The Solo can be landed upside down at full speed.

Bren · Jun 16, 2015

I found this out about an hour ago. I was over at my friends' house flying around and decided to show them a barrel roll in Acro mode. I got lots of altitude, or what I thought was plenty. The first couple loops were fine but on the third, for some reason, I throttled down when the Solo was upside down and it dropped like a rock. I had a second of panic before hitting the FLY button. The Solo was about 40 feet from the ground at this point, upside down, and falling fast. The motors kicked back on furiously but it was all too late. It slammed into the ground about 60 feet from us, upside down.

It bounced a couple feet up. The battery flew off and landed a few feet from the Solo. I felt bad. Real bad. Everyone did. I ran over expecting to see shattered plastic and snapped circuit boards everywhere. It was a gnarly crash. The only visible damage, though, was a pea sized chip on one propeller. I also noticed that two of the rubber grommet mounts had popped off and the mount was kind of dangling from the two remaining grommets. The GoPro was on but the screen was frozen and I had to hard reset it. It's fine now.

So what did I do? Reset everything! I blew the dust off, set it down, and was back up in the air with no issues, chipped prop and all. I got the mount reattached and can't believe I got away without serious damage.

I did hit a patch of mulch about 4-5 inches deep which saved the Solo, I'm sure. Even with the mulch, I can't believe I was back up in the air after hitting the ground at full speed. Lesson learned.

Careful in Acro mode, folks.

AmosMoses · Jun 17, 2015

Just about every crash I've seen so far the SOLO lands upside down and survives with minimal damage. Even though any crash sucks I'm starting to think it's by accidental design. LOL! When we get are gimbals this phenomena could be a life saver or at the least a gimbal saver.

Now as for you. Where's the footage of your reckless flying? Sounds like it would be cool to see! All though so far I've only been able to stomach a few seconds of the shaky SOLO footage......We need our gimbals!!!!

DodgeP · Jun 17, 2015

I'm thinking the solo is landing upside down because it's top heavy and maybe wants to flip over due to the weight of the battery once the props stop. Design flaw or design genius!

Rothgarr · Jun 17, 2015

I can honestly say that my P3P would be completely destroyed if it landed like that from that height. That's really impressive that the Solo survived...

Rothgarr · Jun 17, 2015

DodgeP said:
I'm thinking the solo is landing upside down because it's too heavy and maybe wants to flip over due to the weight of the battery once the props stop. Design flaw or design genius!

I was thinking the same. The Phantoms seem much more bottom heavy since the battery is inside the bird rather than on top of it. Certainly easier to replace a battery (Solo) than interior circuitry or a camera (Phantom) in the even of a crash.

rrmccabe · Jun 17, 2015

Wonder if gimbal will work upside down? Fancy flying might be a good way to get rid of props

Amazing. I don't think this is on my bucket list.

Timmytimetravel · Sep 1, 2015

Not such a silly question. Can it be flown upside down? There we some really steep picturesque mountains where I am now and not so feasible to get above them, nor produce the "dwarfing" aspect you get from looking up at them (or a shot flying up them).

I'm guessing at the very least an inverted one button mode that auto detects and makes it fly with controls per standard is out of the question. Go pro could be set on auto flip. Might have to stop start recording (or just flip it in post).

Doable?
Plenty of expensive crashes for trying it it acro?

JonW · Sep 1, 2015

Maybe if you reverse the polarity of the motors you can fly upside down

IceFyre13th · Sep 1, 2015

Just get a "stick on" GoPro Mount ( http://shop.gopro.com/mounts/replacement-parts/AGBAG-001.html#/start=1 ) and an HDMI extension ( USBFireWire.com - Mini HDMI Extension Cable )

Put the GoPro on top, problem solved.

Timmytimetravel · Sep 3, 2015

Had thought of that when I saw some drone eye view shots with other gimbals on top of it. It's my fallback plan

Andy Tomczyk · Sep 3, 2015

Sounds like some nice stunt flying, love to see the video. I don't think I'll ever have the courage for ACRO mode. Thisnk I'll just chsnge the setting in the GoPro if I want upside down video.