mediaguru
Member
I can barely breath. I did an evening flight with my T960, just like I do every evening. This time though I was quite high. I was flying in ATT mode when all the lights on the bird went dark and I could see it free falling. The first thing I could think of was to jam it into GPS mode. When I did that the lights came back on and I could hear it rev up the motors higher than I have ever heard. It put on the air brakes and somehow leveled itself off. In looking at the logs, the thing dropped from 222 meters up to 88 before I gained control. It was literally falling from the sky. I just did the math. 450 feet it dropped in about 10 seconds.
I thought it was a total power outage but that would mean the log would cut off at that point. You can see in the log below the event takes place at about 260 seconds.
At 230 seconds I got a notice that RSS level was critical. So I started bringing it closer. You can see that it went into safe mode for what appears to be a couple of seconds. At 257 seconds it goes into manual mode. I did NOT switch to manual mode. I never fly in manual. Not sure about my skills yet. Two seconds into manual mode it dropped.
http://log.xaircraft.com/report.htm#2014_08_25_195607.750_66.1.05.52
I'm still a bit shaken, and I brought her in fine and was so nervous when I landed that I tipped the bird over, luckily in long grass.
A quick exam of the frame shows nothing loose. The G forces rotated the gimbal 45 degrees. The camera was in photo mode, or I'd watch and listen to the video to get a better idea what happened.
I suspect it is possible that the lights were always on, but when it was dropping I could not see them. But that would be pretty unlikely. It was literally falling to its death until I somehow saved it.
Thoughts?
UPDATE: Just looked at some of the photos. One was snapped which tells a lot. The camera was pointing straight down at the ground, as well as the front right arm. The front was pitched beyond 90 degrees downward at the time the photo was taken. The LED lights were ON.
I thought it was a total power outage but that would mean the log would cut off at that point. You can see in the log below the event takes place at about 260 seconds.
At 230 seconds I got a notice that RSS level was critical. So I started bringing it closer. You can see that it went into safe mode for what appears to be a couple of seconds. At 257 seconds it goes into manual mode. I did NOT switch to manual mode. I never fly in manual. Not sure about my skills yet. Two seconds into manual mode it dropped.
http://log.xaircraft.com/report.htm#2014_08_25_195607.750_66.1.05.52
I'm still a bit shaken, and I brought her in fine and was so nervous when I landed that I tipped the bird over, luckily in long grass.
A quick exam of the frame shows nothing loose. The G forces rotated the gimbal 45 degrees. The camera was in photo mode, or I'd watch and listen to the video to get a better idea what happened.
I suspect it is possible that the lights were always on, but when it was dropping I could not see them. But that would be pretty unlikely. It was literally falling to its death until I somehow saved it.
Thoughts?
UPDATE: Just looked at some of the photos. One was snapped which tells a lot. The camera was pointing straight down at the ground, as well as the front right arm. The front was pitched beyond 90 degrees downward at the time the photo was taken. The LED lights were ON.
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