UAV - Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private
Human-Machine Interface
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
General None Reported / Taken
Aircraft; Human Factors
Toy/Consumer Unmanned Aircraft System - Parrot S.A. Rolling Spider Mini Drone. We were flying it outside using an iPhone 6 Plus; via Bluetooth 4.0; and the Parrot S.A. FreeFlight 3.0 iOS application. The application has an altitude limitation option which was on by default to (according to my best recollection) on or about 9 meters (I can't access the option to verify the value without the UAS; but it was active). The aircraft was outside and went into an uncontrolled straight vertical climb. The Bluetooth 4.0 range is about 20 meters; which it rapidly exceeded and lost connectivity with the controller. The UAS; being so small (approximately 5 inches in length; 5 inches in width; and 2 inches height) continued to climb until we lost visual contact. The device had approximately 80% battery life remaining; and can fly up to 5-10 minutes at full charge. I do not know how high the UAS climbed out of control before it began a descent. The UAS has not been found. There were no other aircraft in the immediate vicinity. A brief search on[line] indicates other users having similar problems with these Toy/Consumer UAS devices.
Small drone operator reports losing control of a mini drone which disappears out of sight vertically and is not recovered. The drone had a pre programmed altitude limit of nine meters and was being controlled by an iPhone with a free flight application via bluetooth.