Took the Neo out after not using it for a while and had another scary experience. I saw some nice clouds and wanted to take a picture, so I slapped an ND filter on the neo and sent it up, from where I was in a parking lot. I had TONS of satellites, like 24 of them. Sent it up to about 150 feet and it suddenly freaked out. Said the gimbal tilt was maxed out and started moving quickly away from its home point. Said it *lost* its home point. Said it lost satellites (it had over 20 satellites) and was going on visual, then as I tried to regain control it arced away again and basically dropped out of the sky, onto a road (thank heavens, not onto a *car*). Before I managed to find it and retrieve it, multiple cars had run over it without touching it (it was in the center of a lane). It had ended up about a block and a half from where I was.
I can blame myself for this, because I was doing something that in retrospect was both stupid and illegal - I was flying without VLOS. I don't know why I did this, I know better! It was just a sort of spur of the moment whim. But I was sitting inside my car and flying the drone directly above me, so I couldn't see it without leaning out the window. So the car roof was between the controller and the drone -- maybe it lost touch with the controller momentarily and that led to the freakout? Thing is, I still had a video feed and everything so it didn't *look* like it had lost signal. I just don't know.
Thing was, when I picked it up, it seemed to be in perfect shape except for one of the prop guards having been knocked off of it. I retrieved the prop guard and it wasn't even in bad shape except some of the connecting teeth being bent and needing to be bent back into place. I've flown it just a little indoors since then and it seems to behave totally normally.
Oh, the ND filter popped off and I couldn't find it in the street. That's the only loss I guess.
I watched this thing fall and hit the ground from probably over 100'! And yet, I hold in my hand a perfectly functional Neo, with no (new) signs of damage.
I do *not* understand how incredibly flaky these things are, but I'm glad they're also durable.
I can blame myself for this, because I was doing something that in retrospect was both stupid and illegal - I was flying without VLOS. I don't know why I did this, I know better! It was just a sort of spur of the moment whim. But I was sitting inside my car and flying the drone directly above me, so I couldn't see it without leaning out the window. So the car roof was between the controller and the drone -- maybe it lost touch with the controller momentarily and that led to the freakout? Thing is, I still had a video feed and everything so it didn't *look* like it had lost signal. I just don't know.
Thing was, when I picked it up, it seemed to be in perfect shape except for one of the prop guards having been knocked off of it. I retrieved the prop guard and it wasn't even in bad shape except some of the connecting teeth being bent and needing to be bent back into place. I've flown it just a little indoors since then and it seems to behave totally normally.
Oh, the ND filter popped off and I couldn't find it in the street. That's the only loss I guess.
I watched this thing fall and hit the ground from probably over 100'! And yet, I hold in my hand a perfectly functional Neo, with no (new) signs of damage.
I do *not* understand how incredibly flaky these things are, but I'm glad they're also durable.
