Crash in Stabilize using latest code from Master -Casualties

Gear:

  • The latest version of 3.2 running on a Pixhawk
  • DJI F550 Hexacopter
  • Spectrum Satellite Receiver
  • GoPro and Gimbal
  • Carbon Fiber props (8 x 4.5)

Have had several successful flights before in several modes.

After three flights… powered up the copter and took off in stabilize mode did my routine checks of response by moving sticks in all directions… … I then started to take the copter up for an aerial filming session. While gaining altitude and getting ready to increase vertical speed the copter veered off the left, no response from my right stick input and went crashing into two persons causing serious injuries… one to the face and another to the arm. I have attached my logs… could someone please have a look at it and see if the cause of the problem can be determined. There was almost no wind. I have had almost 100 flights under my belt without any incident.

Regards

Sir, for this very reason we caution people against using the beta releases or even worse master unless you are a developer working on the code or a sophisticated user testing some specific feature of the flight code. The beta / release candidates are versions that have been tested by the core developers and are ready for testing by a larger group. In general master should be considered unstable and should not be used for anything other than test flights.

I will have a look at your file but you should not be flying these versions for your camera operations.

Hi there,

I had a look at your log. I’ll post my observations so far:

  • The IMU, RCOU and RCIN messages were disabled by the user. Pixhawk is capable of logging everything and has plenty of space.
  • The copter never travels more than 3.5 meters (12 feet). Anyone who was hit was definitely standing too close.
  • The copter first gains horizontal velocity by following a pitch demand.
  • The copter loses control of roll and the copter flips over (roll diverges sharply from roll demand). I would suspect a hardware failure, unless this happened when the copter hit something. Hard to tell if that’s the case without the IMU message enabled.
  • Nothing that I can see suggests that ArduCopter failed.

[quote=“Craig3DR”]Sir, for this very reason we caution people against using the beta releases or even worse master unless you are a developer working on the code or a sophisticated user testing some specific feature of the flight code. The beta / release candidates are versions that have been tested by the core developers and are ready for testing by a larger group. In general master should be considered unstable and should not be used for anything other than test flights.

I will have a look at your file but you should not be flying these versions for your camera operations.[/quote]

Craig I understand what you are saying and the risks and I have been testing Master and following the coding development. I accept responsibility for the operation but would like to know what went wrong so that it can be corrected or mitigated. I didnt have full logging on and suspect maybe some kind of glitch… not sure.

Regards

You disabled some of the logging and you had a mechanical or electrical (ESC) failure.

Let me take off my admin hat for a moment and put my developer hat on. Please don’t fly trunk unless you are one of the developers working on the code. In this case you had a mechanical failure and the crash was not related to the code but as developers we hate reading that somebody has crashed flying one of the versions of the code in test. We do not fly trunk ourselves unless we are testing something specific. Please be careful. You would be so much safer flying the release code.
Thank you.

Ok Craig some of your points are taken and as I said I will accept responsibility for the flight using trunk. I fly from trunk for testing everyday… 8 flights per day during the week and at least 40 on weekends testing various features and fixes. The issue here is not the version of Arducopter but as you said a mechanical failure (actually I suspect its ESC) which I am inclined to believe as well. I posted here because I was not sure based on what was logged. Maybe I should have posted in the dev forums.

Thanks for the feedback.