Dumb ways to lose your Neo

[h3045]

Dedicating this thread to ways I found to potentially lose/damage my neo (but so far luckily hasn't happned)

Hope others can share some of their interesting observations too. (If some information seems at odds with you, please correct)

1. Flying with mobile out of wifi coverage
- Drone will hang until battery drains

2. Flying in dimming light
- Starts something called attitude mode and the drone just behaves like a drunken sailor

3. [RC-N3 + drone] - Flying beyond radio signal
- The drone begins it's RTH (Return to Home) but the first thing it does is goes to the RTH altitude that you set. This means that if there is any vertical obstruction, the drone is doomed. (Mine got stuck on a tree)
- After attaining RTH height, it goes through a directed path, but does NOT do obstacle detection. (Mine was about to hit a building)

4. [Goggles 3 + MC3 + drone] - Enter settings for MC3 mid flight
- This was the dumbest/freakiest way to lose my drone and I hope a software patch fixes this. If you are mid-flight, and for some goddamn reason decide to go to the MC3 tutorial in settings ( I did it because I forgot one command and wanted to quickly take a look), the goggles stay on the tutorial screen but the tutorial will not start because you are mid-flight.
It's crazy! I could not see through the goggles, and my drone was somewhere behind a big building. I did a RTH and luckily there were no vertical or horizontal obstructions so the little guy returned. Then I could "start" the tutorial for MC3 on the goggles and my view reappeared! So stupid but scary.

5. Flying in gusty wind
- I've been pushing the drone against strong winds and at one point it sort of flipped but realigned itself. I think it could have just as easily flipped out and would have "gone with the wind"

Bonus: An eagle snaps your drone
- They think it's easy prey and attack it. Just a poetic way to say goodbye.



What are your freaky neo stories?

 

[RcHawks]

Awesome thread! What a picture!!

 

[RcHawks]

I always worry about the emergency motor shut off positioning of the sticks while flying.
Not me, but I know of two pilots who were neglectful of having a full charge on their device and one had a flyaway, the other a RTH.

 

[NEO 317]

I always worry about the emergency motor shut off positioning of the sticks while flying.

I need to test that with the NEO.

Years ago with the SPARK, it didn't work. It would spiral down but wouldn't shut the motors off.

I never tried it with the MA2 but the NEO is so light, it shouldn't damage it unless it falls on the gimbal.

 

[Kilrah]

Years ago with the SPARK, it didn't work.

There's been a setting to enable/disable CSC in flight for years.

 

[NEO 317]

I guess I and others didn't have it set correctly.

Multiple posts back in the day.

Search results for query: Csc

sparkpilots.com

.

 

[RcHawks]

When I seen it in the listing as I remember it says in case of emergency only but I didn't see an option to turn off altogether.

When I checked AI just now this is what it said.
No, the emergency stop feature on DJI drones cannot be completely disabled. While you can't turn it off entirely, you can configure it to only activate during an actual emergency. This feature is a safety mechanism and is essential in situations like auto-RTH (Return To Home) failures or if the drone is causing a threat.
Does the PIC decide what the emergency is or does the drone?
I appreciate the input on this maybe I've misunderstood.

 

[Kilrah]

When I seen it in the listing as I remember it says in case of emergency only but I didn't see an option to turn off altogether.

Yup that's how it is, i.e the drone will only accept your stop command if it considers it's in an emergency situation. We don't know what that exactly means, but probably stuff like hit an obstacle, lost a prop/motor/ESC, is upside down etc.