Spark tried to kill me in jesture mode

[Jim Wight]

only been up with my new Spark a couple of times. First sophisticated drone for me. After finishing the firmware update for my second battery I decided to try jesture mode. Not sure how good GPS was at the time. My driveway by the garage calls for calibrating. A few feet away and we are good.

I had the Spark in my hand, followed directions, got green lights, props started spinning very fast. The Spark seemed out of control as I pulled my hand away. It flew at me, held up my hand up, hit me and crashed. Bloody fingers but no damages to the Spark. Anyone else having problems like this? Any thoughts?

Jim Wight

 

[Dronason]

I had one time a bad situation, the same way, but it was going for the head of my brother in law. By chance, both decided to do just what was needed to avoid the accident.
Most probably it was to early double click after power-up in a location with not the nice sky why (hard to quickly get a lot of GPS satellites. Usually it is ok but sometimes it scary you, I would really like it lift up more.
Another possible reason is so so calibration. You need to check it, would be not bad in case if you dont want surprise in the future. The Spark will report you calibration warning only for terrific cases. There are calibration of compass and IMU.

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[Lancelot]

I had similar issues previously but that was because I was holding the spark at such a position with my hand that i actually uninentionally pull it to one side or the other.
The best is to do the 2 clicks, and then let it sit on your palm wide open. So not holding it with the fingers.
For me this solves the issue of it taking off erratically to certain directions.
The other reason might be the wind.
When i launched it on gesture mode in the wind, it doesnt sense the wind straight away, so it will move like 1m following the wind direction until it senses it and counter it.
And of course the possibility of imu or compass failure that Dronason posted here above.

 

[PascalG]

Don't care for and never used gesture mode but aren't you supposed to check for gps status using the lights before launching?

Personally I can't understand why anyone would even want to launch a drone without some form of control over it and a way to check can its status. Since sparks lets you use a phone for this if you don't want to carry th RC, i can't imagine flying without using a phone.

In fact I m even surprised that uncontrolled drones ar even allowed

 

[Jim Wight]

I flew again today. I was close to my garage when my drone came after me. Today I see a problem getting GPS close to the driveway and garage. I think the rebar in the driveway is causing the problem. My accident may have been all my fault by not making sure I had GPS before trying jesture for the first time. I won't try jesture again until my cuts heal and I have lots of flying time with my Spark. I am using an iPad Pro/MavMount/ RC to fly. What a gas. All of my past drones I flew by line of sight.

 

[Lancelot]

Yep rebar has been proven to be interfering with at least your compass calibration. The gps problem is probably because you are "indoor".
I also noticed that eventhough you are out in the open and it says 12 or more sattelites, it will still take a couple sec for it to really establish GPS.