Discussions

I took my AC2 untis out in the field for a few weeks to film a variety of things including a live cattle drive,  and some Real Estate Vids, during my last day of filming, I had a strange thing occur twice. First , I have the APM2560 w/gps w/1260MB and no mag. on beta 74. all on a CF kinjal frame set up in plus mode, running triblade master airscrew glass props powered by 5000 mAh Turnigy Nano 4S. The only thing that would be considered strange before the flight was that I had been unable to get a GPS lock for the last 10 flights, but I wrote this off as my proximity to the Air Weapons base (about 100 km away) and perhaps there was some GPS jamming going on. The APM was configured for stable as default with alt-hold at the  far end of the mode switch. These flights were in the stable position

What happend was about 4 minutes into the flight flying nose out and filming, the aircraft did a quick, decisive, solid 180 yaw turn and held it, I could not yaw out of it, as it sat there in the sky, I was able to keep it steady, but nose-in with this model is not my forte especially as a surprise and on the other side of 3 or 4 80ft trees. I began to panic and so I tried a controlled decent, and half way down, it did another 180 yaw and went back to 100% normal.I do not remember the direction CW/CCW of the yaw but I could go back through all the footage and figure out it needed.

I did not understand what had happend and did not want to stop filming becuase it was the moment of sunrise, so instead I ran to the clearing where it was hovering and brought it down a bit in the center of the clearing in case it did the same thing again. This time I was ready but nothing happened, so I flew it out into the open. I flew the battery out.

So after A cooldown, battery change and SD card change in the gopro, I take of on the next battery everything is normal. still dont have a gps lock, and flew nearly the entire battery, and just as my battery alarm was getting near the first warning level, it happend again, but this time I was flying diown a road with tall trees, and so when I tried to control it, it started flying into a tree, so I cut the power so it would fall to the ground before it hit the big tree.

Broke two props and a few nylon standoffs, otherwise no damage.

I would like to know if anyone else has had a similar experience, or if there is a fix, I am ok with upgrading the firmware. Any thoughts anyone?

Cheers
Franco