SchrodingersCar
Member
Hi folks,
I apologize this is kind of a long read, but I wanted to finally share my story:
I'm a filmmaker and video professional that's been working in the industry for almost 15 years. I've been doing the UAV thing for just about 2 years now... It started out as a curiosity and hobby that I've been trying to integrate into my professional business. I built and upgraded my own F550 with naza v2 that I've logged tons of hours on, and so far has performed flawlessly, but in my line of work, go-pros usually don't cut it.
A couple partners and I were trying to plan out options for a heavy lift build, when I found what looked to be a fantastic deal on a used premade system... Specifically the insane looking Aerigon by Intuitive Aerial. It had taken a fall with a previous owner, but was repaired by a reputable source. I opened it up myself and poured over it, replaced a questionable esc and messed up gimbal motor, and made sure that everything looked to be intact and in working order. We proceeded to do many test flights with dummy weight, before moving up to flying a 5D to get the gimbal tuned. We had developed a long pre-flight safety checklist, always treating the machine as seriously as it deserved - especially since our end goal was to bring it on professional sets.
Anyway I'll get to the point. We had finally gotten up to the point of feeling comfortable enough with the system to put a "real" camera on it, and start fleshing out our reel, so we picked up a Red Scarlet and Red lens from local shop we are in good with, and set out to get some "cool reel shots". You can guess what happened next.
I really wish we had a third person filming the flight, so you could all feel the PTSD that I do. It was probably one of the most spectacular crashes you guys would have ever seen. It was the 3rd or 4th flight of the day, and about 5 seconds after takeoff it got a mind of its own and started bucking like a mad bronco. I dropped out of GPS into ATTI immediately, but it made no difference. Within about 15 seconds it was flying sideways at almost 90 degrees straight into a concrete wall at what must have been at least 30 mph.
Now first off I want to say I am NOT going to use this thread to present any sort of "review" of the Aerigon system, especially since it was used and unsupported. All I'll say is it's an X12 running T-motor 4014s and an A2 FC, with a not very user friendly gimbal all wrapped in a ton of awesome looking CF. If anyone has more specific questions about this relatively rare system, send me a private message. For this thread I'd prefer to focus more on the A2.
This all happened a few months ago, but I wanted to wait for all the insurance BS to be sorted before I talked about it. (Insurance is a whole other ****-storm story as well... but anyway). The main reason I'm laying this all out, besides needing a shoulder to cry on, is to get people's impressions about what potentially went wrong, and where one goes from here.
The best conclusion I've been able to come up with is compass interference. We were flying in a park, but the wall that it hit was the crumbling remnants of an old steel foundry. In retrospect I should have thought about the potential for there to be a ton of magnetic iron buried underground in the area. Before the flight we got an error from the A2 indicating a bad calibration, so we redid compass calibration and it appeared fine... until I took off. But is it possible for just bad compass data to make a copter fly around like a madman, turning sideways, probably trying to turn upside down - all in ATTI mode?
The broader question is about safety and reliability of these systems. People often say that 99% of crashes are due to user error, and it's possible I made an error in not checking the area for magnetic materials... is this something you guys routinely do? Or is the unpredictable A2 to blame? I hear a lot of horror stories about "flyaways" and such, but I've always chalked that up to the fact that there are simply more DJI systems out there than other brands, so you'll hear more about the fluke cases.
So sorry for the life story. Basically, I know i've less than 2 years experience, but I felt like I was attentive enough, thorough enough, and safety focused enough to be "ready" to move up to the next level. Was I wrong?
Once I recover financially and emotionally, I want to get back on this horse. I feel like I'll trust a system I build myself this time around. But are events like this just inevitabilities in our industry? Are there better, more redundant and more reliable FC solutions? Did I just screw up? The idea of not FULLY knowing if something like this is going to happen again seems like too great of a risk when you are planning on having almost 6 figures in the air.
So anyway, I'll include some happy before and sad after pics. Also my iOSD log of the flight, which I find hard to interpret. Please comment on all of this or none of it... thanks for listening.
I apologize this is kind of a long read, but I wanted to finally share my story:
I'm a filmmaker and video professional that's been working in the industry for almost 15 years. I've been doing the UAV thing for just about 2 years now... It started out as a curiosity and hobby that I've been trying to integrate into my professional business. I built and upgraded my own F550 with naza v2 that I've logged tons of hours on, and so far has performed flawlessly, but in my line of work, go-pros usually don't cut it.
A couple partners and I were trying to plan out options for a heavy lift build, when I found what looked to be a fantastic deal on a used premade system... Specifically the insane looking Aerigon by Intuitive Aerial. It had taken a fall with a previous owner, but was repaired by a reputable source. I opened it up myself and poured over it, replaced a questionable esc and messed up gimbal motor, and made sure that everything looked to be intact and in working order. We proceeded to do many test flights with dummy weight, before moving up to flying a 5D to get the gimbal tuned. We had developed a long pre-flight safety checklist, always treating the machine as seriously as it deserved - especially since our end goal was to bring it on professional sets.
Anyway I'll get to the point. We had finally gotten up to the point of feeling comfortable enough with the system to put a "real" camera on it, and start fleshing out our reel, so we picked up a Red Scarlet and Red lens from local shop we are in good with, and set out to get some "cool reel shots". You can guess what happened next.
I really wish we had a third person filming the flight, so you could all feel the PTSD that I do. It was probably one of the most spectacular crashes you guys would have ever seen. It was the 3rd or 4th flight of the day, and about 5 seconds after takeoff it got a mind of its own and started bucking like a mad bronco. I dropped out of GPS into ATTI immediately, but it made no difference. Within about 15 seconds it was flying sideways at almost 90 degrees straight into a concrete wall at what must have been at least 30 mph.
Now first off I want to say I am NOT going to use this thread to present any sort of "review" of the Aerigon system, especially since it was used and unsupported. All I'll say is it's an X12 running T-motor 4014s and an A2 FC, with a not very user friendly gimbal all wrapped in a ton of awesome looking CF. If anyone has more specific questions about this relatively rare system, send me a private message. For this thread I'd prefer to focus more on the A2.
This all happened a few months ago, but I wanted to wait for all the insurance BS to be sorted before I talked about it. (Insurance is a whole other ****-storm story as well... but anyway). The main reason I'm laying this all out, besides needing a shoulder to cry on, is to get people's impressions about what potentially went wrong, and where one goes from here.
The best conclusion I've been able to come up with is compass interference. We were flying in a park, but the wall that it hit was the crumbling remnants of an old steel foundry. In retrospect I should have thought about the potential for there to be a ton of magnetic iron buried underground in the area. Before the flight we got an error from the A2 indicating a bad calibration, so we redid compass calibration and it appeared fine... until I took off. But is it possible for just bad compass data to make a copter fly around like a madman, turning sideways, probably trying to turn upside down - all in ATTI mode?
The broader question is about safety and reliability of these systems. People often say that 99% of crashes are due to user error, and it's possible I made an error in not checking the area for magnetic materials... is this something you guys routinely do? Or is the unpredictable A2 to blame? I hear a lot of horror stories about "flyaways" and such, but I've always chalked that up to the fact that there are simply more DJI systems out there than other brands, so you'll hear more about the fluke cases.
So sorry for the life story. Basically, I know i've less than 2 years experience, but I felt like I was attentive enough, thorough enough, and safety focused enough to be "ready" to move up to the next level. Was I wrong?
Once I recover financially and emotionally, I want to get back on this horse. I feel like I'll trust a system I build myself this time around. But are events like this just inevitabilities in our industry? Are there better, more redundant and more reliable FC solutions? Did I just screw up? The idea of not FULLY knowing if something like this is going to happen again seems like too great of a risk when you are planning on having almost 6 figures in the air.
So anyway, I'll include some happy before and sad after pics. Also my iOSD log of the flight, which I find hard to interpret. Please comment on all of this or none of it... thanks for listening.
