Controller gimbal cable off caused true, commanded (by fault) flyaway.

VCD

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In short: one of the three wires to the roll potenciometer broke, commanding full left.
I am not sure whatever anyone experienced it, but it can cause a true "flyaway"
 
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Yikes! That would scare me to death. Is it an uncontrollable flyaway, or are the other controls still responsive? If so, it could be kept within sight by rotating it (flying in a circle), and then it could be strategically lowered into the path of something to stop it, like a volleyball net or something. Better than losing it and/or having it crash into somebody's head, anyway. I wonder if I'd have the presence of mind to try any of those things, or just freeze up in panic as it flies away.
 
Bummer. Where did the wire break, at the gimbal or the connector? Red, yellow or black?

The controller's been fairly solid in my memory...other than the stickie buttons issue. I do remember a couple having controller wiring issues, but that was by their hand when putzing with the wifi. IIRC the controller showed a fault and wouldn't allow the bird to arm.

I wonder if I'd have the presence of mind to try any of those things, or just freeze up in panic as it flies away.
Things happen quick, first thoughts are always WTF. I had two flyways with a P2V+, we are all aware they had issues. Fortunately the controller had a switch to change flight modes. It stopped both from being a crash. I like switches over buttons...

In VCD's scenario, I'd crashed as well. Unless the controller gave a fault, I'd be thinking the bird had gone crazy. Only thing he could have done was shut down the controller...and likely that would have been too late. In hindsight all things are possible.
 
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the red wire broke (with insulation and all) 6mm from white goo on the stick's roll-gimbal end. (potentiometer) - the others look good, but feel a bit hard.
I am not sure whatever this could be due to a manufacturing defect (insulation cut) or previous flying in very low temperatures. - no other wires seems cracked, yet all of those felt rather hard.

The flying speed was set to high, this happened at only 3 meters, I swithed to althold, (but increased speed due to higher authority in althold than poshold/loiter) - giving me the impression that something was very wrong. I tried to climb, it climbed unusually slowly - due to high horizontal speed, so I ditched it in some bushes - broke 4 props, no damage.
The logs were easy to analyze, full left roll (RC input went to "1000")
I had no time to understand what was going on in flight properly, but in retrospect, switching to RTL would bring it home just fine, and on landing, it would start to relocate at much slower speed, maybe, by yawing, a slow ditching on home-spot could be done.

In any case, taking a look at the wires could be wise, unless that controller had some unfortunate /brittle insulation or bad wire batch.
 
There is definitely a way to get it back safely, but hindsight is a lot easier of course. Changing the flight mode to guided will stop it and ignore the sticks. Easily accessible if you're using Solex, Mission Planner, or QGC. I don't think it is in the old 3DR app. You can than use the fly to function of guided mode to tell the copter to fly to spot a few feet off the ground, and hit the A+B+PAUSE kill switch. You could also hit home, but you'd have to kill switch it high up since the stick will make it preposition while descending. I'm not sure I'd manage any of that in time before figuring out what's going wrong.
 
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True. Guided would work fine. The thing is that it happened shortly after takeoff at low altitude, having plenty of flight-hours did not help me to diagnose it midair as it happened. I switched to AltHold (usually, I setup stabilize on "A-button" ) - and once that did not give me the expected authority, I chose to ditch.
I had no time looking at the software, as I focused on the Solo in the hope of seeing the expected response to my input.
 
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I think virtually everyone would be screwed if that happened at a low altitude. Pulling the throttle stick down to ditch is likely the best thing to do unless you're high and have plenty of room and time to troubleshoot and think.
 
I normally spend a few moments at low altitude in an audit phase of battery health and sticks, but your situation is a true kick in the butt. Another reason I don't like people around when flying...that and I don't like people around when I'm doing anything.
 

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