I know there are a few thread about Sparks falling out of the sky and I experienced it today. I had loitered at 160 metres for a couple of minutes taking pictures and then activated RTH. The drone came right over my house which was the home point. Then it went into LANDING mode and descended at the usual speed. At 100 metres, the motors stopped and it started to fall. I could see the propellers windmilling as it got lower and I think that slowed the fall a bit but still it was dropping at 4 metres/sec, when usually it would be 1.2 m/sec.
My fear was it would land away from the house in a neighbour's area or worse, on somebody, as I had totally no control. Very, very luckily, it was right over an awning and it impacted the awning, bounced up again and I saw the propellers spinning again so I tried to regain control and managed to control it and brought it back to my landing area. Very, very lucky.
Normally, I use RTH to bring the drone within close range and then stop it and manually guide it to land. It's not always accurate enough to land on the GPS home point so I handle the last bit myself. I do remember that I did hit the STOP FUNCTION button on the controller as it was coming down but from all the previous times, that is supposed to just cancel the mode and it goes into a hover. That button is not supposed to shut down the engine, I am sure! Maybe a glitch in the signal did that although I don't think DJI would have anything in its software that has an engine shutdown (while flying) command. It would be too dangerous.
There was no message indicating signal loss and as it was in LANDING mode, it was under computer control.
The drone doesn't seem to be damaged though I can't be sure about inside. The camera still works and it still starts up and behaves normally. But I have lost confidence in this unit (my third DJI drone) and maybe I'll save money on repairs and use it to get another one, either a Mavic Air or Pro.
Any comments would be welcome.
My fear was it would land away from the house in a neighbour's area or worse, on somebody, as I had totally no control. Very, very luckily, it was right over an awning and it impacted the awning, bounced up again and I saw the propellers spinning again so I tried to regain control and managed to control it and brought it back to my landing area. Very, very lucky.
Normally, I use RTH to bring the drone within close range and then stop it and manually guide it to land. It's not always accurate enough to land on the GPS home point so I handle the last bit myself. I do remember that I did hit the STOP FUNCTION button on the controller as it was coming down but from all the previous times, that is supposed to just cancel the mode and it goes into a hover. That button is not supposed to shut down the engine, I am sure! Maybe a glitch in the signal did that although I don't think DJI would have anything in its software that has an engine shutdown (while flying) command. It would be too dangerous.
There was no message indicating signal loss and as it was in LANDING mode, it was under computer control.
The drone doesn't seem to be damaged though I can't be sure about inside. The camera still works and it still starts up and behaves normally. But I have lost confidence in this unit (my third DJI drone) and maybe I'll save money on repairs and use it to get another one, either a Mavic Air or Pro.
Any comments would be welcome.