Connected the joystick
Press Armed
Props Spin
Press Take Off
Props Spinup to full speed
Drone spins crazily out of control the instant it tries to lift off the ground
Mows the grass
Ohhhhhh man my quadcopter made a pretty good lawn mower for the first 3 seconds of flight.
Ha ha oh dear, any ideas?
Check the directions the motors are turning.
Also check if you connected the ESCs in the correct order.
Just rechecked and everything is connected correctly. I’m going to order some new props as two are slightly dented.
is there some way of testing the drone stability without it destroying itself?
yes, couple of thing you can try:
hold it down from top, while you are giving gas (make sure your hands are not in the way of the props 
)
the let it go up a bit while still holding it. If it does something funny you should be able to grab it tight, so dont overdo it
with giving gas.
An other option is with a second person. he/she holds the copter over his head (firmly) while you can test it (carefully)
but even if everything works out that way, you still might get cave-ins occasionally.
I just tested my new Hexa with Navio2 this Friday. First flight was perfect, 10min hovering around, 17-18 sats smooth fligh, position and altitude hold perfect, could not have been better, event took a video of it. So i landed, checked everything, all ok and took off again. Not even a minute hoovering and FLAP, turned over the roll-axis to the right and caved in. luckily only like 2m high. Casualties: one broken arm (copter not human), battery holder and three props and a few small parts.
I didnt get around checking the logs yet (was to pissed), but that aint my first rodeo (4th copter to be exact) but the first one which caved in that way. Even my old hexa could land with a broken prob with no major problems, so im strongly suspecting the Navio2, since all other parts i know already inside out and have used them before with other configurations and with other flight-controls, and i worked three month on that copter tested all parts separately over and over again, to make sure everything is perfect.
So dont worry, shit happens, even if you think (or know) you did everything right. Electronics can and will fail eventually.
But if its you first copter you should not use “press take off”, take it of manually firm but not full throttle.
and deactivate all automatic things in the beginning, like Poshold, or drift etc, just use “stabilize” and learn to fly
good luck !!!
Helmar
PS: what do you mean by “connected the Joystick” ??
dont you have a “normal” remote, like Jeti or something similar?
do the motor test from mission planner first; 10% for 1 second; Mot A should be front right; B right back C left back and D front left;
also check CW and CCW spinning direction during this test;
check the horizon movement is moving correctly according to pitch and tilt;
@sicherlich_nicht I had a quite similar crash during altitude hold; the cause was a voltage drop from a bad solder joint on my power module - althold (and probably also other flight modes which include althold) and low voltage can cause serious crashes - like sudden flips…
@panky: thnx for the tip, ill have a look at the logfiles in the next days, maybe I can narrow down the cause.
Low voltage i can rule out, battery was still on 40-50% and its new (6S@7Ah). But sure the power distribution board
is always the weak link, hard to solder with those thick wires… but i cant be sure since i dont know which
ruptured solder joint was caused by force of the crash or before (if any)
now i gotta wait for the replacement parts 
@Jimmy_Hill: panky is right, when two motors are mixed up, you may think its right but all you get is a flip, so better check
again carefully.
thanks guys for the quick replies if the props turn up this week ill have another go on the weekend.
