GlassKnees
Well-Known Member
I just moved to Loveland, Colorado - my house backs up to a golf course. This morning, I decided to fly one of my modified Elev-8 quads over the course as it was a nice, sunny morning but very cold - no golfers out on the course.
I uploaded a simple waypoint mission - the aircraft was to climb to waypt. #1 and loiter for a few seconds (make sure GPS/compass is working), and then proceed on the route, a loop around the green and auto land.
After power up, and seeing I had GPS lock, I tried to arm the motors but no joy. I tried disarming and re-arming and the motors powered up. I throttled up and took off okay, switched to Auto and it responded, climbing to the initial point and hovered and then proceeded on course. I kept it in sight as it flew the loop but on its way back it seemed to waver a bit and then seemed to circle around a point.
I switched to RTL but that seemed to have no effect - it didn't seem to want to come back to the launch point but instead continued to circle, so I switched back to Stabilize to take manual control. It took me awhile to determine its orientation and bring it back overhead but I finally brought it back down, but it bounced a bit on landing and the motors throttled up again even though I had the throttle stick down. I pitched it over and the two front props hit the ground. I ran over, grabbed the aircraft with one hand, keeping the two props stuck on the ground while reaching for the battery plug and disconnected power.
I found two errors reported in the log - GPS FAILSAFE and RADIO FAILSAFE. I have not been able to find any help on the Ardupilot forum or documentation. It was a really cold morning but I don't know if the temperature was a factor.
At least I got the aircraft back safely but will not fly it again for awhile. I will try reloading the firmware and go through all the calibrations. The next time I fly, I will bring out my laptop and monitor the aircraft vial telemetry...
I uploaded a simple waypoint mission - the aircraft was to climb to waypt. #1 and loiter for a few seconds (make sure GPS/compass is working), and then proceed on the route, a loop around the green and auto land.
After power up, and seeing I had GPS lock, I tried to arm the motors but no joy. I tried disarming and re-arming and the motors powered up. I throttled up and took off okay, switched to Auto and it responded, climbing to the initial point and hovered and then proceeded on course. I kept it in sight as it flew the loop but on its way back it seemed to waver a bit and then seemed to circle around a point.
I switched to RTL but that seemed to have no effect - it didn't seem to want to come back to the launch point but instead continued to circle, so I switched back to Stabilize to take manual control. It took me awhile to determine its orientation and bring it back overhead but I finally brought it back down, but it bounced a bit on landing and the motors throttled up again even though I had the throttle stick down. I pitched it over and the two front props hit the ground. I ran over, grabbed the aircraft with one hand, keeping the two props stuck on the ground while reaching for the battery plug and disconnected power.
I found two errors reported in the log - GPS FAILSAFE and RADIO FAILSAFE. I have not been able to find any help on the Ardupilot forum or documentation. It was a really cold morning but I don't know if the temperature was a factor.
At least I got the aircraft back safely but will not fly it again for awhile. I will try reloading the firmware and go through all the calibrations. The next time I fly, I will bring out my laptop and monitor the aircraft vial telemetry...
