Onboard video from a flight in Pittsburgh at the end of last year. Notice how bad the Hoverfly Gimbal controller was working (took them a long time to get the kinks out and there where still a bunch when i switched to the Radians.) This is the closest I have ever come to losing or crashing my CS8. My WKM has done this more than once too, this just happened to be at the worst possible time. Far away, next to a bridge, over a river, at night, and we had tape over the LED's to dim them cause they where flaring into the camera lens. I still have no reason why the WKM does or did this.
Very, very scary. How did you manage to find your orientation if you were using 360 mount? By pointing up the camera and find the front boom from the colors? Recovering from this kind of situations requires lots of experience and very good piloting skills. Just curiosity, are you now confident with your WKM?
it was tough because I didnt have FPV downlink setup at the time of that video, and my Camera ops Downlink is 5.8ghz and went out when the heli went on the other side of the bridge...i thought it crashed then got signal again on the monitor as we ran under the bridge. I told the camera op to find the front boom and at least knew which way it was pointing but because the gimbal was correcting couldnt tell if it was tilted one way or the other. I am confident in my flying skills, flew planes and then 3d helis before getting into the world of multirotors but not confident in my wkm. I am looking forward to the FreeFly controller. My wkm has done this two me 1 or 2 other times but it was a lot closer to me so it was easier to flip into manual and recover.
What radio setup are you using? Maybe it's not the WKM but the interference from the water/bridge and distance. Just a thought.
8fg super and I would have thought distance was an issue but it has done it once or twice before closer to me over land in the desert. It is for sure the wkm
I find it unbelievably ironic that my Cinestar 8 crashed today 7 months after the incident i posted a video of just yesterday! Haven't gotten a chance to look it over but i am incredibly bummed. 20 seconds into the 4th flight of the day and it dipped to one side and started dropping but sounded like it was still running for a second during and after the dip then lost power and just dropped like a rock. When I got up to it there was no power to the receiver and when i unplugged and plugged the batteries back in it powered up. The only thing I can think of failing is the DJI PMU, but would it fail and then be able to reboot after being unplugged and plugged back in? This was my last straw with DJI stuff for sure...I just wish it wasn't such an expensive lesson. I should have switched 7 months ago after the issue over the water I posted.
100% sure it was the PMU, just got home and plugged in the flight packs, the PMU immediately starts warming up and gets hotter and hotter and it must have thermal shut itself down while flying. No shorts in any of the wiring and it does it without motors running just plugged in, Im assuming it has a short internally in it or something is wrong with it internally.
I haven't gone through it yet until I talk with my insurance and figure out how this all works. I have never had a crash or had to deal with insurance for something like this. Does anyone know how it works? Do they make you take it to a hobby shop to be evaluated? I know more than my hobby shop people do especially about multirotors.
Oh no.....that is NOT want I wanted to see. Normally, you'd find a line up of forum members ready to help you analyze flight log data, but with DJI, I'm not sure what it might keep and who on the forum can help you analyze it. I'm not sure which forum members have insurance coverage -- because I only fly non-commercially, my coverage is via the Academy of Model Aeronautics and I'm not sure whether you're a member. What a bummer, Tristan.... Keep us posted on what you learn about the causes. Andy.
Please let us know on the insurance piece. Did you have equipment coverage, who is the carrier, etc. There are very few postings about the results of someone who has had insurance and a lot of folks would be interested in knowing your results.
Thank you guys. I have equipment coverage as well as liability. I am also an AMA member. I am on the phone with my insurance right now and I will let everyone know how it all pans out. Im waiting to hear back from Robert at dji USA to talk about the pmu etc. I don't want to open it myself and void the warranty.
Thanks for the information Tristan -- did you manage to get insurance coverage from an insurance company other than the one the AMA uses? As Gary says, we'd be very interested to learn more details. Andy.
Yea it is a separate insurance company that has nothing to do with the AMA. Ill report back tomorrow about this same time once the adjuster/claims person calls me back and I find out more details on how this is all going to play out.
I'm sorry to hear this. At least, it didn't injured anyone. The damage of the copter itself can be repaired, or the parts can replaced. What FC are you considering right now until FF FC comes to market? I think no one will be able to convince you to use WKM again.
Thanks Ozkan, and to be honest I have no idea. Still waiting to talk to insurance adjuster today and Ill go from there.
Sorry to hear. I have flown very close to that exact spot (not over the bridge and cars though) and not in night. That spot is very dangerous to fly in because there are two TV antennas on the Mt Washington Hill that can interfere and there are many cell towers around that can also interfer with the GPS and radio signals. I don't know a thing about your system or how the GPS signal is used with it but you can't use any kind of GPS assistance in town or you are just asking for trouble. Here's the footage I took of that exact same spot with altitude hold on but no GPS (well almost as I didn't get that close to the bridge).