Was flying in Montana last week. The winds had been really strong all morning but started to die down a bit. We decided to fly but the winds were still a good 15-20mph without any major gusts. We took off, did a flight and landed. We were flying with the wind which was helping but we needed a second take. The winds were still ok so we decided to go again. During this flight however a HUGE gust of wind hit the copter on it's way back. I tried to get the copter to stop getting pushed into the wind but the wind was too strong. At one point I was full throttle and full forward on the nick stick trying to get the copter to stop. Finally the wind let up and I got it on the ground... I didn't do any more flights till much later in the day. Josh
Woah scary stuff... nice work saving it Josh! This guy didn't do quite so well... and there wasn't even wind
There is much speculation that he was running a NAZA on a 500mm octo, which isn't advisable, among other things. I also observed that his copter seemed to be built out of clone Cinestar parts, to some degree, although it doesn't appear this was an airframe failure. There's a very active thread over there about this. I suggest you give it a read if you're interested. http://www.multirotorforums.com/showthread.php?15119-Take-free-flying-lessons-from-this-guy! I wrote this: I just captured the video off YouTube and watched it carefully frame-by-frame. It appears just before he lost control, the copter banked back toward him, well past 45° (nearly to 90° maybe) before it fell out of the frame and reappeared completely out of control. I've experienced this before when I was just learning. Once a MR goes into a serious bank like that, it has a hard time maintaining lift, and turns into an airplane, basically. And if you go fast enough, you can keep it in the air.My theory is that he lost track of the copter in the trees, and pulled back too hard on the sticks to try and keep it aloft, applying more and more power as he got lower over the water. But by then he was heading back at a very high rate of speed, and was effectively out of control.Here you go:
That looks like orientation loss to me... even when watching the video when it starts to tilt you can get the wrong orientation if you look at it as though its tilting forward. He then just continues to pull the stick back when its already tilting back. You know how its goes from there... out of control and into cars!
I think this was simple. I think he inadvertently placed it from Atti to Manual. With DJI products manual gives you 360 degrees about all axis's., it does not self level when the stick is centered. It looks like the pitch goes well beyond 35 Degrees it didn't look abrupt. You cant see it anymore the video is offline, but at 8:19 it looks like the pitch is back to 10 degrees forward Opposite direction but it was travelling so fast he most did lose sight of it as it moved forward. I agree that distance may have played a factor if he did not realize he went manual he may have not seen that he was pitching continuously. Imagine you think you pull back stick back and in your mind you are thinking that you are only pitching 10 degrees back and its holding there. But, because you have it in manual it keeps pitching back beyond 60 degrees then you notice it drop. you apply a forward correction, but you forget you need throttle because in DJI Atti you are always in auto throttle in Atti, but Manual throttel when in manual so you forget that and its happening so fast. Thanks to Gary for finding the exact location of this I figured out that the copter was about 300 feet away from the point of impact. It took about 3 seconds or so to move 300 feet that's 65 miles per hour. My guess is that he had it in Atti and moved in the wrong direction and went to manual or he thought he had it in GPS Atti tried to switch it to Atti but went manual instead. I tested my theory out last night in Aero Sim RC with the DJI F450 model. I was able to recreate this almost perfectly. If he kept this copter at a 60 degree attitude it would have fell in the water. But if he pitched forward he would arrested the descent and then allowed it to travel back they way it did. If I could record on Aerosim RC I could post my recreation of this. Shaun
My opinion on this unfortunate crash is not so much trying to guess why it crash, I hope the fellow pilot that crash could share with us his experience on this unfortunate event, I rather bring out to fellow pilots of the potential of been distracted wile setting up, like in this case by someone asking questions about the copter, how it fly's, how cool it is, etc, weather is for interview or just curious, well intended questions, that you, me etc, some times eagerly answer, wile trying to remember all of the things we need to make sure are right before a flight, this distractions happen at the critical moments before a flight, its so easy to overlook something, even a simple thing that could escalate to critical at take off, or critical in flight, perhaps I am wrong or exaggerating but for me the moment I get to prep for a flight there should be no more teaching and no more talking to anyone if a DP or director still need to talk about the flight the prep should be stop and address them separate from the prep what do you guys think
I agree it is good if the pilot were to come on here and share his event's maybe even explain explained what happened. But until then, I think it is extremely important to discuss potential causes on why it crashed, even if the ideas are not be 100% accurate to this specific event. But if people look at these events and come up with plausible reasons on it could have happened, hopefully that may enhance someone else's awareness to these systems. Its all a part of having "safety of flight" discussion. These systems are very nascent technology they have not been around too long in aviation parlance. As time goes on there will more systems in the market each of them having their own eccentricities about them. I hate to say it this way but sometimes the best way to learn how to fly well is by the mistakes others. I personally benefited from these discussions. When I built my system for the first time I learned that I needed to change the deans connector to EC5's from someone else's crash. I learned that the BL's will overheat in certain conditions and cause problems. So my point is that we all have learned seeing other's mistakes or issues. You bring up a very valid point, distractions are an issue especially when the on-lookers see it fly and come over to you. Absolutely you are correct if you get any distraction you should discontinue what you are doing with the aircraft. Address the external issue and then go back to pre-flight the aircraft, even relook at certain critical things that you may have overlooked. If its is on set I get a detailed briefing before hand with the DP and director on what their desire is. I discuss how we will perform it with the camera operator who is a large of the discussion we work as a team. I give my briefing that once the aircraft is powered I need a sterile cockpit "no talking" until it lands. I tell them I need to hear the cam op and he needs to here me if I am having a in flight issue and I need him to lock the gimbal and land. If the directoror the DP wants the shot done a different way after seeing it during the first take I land. We discuss and re shoot to change the flight profile I explain in the in the air is wrong time to change what we are doing. I use standard setiquette protocols if the first director wants us to something we cut what we are doing then land and discuss. I try to use an aerial PA if you will who's sole job is to keep people from the aircraft and crew during critical phases and keep the quiet. I do demand quiet on the set even though we are MOS, but we still need to pay attention to what we are doing in order be safe and not waste time. Distractions are a huge reason even in manned why accidents happen. Shaun
Holy Brown Pants Batman! Good job keeping your cool and getting it down in one piece. I've gotten caught in some upper high winds off a mountain a few times and had to pull full sticks to get it back before, too. It certainly has a way of taking any thrills out of "normal" flying. And this clown that flew into the cars... Jeeze. Looks like classic lost orientation, and I'm guessing from someone who preaches that manual mode is the only way to fly, while not having the experience and skills to back it up.
I think the line gets so thin when in manual or no manual we loos control of the copter specially close to the ground or to an objet, when in a split second the copter does something unexpected weather pilot error or mechanical error, I my self crash an experimental frame no too long ago in some trees I remember in the last seconds of realizing I was going down I did 2 things 1 try to stir it to some trees and 2 cut the motors so to less the damage at the end 1 boom, 1 motor and 4 props broken the damage hurt, the pride hurt a little more, but at the time the why it happened and not knowing hurt more, after interrogating my self over and over, I came to the conclusion that it was probably one of the props that slip in the motor mount the copter yaw unexpectedly I lost orientation and my attempts to correct a low flying bird made it worst, my only consolation is that I did not hurt any one or damage someone else proprerty, true Josh save it thats great considering that he was so close to the ground like he said landed call it a day and probably had a nice cold mountain beer
I had the same thing happen with a big hexa with dji naza and old firmware, all I was doing was flying tail toward me and it started to tilt to far and was picking up speed with no control, the only think I could do is cutt the power when it cleared a fense , after all the new firmware up dates it flys great, I use the firmware 2nd to the latest
How about adding a crash section to the forum where we could leave our pride outside and talk about crashes and troubleshoot, I think we would learn so much to make this speciality safer. hmmm!!! on the other hand it may be a bad idea too because people against MR's may use it against us what do you guys think
The sad part about this is I saw him on RCG blaming the Naza in his Chinastar 8, causing the crash. The reality is this is amateur hour and there are way too many people who actually don't know how to fly... flying. You need to fly in manual first proficiently and then if you want use some aided flying fine. He are handy questions to help you decide if you are ready. There is nothing wrong with aided flying but ask yoursself, why are you using them? Can you fly in all orientations without GPS/ALT/Carefree? Can you tell what orientation its is in if it is 100m away? Can you get it back without aided flying? I actually see people saying the DJI flight controllers don't fly properly in manual and are poorly designed to fly in manual. What a load. If you can't fly or setup your craft in manual, you are not ready for work in public. Simple...