RUNAWAY PHANTOM - Members Story

David Hancock
Oct 8, 2014
2 min read

"when the DJI app says your battery is low, NO MATTER HOW LOW, it’s time for the Vision to come home especially flying over water. The Vision was losing power so fast that I couldn’t get it to rise above the cliff. I purposely crashed it on the rocky beach here in Pismo Beach CA"

Hello,

I just wanted to share two incidents of what I’ve done to my fairly new Phantom 2 Vision…

I’ve done a lot of simulation flying so flying the Vision was second nature to me. Simulators REALLY do help you feel and understanding vertical flying. I did learn, the hard way, that when the DJI app says your battery is low, NO MATTER HOW LOW, it’s time for the Vision to come home especially flying over water. The Vision was losing power so fast that I couldn’t get it to rise above the cliff. My choice was to let it drop into the ocean or fly it as fast as I could to the beach. I purposely crashed it on the rocky beach here in Pismo Beach CA. THEN, as luck would have it, a wave crashed over the Vision before I could get down to rescue it. I then dismantled the Vision and the camera completely and used an air compressor to blow all the water I could. The battery, however, didn’t make it through the water experience. After sitting for two days I inserted a new battery and what do you know!! It started right up; lights, motors and all! Plus the camera and gimbal worked as well!! Of course little did I know that the compass was now off, at least I’m assuming that’s what caused the next crash? There were no indications of such but the next crash was weird…

After the water incident, my next flight involved a ‘Run-A-Way’ Phantom. I was keeping it LOW to the ground, just in case… Then it decided to go straight up and then banked right, the controls are NOT responding at all! It crashed (hard) into someone’s driveway, two houses away. Of course all the usual items fall off, camera, battery, etc. I thought it would never fly again after that crash, but once again, after putting everything together, it DID! I now went through the compass calibration before flying it and all seemed well. Tough bird!! The crash did, however, break the camera’s damping brackets which has been replaced.

After what I’ve put this poor thing through, I’m surprised it flies at all…

JoHarley

Thanks for sharing Jo! Yes sometimes it just plain sucks! You build up a relationship pretty fast with your Phantom and then when things like this happen, it's a pretty disappointing! But good work for pressing on! It's worth it! See BATTERY FAIL SEGMENT See BATTERY ALARM SEGMENT