Hello People
I am a new entry at ParrotPilots, even though I have been occasionally visiting this forum in the past. ParrotPilots is the best place on the web that I have found so far for Parrot Anafi users, with a lot of useful information and, generally speaking, honest and thoughtful opinions.
I am based in Italy and I have owned a Parrot Anafi since the beginning of July, when the drone was made available for sale. I have about 45 flights with Anafi under my belt and more than 100 flights with a Mavic Pro. Previously, I have also owned a few toy quads, without gps. I consider myself a medium experienced pilot, very much concerned about flight safety and responsible use of drones. Today I have experienced my first serious incident with a drone.
It may be a coincidence, but I think it is worth to mention that today I flew the drone for the first time after the update of FreeFlight and the firmware to the latest versions. The incident occurred during the third flight of the day, just a few seconds in the flight. I was doing the usual functional checks after take-off: double check gps lock, adjust video settings, double check battery levels and check responsiveness to controller’s inputs. In the meantime, the drone was hovering a few meters far from me and about 8 meters high. Doing the input checks, I noticed that the gimbal elevation was not responding, as well as jawing to the left; jawing to the right was ok. However, something weird happened when I touched the right stick of the controller: I saw the landing message on the top of the screen and just a fraction of a second after I heard the motors cut off. Then, the quad fell down like a stone. Fortunately, the Anafi was hovering over grassland and it didn’t break when she hit the ground: at least I couldn’t see any evidence of external damage in the field, apart from a few scratches (negligible), some dirt and wet grass here and there. Even the propellers looked OK. I carefully cleaned, inspected and tested the Anafi when I returned home and everything seems to work perfectly. I would exclude a power cut off, as the quad was beeping after the crash and still linked to phone and controller. I didn’t see any birds around, so I have to exclude a bird strike as well. The temperature was quite mild, considering the period of the year: about 12 °C with beautifully patch-clouded skies.
After all, I have to say that I’ve been very lucky; cannot even think about the consequences, would the accident have occurred in the middle of the flight, far from me, higher in the sky and over rocky terrain. However, this event has undermined my confidence with this drone; I know that this feeling is going to be hard to overcome, at least until I fully understand what happened and why.
This is actually the reason why I am posting this: sharing the experience and, possibly getting some suggestions from other experienced pilots. I have also sent an incident report to Parrot and I hope they will reply soon with a satisfactory answer.
I am attaching a screenshot of Flight Data Manager, just in case you can dig out additional useful data.
Other specific information:
- Samsung S9 Plus with Android 8.0.0 Oreo
- FreeFlight 6.2.0
- Controller firmware 1.2.0
- Drone firmware 1.2.1
- Pre-flight checks successfully completed: camera cover OFF, gimbal movement OK, propellers OK, battery securely locked and with enough charge (50%), calibration dance OK, NO interference, gps lock OK.
By the way, you may find a couple of pictures of the place where I was flying; they were shot during the flight before, which went on uneventfully. View attachment 446View attachment 446
I am a new entry at ParrotPilots, even though I have been occasionally visiting this forum in the past. ParrotPilots is the best place on the web that I have found so far for Parrot Anafi users, with a lot of useful information and, generally speaking, honest and thoughtful opinions.
I am based in Italy and I have owned a Parrot Anafi since the beginning of July, when the drone was made available for sale. I have about 45 flights with Anafi under my belt and more than 100 flights with a Mavic Pro. Previously, I have also owned a few toy quads, without gps. I consider myself a medium experienced pilot, very much concerned about flight safety and responsible use of drones. Today I have experienced my first serious incident with a drone.
It may be a coincidence, but I think it is worth to mention that today I flew the drone for the first time after the update of FreeFlight and the firmware to the latest versions. The incident occurred during the third flight of the day, just a few seconds in the flight. I was doing the usual functional checks after take-off: double check gps lock, adjust video settings, double check battery levels and check responsiveness to controller’s inputs. In the meantime, the drone was hovering a few meters far from me and about 8 meters high. Doing the input checks, I noticed that the gimbal elevation was not responding, as well as jawing to the left; jawing to the right was ok. However, something weird happened when I touched the right stick of the controller: I saw the landing message on the top of the screen and just a fraction of a second after I heard the motors cut off. Then, the quad fell down like a stone. Fortunately, the Anafi was hovering over grassland and it didn’t break when she hit the ground: at least I couldn’t see any evidence of external damage in the field, apart from a few scratches (negligible), some dirt and wet grass here and there. Even the propellers looked OK. I carefully cleaned, inspected and tested the Anafi when I returned home and everything seems to work perfectly. I would exclude a power cut off, as the quad was beeping after the crash and still linked to phone and controller. I didn’t see any birds around, so I have to exclude a bird strike as well. The temperature was quite mild, considering the period of the year: about 12 °C with beautifully patch-clouded skies.
After all, I have to say that I’ve been very lucky; cannot even think about the consequences, would the accident have occurred in the middle of the flight, far from me, higher in the sky and over rocky terrain. However, this event has undermined my confidence with this drone; I know that this feeling is going to be hard to overcome, at least until I fully understand what happened and why.
This is actually the reason why I am posting this: sharing the experience and, possibly getting some suggestions from other experienced pilots. I have also sent an incident report to Parrot and I hope they will reply soon with a satisfactory answer.
I am attaching a screenshot of Flight Data Manager, just in case you can dig out additional useful data.
Other specific information:
- Samsung S9 Plus with Android 8.0.0 Oreo
- FreeFlight 6.2.0
- Controller firmware 1.2.0
- Drone firmware 1.2.1
- Pre-flight checks successfully completed: camera cover OFF, gimbal movement OK, propellers OK, battery securely locked and with enough charge (50%), calibration dance OK, NO interference, gps lock OK.
By the way, you may find a couple of pictures of the place where I was flying; they were shot during the flight before, which went on uneventfully. View attachment 446View attachment 446
