quarters crash, and almost some injuries.

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Is this the so called 'firmware' or 'GPS' bug I've heard of?

Best,
Gary

This had nothing to do with GPS loss. Nor is this a 3DR employee. She is a "demo girl" for a retailer who was hired for her looks and not her piloting skills.

The logs from this flight with an explanation have been posted on the Solo Owners forum on FaceBook. She simply lost orientation. She did a selfie, which points the camera at the pilot. She reamained in this positition and you can actually see her stick movements if you watch closely. She panicks and shoves the stick to the right, making the Solo veer to its left - as the logs clearly show.
 
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Was just telling my dude this yesterday. She clearly lost orientation and banged it right into that food truck.
 
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This had nothing to do with GPS loss. Nor is this a 3DR employee. She is a "demo girl" for a retailer who was hired for her looks and not her piloting skills.

The logs from this flight with an explanation have been posted on the Solo Owners forum on FaceBook. She simply lost orientation. She did a selfie, which points the camera at the pilot. She reamained in this positition and you can actually see her stick movements if you watch closely. She panicks and shoves the stick to the right, making the Solo veer to its left - as the logs clearly show.
Well, log explanation posted by 3DR is slightly suspicious - actual truck hit occurs much later then the red mark indicates, where the accel value is at positive peak, not at the negative peak, this is where the SOLO started moving rapidly. Next, there is 1.2 seconds delay between the hard stick motion and the actual start of the SOLO movement. Actually, SOLO started moving after the stick was already at neutral position. I would like to see original log files.
 
The Solo may have been drifiting, which it is prone to do. She was talking and since there is no camera on her we don't know if she was looking at the person she was talking too or looking at Solo. My guess is that she took her eyes off Solo while it was in a stable hover and when she looked back up Solo had drifted to her left. In the Above video it's clear that at 1:49 Solo started to drift, there's another video somewhere that shows her hand on the sticks and what looks like an effort to correct the drift, she pushes hard left on the sticks..........Wrong way!!!
 
The Solo may have been drifiting, which it is prone to do. She was talking and since there is no camera on her we don't know if she was looking at the person she was talking too or looking at Solo. My guess is that she took her eyes off Solo while it was in a stable hover and when she looked back up Solo had drifted to her left. In the Above video it's clear that at 1:49 Solo started to drift, there's another video somewhere that shows her hand on the sticks and what looks like an effort to correct the drift, she pushes hard left on the sticks..........Wrong way!!!
Can you post a link to the another video with the sticks please?
 
Well, log explanation posted by 3DR is slightly suspicious - actual truck hit occurs much later then the red mark indicates, where the accel value is at positive peak, not at the negative peak, this is where the SOLO started moving rapidly. Next, there is 1.2 seconds delay between the hard stick motion and the actual start of the SOLO movement. Actually, SOLO started moving after the stick was already at neutral position. I would like to see original log files.
They are available at the gitmo site. At least they were yesterday according to others. You can see the stick movements on this video as well.
 
They are available at the gitmo site. At least they were yesterday according to others. You can see the stick movements on this video as well.
I take that back, I don't see her make the stick movements, but the original shows her in the corner of the frame. I'm required on a Picket Line right now, or I'd attempt to find the original video, not the edited version.
 
I can never find anything on YouTube on my phone but search YouTube for Solo Crashes it's a compilation where they keep using her saying, "the wind took it."

If no one finds it before I get in front of a computer. I'll post it.
 
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"the wind took it"
It's somewhat cruel to my taste, but here it is:

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Just watched the video again, it's the same clip.. I will search for the clip that I thought I saw. The one with her and the sticks.
 
Just watched the video again, it's the same clip.. I will search for the clip that I thought I saw. The one with her and the sticks.
Same here, I saw the clip, I know I did....
 
Here is what 3DR says about the crash:

At 3DR we try to learn something from every flight—the good, the bad and the ugly—which is exactly why we made it quick and easy to submit your flight logs through the Solo app. We got our hands on the logs from this flight as soon as we could and turned our flight analysis machines on the demo. Here’s what we learned: 1. We’re all human. The fight logs show that the crash was unambiguously a result of pilot error. There’s lots of data below for those of you who love a good flight log.2. Flying nose-in is tricky. Before the crash, Solo was executing “Selfie,” one of its automatic Smart Shots. In Selfie, Solo faces the pilot. This is called flying “nose in” and is the mirror-image orientation of typical flight. As a result, the stick controls become inverted: Your left is Solo’s right. (Exactly the same as “stage left” being the audience’s right.) When the Selfie was completed, the pilot appropriately put Solo back into “Fly” mode to regain manual control. Likely in an attempt to get a little farther away from the taco truck, the pilot applied a small amount of “right stick” (figure 1 in the log image below), but since Solo was “nose in” it simply went to its right instead of the pilot's right. Seeing Solo go what appeared to be the wrong way, the pilot applied “full right stick” to try and correct. Unfortunately Solo did exactly that and flew “right” into the taco truck. If you’re a beginner pilot, it’s always a good idea to fly Solo “tail in” as much as possible—which is exactly what Smart Shots allow you to do. So in general, right after a Selfie it’s a good idea to rotate the copter back around until the rear of the copter is facing you, and you and Solo are looking the same way.

GhostMaster, do you own a Solo?
 
Was just telling my dude this yesterday. She clearly lost orientation and banged it right into that food truck.
I just don't get it. Why can't they add a fly mode for novice pilots in which no matter how the thing is oriented, left is left....right is right....etc..... This would prevent at lot of crashes.

Personally, I feel that the #1 cause of crashes by new RC pilots is lost of orientation.
Also, I wonder what percentage of pilots knows how to fly manually without GPS?
 
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This is the point where 3DR is dropping the ball - using GPS location of the Artoo and Solo, they can always properly rotate Solo in headless mode as soon as there is some distance between the controller and Solo like 15ft.

I don't care too much about this, but with novice pilots without enough stick time at the simulator, these errors will happen often, unless intelligent headless mode will be implemented in Solo.
 
Here is what 3DR says about the crash:

At 3DR we try to learn something from every flight—the good, the bad and the ugly—which is exactly why we made it quick and easy to submit your flight logs through the Solo app. We got our hands on the logs from this flight as soon as we could and turned our flight analysis machines on the demo. Here’s what we learned: 1. We’re all human. The fight logs show that the crash was unambiguously a result of pilot error. There’s lots of data below for those of you who love a good flight log.2. Flying nose-in is tricky. Before the crash, Solo was executing “Selfie,” one of its automatic Smart Shots. In Selfie, Solo faces the pilot. This is called flying “nose in” and is the mirror-image orientation of typical flight. As a result, the stick controls become inverted: Your left is Solo’s right. (Exactly the same as “stage left” being the audience’s right.) When the Selfie was completed, the pilot appropriately put Solo back into “Fly” mode to regain manual control. Likely in an attempt to get a little farther away from the taco truck, the pilot applied a small amount of “right stick” (figure 1 in the log image below), but since Solo was “nose in” it simply went to its right instead of the pilot's right. Seeing Solo go what appeared to be the wrong way, the pilot applied “full right stick” to try and correct. Unfortunately Solo did exactly that and flew “right” into the taco truck. If you’re a beginner pilot, it’s always a good idea to fly Solo “tail in” as much as possible—which is exactly what Smart Shots allow you to do. So in general, right after a Selfie it’s a good idea to rotate the copter back around until the rear of the copter is facing you, and you and Solo are looking the same way.

GhostMaster, do you own a Solo?
I think he's trolling.....
 
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I just don't get it. Why can't they add a fly mode for novice pilots in which no matter how the thing is oriented, left is left....right is right....etc..... This would prevent at lot of crashes.

Personally, I feel that the #1 cause of crashes by new RC pilots is lost of orientation.
Also, I wonder what percentage of pilots knows how to fly manually without GPS?
Before I purchased my Phantom 2 I had a Syma and zipped it around for a month or so. I still have it for flying around in the house. Before that I had flown a few gliders and things in the 90s.
I eyed the Phantom 1 for a while then decided to get the Syma
(A) just to see if I liked how it flew and
(B) to make sure I could fly it and
(C) it was cheap.

What I don't get is why pay $1000 for a quad if you've never flown one before. Put a $60 dollar one in the air and get used to it.

I have flown the Solo and P2 manually, though, i need to do it more often. GPS will spoil you.
 

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