Fly away and crash

[calistogasolo]

Today I thought it would be a good day to practice with my Solo.

It didn't go well.first of all,I couldn't get a GPS lock, so I moved to another location and was able to take off. I pushed the home bitten to bring it back down and all of a sudden my drone shot up to 200 feet or more and took off in the opposite direction.
It was basically uncontrollable, I mean I have a high range antenna and I all I could to is turn it around, but I couldn't change altitude or side to side and it crashed into the top of a tree.

 

[Acroduster]

Any chance you had your A or B button set to Fly:manual and hit it? Could have saved your bird...

 

[calistogasolo]

No..but I probably could've saved it from crashing by just pausing it. It took off so fast...i was more concerned in keeping it out of the tree..i failed.

 

[pyrate]

This sounds like you were using the android app with return to me option set rather than return home. It does exactly that in that scenario
It's also possible solo took off without a fix and was returning to its last known fix

 

[calistogasolo]

In any rate...i won't be doing anything until I can get it out of the tree.

 

[Acroduster]

Unfortunately, pause probably would not have helped you. Pause uses GPS, so if your GPS signal is suspect, it's not likely to be able to step in and save the day.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

In the beginning you say it shot up over 200ft. Then say it went into a tree. Those two things are mutually exclusive unless you're cruising around amongst California Red Woods. Can you be a little more specific about what it did? Video? Logs?

 

[skyhax]

I would use stock antennas until you get this sorted.

 

[calistogasolo]

Well see when I can get to the logs.

 

[KDan]

The advice given to have your A or B button programmed to manual mode obviously can't be repeated often enough.

Taking off and landing in GPS compromised locations has got the be the #1 cause of fly-aways and crashes. Your mention of nearby trees and your difficulty of getting a GPS lock is revealing. Don't assume it's OK to fly with GPS just because you managed to get a "ready for take-off". If you are in a ground location that has a significant part of the sky blocked by trees or buildings you are playing with fire.
The problem isn't just loss of satellites, it's multi-path interference. If you suddenly lose line of sight with one or more satellites, but a reflected signal from those satellites is present, those signals suddenly arrived delayed. Under some conditions the GPS may not be able to distinguish the signals as being reflected and it will interpret them as a sudden change in the position of the vehicle and will attempt to compensate. The result is that the vehicle will sometimes tend to rapidly fly toward the object that is reflecting the signals. This is the nature of GPS receivers... Especially low cost consumer models which lack the sophisticated multipath rejection capabilities of expensive commercial units.

Program that "A" or "B" button for manual mode. Practice flying in manual and always be ready to press it upon the first sign of trouble.

 

[calistogasolo]

Thanks for the info

I kind of realized all that interferences with the GPS in hindsite.

What commercial models are you talking about bye the way.

 

[KDan]

Thanks for the info

I kind of realized all that interferences with the GPS in hindsite.

What commercial models are you talking about bye the way.

Ones that typically cost many hundreds if not thousands of dollars. They use sophisticated signal processing to try to reject reflected signals. Multiple receivers and correlators may be used. There are many companies that make highend GPS systems for commercial and military use. They far outperform our "toy" GPS receivers. But under harsh conditions, even they can be fooled.
GPS/GLONASS/BDS RTK/PPK Board, Receiver & Solutions from Tersus GNSS is just one example.

 

[calistogasolo]

Sounds a little out of my price range.

 

[Deleted member 11153]

The advice given to have your A or B button programmed to manual mode obviously can't be repeated often enough.

Taking off and landing in GPS compromised locations has got the be the #1 cause of fly-aways and crashes. Your mention of nearby trees and your difficulty of getting a GPS lock is revealing. Don't assume it's OK to fly with GPS just because you managed to get a "ready for take-off". If you are in a ground location that has a significant part of the sky blocked by trees or buildings you are playing with fire.
The problem isn't just loss of satellites, it's multi-path interference. If you suddenly lose line of sight with one or more satellites, but a reflected signal from those satellites is present, those signals suddenly arrived delayed. Under some conditions the GPS may not be able to distinguish the signals as being reflected and it will interpret them as a sudden change in the position of the vehicle and will attempt to compensate. The result is that the vehicle will sometimes tend to rapidly fly toward the object that is reflecting the signals. This is the nature of GPS receivers... Especially low cost consumer models which lack the sophisticated multipath rejection capabilities of expensive commercial units.

Program that "A" or "B" button for manual mode. Practice flying in manual and always be ready to press it upon the first sign of trouble.

These are interesting comments to me, KDan. I was flying close to a covered bridge yesterday and the only place I could take off was a small area just next to it (the right hand side of this photo Narrows Bridge). I got a pretty good GPS lock and took off but since I was close to trees I was losing and regaining the GPS, so the Solo would switch from GPS to Manual mode and back. But unlike when I choose Manual on purpose, the drone was difficult to control. Could this be the multi-path issue you mention?