DJI Phantom 3 left joystick stuck? Here’s what you need to do

Next up in our “Ask Drone Girl” series is about a problem with the left joystick on the DJI Phantom 3. If you have a question for Drone Girl, contact her here.

We have a DJI Phantom 3 Standard Drone and on the left joy stick when you pull it straight down to the bottom it just stay there and locks to get it back to center you have to nudge it upward and it pops free and returns to center. Is this normal or a defect?

This is totally normal! But if it is impacting your flying, there are things you can do to “fix” it. It sounds like what you experienced is the “throttle lock” feature which DJI created for the Phantom 2 Vision Plus and carried over to early models of the Phantom 3 Standard.

It was actually intended to be a safety feature to help shut down the motors after landing, as well as to allow high altitude decent without holding the stick down.

However, considering you don’t see it in newer drones today, it sounds like many agree it may not be the best feature. 

There are lots of YouTube tutorials that can show you how to remove that feature — though I’ll let you find them yourself, since modifying the hardware on your controller may void your warranty.

The easier option, in my opinion, is to simply be aware that the throttle can lock if brought down to the bottom — which naturally would cause a crash. Ensure that when landing, you don’t drop the left joystick all the way to the bottom.

Good luck, and happy flying!