This is a major bummer. I was showing my Solo to some family members and flying outside in my yard like I have done dozens of times. For some reason on this day it would not get GPS lock even though I had 10 satellites for about 5 minutes. I guess the extra cars in the driveway had something to do with it so I put it on a cardboard box out in the yard and bingo GPS lock. I take off and fly and have a normal flight. At 25% battery I bring it back in and I try to land back on the box but the prop wash was too much and the solo was not very steady and I didn't want it to fall off the box so I flew it up and out of the way while I had everyone clear a spot on the driveway for a safe landing. It was my sons birthday and I had about 15 people watching. I get the 15% battery warning. Now with the driveway clear I start to bring it down.
I always land manually because on 2 seperate occasions I tried to land by holding the fly button while hovering a couple feet off the ground. The solo didn't not go straight down but started to strafe while trying to land which caused it to hit on only 2 legs and flipped it over. So I never land using that method anymore. I am about 2 feet off the ground when suddenly my controller vibrates and grabs my attention. I see 10% battery and it says return home and I think, "Oh no!" I look up just in time to see the Solo headed for some over head power lines ( it was the only safe place to land with so many cars and people around). I tried to pull it away from the lines, but in auto return home you have no control and I only had a second of reaction time. Solo clipped the power line and then flipped several times as it crashed into the ground. I lost 2 props, bent the metal gimbal arm and cracked the upper and lower body near the right front prop arm. My gopro got a couple dings as well.
So I send in a ticket to 3DR. They say you must fly 100 feet from ANY obstacle (they don't even follow that in their own advertisment videos and you know that this thing would pretty much useless at those distances) and Solo did not detect landing (because I land manually) so they aren't going to help. I'm pretty disappointed. I was 2 seconds away from a safe landing before the software took control from me, the operator, and crashed the solo. I'm trying to tell them their needs to be a software change where solo could hover for few seconds before engaging auto return home and prompting the user to either hit return home or land it immediately. You'd think a smart drone would notice its only 2 feet off the ground and that the operator is telling it to descend further.
What do you guys think? If your take off point becomes compromised and you no longer wish to land there should the Solo listen to you instead of trying to auto return home? Shouldn't it check its status before doing so? Shouldn't the operator who knows whats going on around the area be in total control at all time unless the controller fails or connection is lost? They keep saying to me that auto return home is a "failsafe to ensure that Solo returns to it's takeoff point unharmed". In this case The fail safe failed and created a fairly dangerous situation by flying into powerlines and flipping out of control. I am not 100% to blame here. If I had pushed return home then yes it would totally be my fault for not making sure Solo was clear of obstruction, but I didn't engage return home. It was done automatically at 10% battery.
I always land manually because on 2 seperate occasions I tried to land by holding the fly button while hovering a couple feet off the ground. The solo didn't not go straight down but started to strafe while trying to land which caused it to hit on only 2 legs and flipped it over. So I never land using that method anymore. I am about 2 feet off the ground when suddenly my controller vibrates and grabs my attention. I see 10% battery and it says return home and I think, "Oh no!" I look up just in time to see the Solo headed for some over head power lines ( it was the only safe place to land with so many cars and people around). I tried to pull it away from the lines, but in auto return home you have no control and I only had a second of reaction time. Solo clipped the power line and then flipped several times as it crashed into the ground. I lost 2 props, bent the metal gimbal arm and cracked the upper and lower body near the right front prop arm. My gopro got a couple dings as well.
So I send in a ticket to 3DR. They say you must fly 100 feet from ANY obstacle (they don't even follow that in their own advertisment videos and you know that this thing would pretty much useless at those distances) and Solo did not detect landing (because I land manually) so they aren't going to help. I'm pretty disappointed. I was 2 seconds away from a safe landing before the software took control from me, the operator, and crashed the solo. I'm trying to tell them their needs to be a software change where solo could hover for few seconds before engaging auto return home and prompting the user to either hit return home or land it immediately. You'd think a smart drone would notice its only 2 feet off the ground and that the operator is telling it to descend further.
What do you guys think? If your take off point becomes compromised and you no longer wish to land there should the Solo listen to you instead of trying to auto return home? Shouldn't it check its status before doing so? Shouldn't the operator who knows whats going on around the area be in total control at all time unless the controller fails or connection is lost? They keep saying to me that auto return home is a "failsafe to ensure that Solo returns to it's takeoff point unharmed". In this case The fail safe failed and created a fairly dangerous situation by flying into powerlines and flipping out of control. I am not 100% to blame here. If I had pushed return home then yes it would totally be my fault for not making sure Solo was clear of obstruction, but I didn't engage return home. It was done automatically at 10% battery.
