Obstacle detection during RTH

[Undo]

Hello everyone

I'm a fairly new spark pilot and I just encountered my first issue with the small thing.

I was flying the drone over some trees, well, between 2 very tall trees when all of a sudden I got a lost connection message on the phone. Drone probably went into RTH and started coming back home. Seconds later I got a couple of scary messages saying "Motor overload" and immediately after "Aircraft tilting" ...and that was it. Mind you, my RTH was set for 30m height and the drone was at around 50 at the moment I lost connection.
Did find it, after about one hour of searching through the bushes with a bit of damage after the fall. It lost one of it's motor caps and the camera assembly was halfway out of the body and in a weird position.

I downloaded the movie from the card and I can see quite clearly the drone flying steadily and the making a fast 180 turn and flying straight into a tree. So, Durin RTH is obstacle detection off or was this just a fluke?

 

[DesertWindAero]

Hello everyone

I'm a fairly new spark pilot and I just encountered my first issue with the small thing.

I was flying the drone over some trees, well, between 2 very tall trees when all of a sudden I got a lost connection message on the phone. Drone probably went into RTH and started coming back home. Seconds later I got a couple of scary messages saying "Motor overload" and immediately after "Aircraft tilting" ...and that was it. Mind you, my RTH was set for 30m height and the drone was at around 50 at the moment I lost connection.
Did find it, after about one hour of searching through the bushes with a bit of damage after the fall. It lost one of it's motor caps and the camera assembly was halfway out of the body and in a weird position.

I downloaded the movie from the card and I can see quite clearly the drone flying steadily and the making a fast 180 turn and flying straight into a tree. So, Durin RTH is obstacle detection off or was this just a fluke?

It was probably more than 100 meters away from you when RTH was activated.

From another forum:

"...The reason being is that the front OA on the Spark is only effective at speeds of 6-7 MPH as it only has a 5 meters visual range (infrared sensor, similar to the side sensors on the P4P). If the drone is more than 100 meters away and RTH activates, it will cruise back at the standard P-mode max speed of 12-13 MPH and thus disengage OA in order to achieve that speed and increase the likelihood of the drone actually returning safely."

 

[Undo]

That's very good info, I had no idea, thanks a lot!