Re: Rory Incident Yuneec Typhoon Q500+

Jonathan · Jun 11, 2015

I got this message today and replied, but it bounced back as undeliverable so I'll post the email here and my answer:

Hi Jonathan, since it was you who introduced me to the Q500 I thought I would let you know of an incident. Don't know if you remember but I was a bit dubious about using 5.8 wifi. Mine loses (or i shound say lost) its video relatively early, between 300 and 400 ft, as soon as I turn to face me. That's not exactly ideal but after a while it does reconnect and as you pointed out you still have the telemetry. On Monday the same thing happened except almost immediately after everything went down. No rc no video. So the quad just hovered while the controller tried to reconnect. I got the same message you get when first starting up. "Connected to RC, connecting to wifi". It wouldn't respond to any commands so eventually I turned the transmitter off. And then back on. No change. I tried moving about but couldn't get closer to it as it was about 200ft off shore and I was on a cliff! It probably hovered for a total of 12-15 minutes and then , puff, vanished. Annoyinglying as I was moving about I lost sight of it for a second and then couldn't find it again so I presume it ditched but it could have flown away out to sea I guess.... although I think I should still have seen it. So there you go. I'm not sure you can fully trust them. I know everyone gets jumpy about flying over water but there are lots of situations on land where I couldn't have got closer and either way falling from a couple of hundred feet would total the quad anyway. To Yuneec's credit they are sending out a replacement but I'm not sure I will be comfortable flying it in the environments I want to for decent aerial photography. Have you had any similar experience? I might consider the solo after the dust settles. It has live recording of telemetry to the transmitter which would settle any claim issues. I will be posting a video in due course but just thought I would share this with you in advance. Cheers Rory
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My answer was:

Hi Rory,

I had a similar incident flying out over the sea, went too far really – about 500 m or so, which is too far for this thing. I didn’t switch the radio off though, just hit return to home and held it high in the air. Still, we thought it was lost until a few minutes later when it came hovering back, which was a relief. You could probably do a couple of mods to extend the range, or just be super careful with how far you go.

If you’re going to get something else I would try the Phantom 3, been flying that all week and it’s great. Still love the Yuneec though, its Follow Me is my favourite feature. For longer distance the P3 wins though.
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Hope it helps if you see this.

Re: Rory Incident Yuneec Typhoon Q500+

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Re: Rory Incident Yuneec Typhoon Q500+

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Jonathan Drone Expert
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