A Miracle Crash

by Corsair2014 | January 5, 2014 | (0) Posted in Just Fun

So i was at an FPV meet today and i had a little incident..

My phantom had just completed a long and very high flight. i was almost home, when all of a sudden it just rolls and goes straight down... ended up finding it in someones backyard tree.


After watching the video and LISTENING TO THE AUDIO, it was not a failsafe or autpilot error at all... My power connection someone disconnected and reconnected. You can here the esc resetting itself and beeping. During this time, it rolled over into a straight down dive. 

The only thing that saved the plane from total distruction was that i held full back stick on the Transmitter. The plane initialized and powered back up about 10 feet from the roof of a house, went from straight down to about a 90 degree angle, then had a wing sheared off by a powerline and landed in a tree branch right next to it.

ill post some video later

damgage.. just one wingtip got sheared off. Will fix it with some gorilla glue. I got EXTREMELY lucky with this crash, it should have been a total loss (dove down from 500 feet)



Here is the video of the crash, with a step by step analysis and then some cool slomo etc etc... enjoy(;

 

COMMENTS

Corsair2014 on January 6, 2014
and yes, i am definitely going to be more careful in the future of where i fly, and how well my equipment is connected
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Fety on January 6, 2014
*somehow

"My power connection someone disconnected and reconnected."
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Corsair2014 on January 6, 2014
yes thanks
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checker on January 6, 2014
I still like the idea of "someone". A gremlin perhaps ? Sounds valid to me !

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Corsair2014 on January 6, 2014
maybe a demon :P
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british rcairways on January 27, 2014
That was lucky how did you end up finding it but atlest it was on camera.
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alibopo on January 6, 2014
Hi - Maybe not the reason for your problem, but I recently noticed some of my XT60 battery connectors had gone a bit weak when connecting - they slid in with zero resistance. All the batteries are about 6 months old. On one of my planes I was able to create a loss of power by wobbling the battery wires - about the same as would happen in a sharp manoeuvre, or possibly from motor vibration? I sorted it by - !!!carefully and gently!!! - pressing a suitable Philips head (cross point) screwdriver tip into the end of the pins on the male connector. That spread the four quarters that make up the pin, enough to increas the contact pressure with the female socket. Don't spread them a ridiculous amount - just a tiny bit will do! I'll be adding this procedure to my periodic maintenance checks.
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FlyingSloth on January 6, 2014
is it possible it was an RX brownout? Or an ESC LV Cutoff? Loose wires could explain it, but you weren't flying erratically to shake anything loose.
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Corsair2014 on January 6, 2014
it wasnt lv or brownout i dont think, and i had just descended from 2500 feet, with some shaking from wing flex, so yes i think my wires probably wiggled loose. i need to make a better connector anyway
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alibopo on January 6, 2014
Hi, though my knee-jerk comment above is still valid, I should have watched the video before commenting. From the audio, it sounds like the motor gradually loses power. Were you fighting a head wind on a high throttle setting? If that were the case, it could be an overheat of the ESC or motor causing high resistance. That could result in a LV brownout and loss of the RX, which would then reboot as in your video. I've taken to adding UBECs to my 4 channel planes (bypassing the ESC) so I can still get RX and servo function even if the motor fails or the power is cut by the ESC as it goes into a LV failsafe mode. On some ESCs, on a low (but still flyable) battery, momentary high demand on the throttle (or prop resistance due to a gust) can be enough to drop the voltage below the failsafe condition, resulting in a power loss to the RX and servos. It can reset, but maybe not fast enough to avoid a crash. On the plus side, at least you got everything back!
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Corsair2014 on January 6, 2014
wanst overheat, its a 70 amp esc with a 25 amp motor lol (i had it laying around). It has an external BEC. im pretty sure my connector came loose because it wasn't very secure to start with, then i had a lot of shaking when i was descending from 2500 feet so it wiggled loose.

thankyou for taking the time to analyze it and try to help though(:
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A Miracle Crash