Solo Takeoff Gone Bad!

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 8, 2016

Yesterday I went out to fly my Solo and decided to place it on my Solo backpack Carrying Case instead of the ground. Powered up everything and got 9-10 GPS locked on and when I selected Fly to take off, the Solo barely lifted one foot off my backpack and straight into the ground snapping one of the props in half.

Has anyone experienced this type of behaviour? I won't be able to fly it again until I receive my new set of props that I ordered a few weeks ago.

Dash Hewes · Nov 8, 2016

Recommendations on this forum has always been takeoff and land in manual.

Pedals2Paddles · Nov 8, 2016

More than likely one of the legs was hung up on something on the bag. Or.... Did you power it up on the bag too? A soft surface like that can allow the solo to move while it's powering up. And when it powers up, it is calibrating it's IMUs. It is pretty good at rejecting bad calibrations. But if it gets by, it won't be able to fly properly and things like this can happen.

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 8, 2016

I did power it up on the backpack. I didn't realize that the SOLO calibrates it's IMU as it powers up. Lesson learned and thanks for the info...Sam

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 8, 2016

Dash Hewes said:
Recommendations on this forum has always been takeoff and land in manual.

Thanks for that. I was also told that the cause may have been the fact that I powered up the Solo on the soft pack sack and the IMU did not get calibrated properly and this may have been bypassed by Solo.

SARDG · Nov 8, 2016

Sam007 said:
...I won't be able to fly it again until I receive my new set of props that I ordered a few weeks ago.

What about the 2 spare props that came with the new Solo?

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 8, 2016

SARDG said:
What about the 2 spare props that came with the new Solo?

I acquired the Solo therogh a trade which unfortunately did not include any extra props...

ChrisM101 · Nov 9, 2016

do not ever move it while it is powered on. If you do , power it off and back on, and of course use a stable, flat, level surface.

Pedals2Paddles · Nov 9, 2016

ChrisM101 said:
do not ever move it while it is powered on. If you do , power it off and back on, and of course use a stable, flat, level surface.

That is not accurate. You cannot move it during the power-up calibrations. While it's beeping and blinking and such. Once it is powered up and calibrated, you can move it around all you need to. It also obviously needs to be still again to arm and takeoff.

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 10, 2016

Got it. This is all good info. Thank you all.

ChrisM101 · Nov 11, 2016

Pedals2Paddles said:
That is not accurate. You cannot move it during the power-up calibrations. While it's beeping and blinking and such. Once it is powered up and calibrated, you can move it around all you need to. It also obviously needs to be still again to arm and takeoff.

Ok fine take it with a grain of salt, but if you let it level on a surface that tilts slightly like a backpack and then move it and the tilt does not match, get ready for a back flip

Deleted member 7413 · Nov 11, 2016

ChrisM101 said:
Ok fine take it with a grain of salt, but if you let it level on a surface that tilts slightly like a backpack and then move it and the tilt does not match, get ready for a back flip

LOL, I can't remember if I did move it before takeoff; it's all a blur, but it did a nice "front flip" resulting in one of the props snapping off.

wsalopek · Nov 12, 2016

Sam007 said:
I did power it up on the backpack. I didn't realize that the SOLO calibrates it's IMU as it powers up. Lesson learned and thanks for the info...Sam

I've powered mine up on the backpack several times...no problems.

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Bill