1st ever - Fly Away!

[Palliz]

OK since getting my Mavic I have never been able to set Home Point as Me. Always gives me the following message:
"Home Point: Me. Weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info!"
It records RTH just after starting motors which is great but my work requires setting Home Point to : Me
Took off up river to film bamboo rafting in the jungle ( knowing full well Home Point was set to where I took off - in a boat! ) Had a great trip - super footage then it happened...............lost signal - I was pointing away from the Mavic for too long & BAM up it went to return home height 30m & off it went at rapid speed to where I took off.
Directed the boat captain to chase it up river pointing my controller in the direction of where is was on my compass hitting the Pause button 2 -3 times ( no panic yet ) Finally held the pause button down until thankfully I could see the Mavic had stopped by the distance meter..........phew............pulled back on the stick & sure enough my baby was on it's way back to me.........YAAAAY!!!!
TOTALLY Pilot error - so now whether or not I am in the correct Forum - moral of the story don't blame the product failure before 1st of all blaming yourself for Pilot Error.
Frantically been checking to see why I keep getting message "Home Point: Me weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info" - Found out that it may be that my GPS location on my phone was not activated......Doh!
Will fly today to see if that has been the problem all along.........fingers crossed
* Anyone else get the same message "Home Point: Me weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info" And corrected it successfully by turning on location - I am using Samsung Note 3 & works fine except for this.
Cheers - Happy flying & Happy New Year!

 

[SkyHigh Pryo]

Thank you for sharing that. It was brave of you to admit that it was pilot error and the drone. At least you relized the mistakes made and shared them with the rest of us. [emoji122] [emoji113] [emoji106]

Kudos to you and fly safe...

SkyHigh Pyro Eye flying above

 

[Palliz]

Thank you for sharing that. It was brave of you to admit that it was pilot error and the drone. At least you relized the mistakes made and shared them with the rest of us. [emoji122] [emoji113] [emoji106]

Kudos to you and fly safe...

SkyHigh Pyro Eye flying above

Been flying full dji range for years - guess it happens to even experienced pilots - super relieved that I got the girl home safely & yeah ALL my fault
Happy flying man

 

[Frits]

Thanks for sharing, excellent post!

 

[Palliz]

Thanks for sharing, excellent post!

Sharing is caring - hopefully it may help others
Happy New Year

 

[lildevilx]

OK since getting my Mavic I have never been able to set Home Point as Me. Always gives me the following message:
"Home Point: Me. Weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info!"
It records RTH just after starting motors which is great but my work requires setting Home Point to : Me
Took off up river to film bamboo rafting in the jungle ( knowing full well Home Point was set to where I took off - in a boat! ) Had a great trip - super footage then it happened...............lost signal - I was pointing away from the Mavic for too long & BAM up it went to return home height 30m & off it went at rapid speed to where I took off.
Directed the boat captain to chase it up river pointing my controller in the direction of where is was on my compass hitting the Pause button 2 -3 times ( no panic yet ) Finally held the pause button down until thankfully I could see the Mavic had stopped by the distance meter..........phew............pulled back on the stick & sure enough my baby was on it's way back to me.........YAAAAY!!!!
TOTALLY Pilot error - so now whether or not I am in the correct Forum - moral of the story don't blame the product failure before 1st of all blaming yourself for Pilot Error.
Frantically been checking to see why I keep getting message "Home Point: Me weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info" - Found out that it may be that my GPS location on my phone was not activated......Doh!
Will fly today to see if that has been the problem all along.........fingers crossed
* Anyone else get the same message "Home Point: Me weak mobile device GPS signal. cannot acquire location info" And corrected it successfully by turning on location - I am using Samsung Note 3 & works fine except for this.
Cheers - Happy flying & Happy New Year!

Great for people to admit it was pilot error! i hope you purchase the dji refresh as it sounds like it be great for you since its for work.

To your problem with not able to find the location. does gps work for every other app?
which OS are you running on the note 3? make sure the location setting (in the phone) is correct. (set to high accuracy mode)

Good luck!

 

[FPVJunkie]

Topic seems pretty misleading for pilot error, it seems the Mavic did just what it was designed to do. Glad to hear that you didn't got full panic mode and was able to get it paused and recovered. Sounds like some excellent footage!

 

[m0j0]

Not a fly away. I call these giveaways .. lol. Glad you got it back. I had a dumb moment as well when I first got the Mavic 100 percent my fault for going downwind and not understanding that having obstacle avoidance enabled would make the return flight against the wind slowwwww landed with 20 percent battery. That's why it is best to read the manual and practice all of the failure scenarios before they happen.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[Helo]

Not a fly away. I call these giveaways .. lol. Glad you got it back. I had a dumb moment as well when I first got the Mavic 100 percent my fault for going downwind and not understanding that having obstacle avoidance enabled would make the return flight against the wind slowwwww landed with 20 percent battery. That's why it is best to read the manual and practice all of the failure scenarios before they happen.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

Have seen several posts that when people are trying to return to home with a low battery they go as fast as the thing will fly (sport mode). I would like to see something from dji as to what is the optimum speed for best battery life. Just like a car or a real aircraft the speed at which you get the best mileage is almost always lower than max.

What would really be cool is for dji to display ground speed in addition to air speed then you would be able to determine what kind of head/tail wind you are flying in.

 

[FPVJunkie]

What would really be cool is for dji to display ground speed in addition to air speed then you would be able to determine what kind of head/tail wind you are flying in.

That would definitely be awesome if they'd pull the GPS speed and display that as well.

 

[Helo]

That would definitely be awesome if they'd pull the GPS speed and display that as well.

GPS speed?

 

[m0j0]

Have seen several posts that when people are trying to return to home with a low battery they go as fast as the thing will fly (sport mode)..

My guess is that the most efficient mode is full sticks forward with obstacle avoidance off.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[FPVJunkie]

GPS speed?

Yeah GPS tracks your speed as well and would be the best way to get ground speed. You can then calculate the difference between ground speed and indicated airspeed and determine if you have a head or tail wind.

 

[FPVJunkie]

Hmm, so I've been thinking about it and am a little confused on how the Mavic determines it's airspeed. Initially I was thinking like a normal aircraft, but duh, it doesn't have a pitot/static system so it must be coming from the GPS... but then I thought about it and it still displays the speed when in ATTI mode (correct?), so the airspeed must be coming from another source, maybe IMU?

So how is the Mavics airspeed calculated?

 

[Helo]

My guess is that the most efficient mode is full sticks forward with obstacle avoidance off.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

So if you were running out of gas in your car and not sure if you could make it to the next gas station would you just floor it?

Motors and engines have a rpm range that delivers the most efficient use of fuel be it gas or battery powered. Maintaining that range gives you the best chance of making it to your destination. Add in the fact that as you increase airspeed drag in greatly increased which relates directly to fuel/energy consumption.

My guess is that the Mavic's most efficient cruse speed is somewhere around the limit that is set (22 mph?) when you hit RTH.

 

[Palliz]

OK yep people it was my fault ( once again ) for not enabling the location on my Android - took it out today - beautiful day just to test it with 'location' enabled - Freakin PERFECT! ------"Home Point to : Me" sent it out couple of miles ( not off the deck of a boat ) so if it was to return home then heck yeah I was still gonna be home...........lol. Regardless it performed beautifully when I tapped RTH it did just that straight to ME who walked at least 100ft away from where home point may have been recorded. All is well in Mavic land once again - Phew!!!!

 

[stratos]

Yesterday I "Lost" my drone. I was flying over the sea and was not really sure in what bay on the beach I was. I was checking the map and the onboard camera and I was sure the RTH was in a wrong beach. So I kept flying towards the point I thought it was my real location. Then lost signal, boom, immediate panic as I didnt knew where it qas going to return to


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[stratos]

Yesterday I "Lost" my drone. I was flying over the sea and was not really sure in what bay on the beach I was. I was checking the map and the onboard camera and I was sure the RTH was in a wrong beach. So I kept flying towards the point I thought it was my real location. Then lost signal, boom, immediate panic as I didnt knew where it qas going to return to


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

However I saw it in the sky flying directly to me. My advice is always set properly your RTH location and trust in the **** thing !!!


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[m0j0]

So if you were running out of gas in your car and not sure if you could make it to the next gas station would you just floor it?

Motors and engines have a rpm range that delivers the most efficient use of fuel be it gas or battery powered. Maintaining that range gives you the best chance of making it to your destination. Add in the fact that as you increase airspeed drag in greatly increased which relates directly to fuel/energy consumption.

My guess is that the Mavic's most efficient cruse speed is somewhere around the limit that is set (22 mph?) when you hit RTH.

That's an interesting observation. Logical and absolutely correct as it relates to cars. However, Pushing full forward really isn't flooring it with the Mavic. Sport mode full forward is but I'm willing to bet full forward with obstacle avoidance off is pretty close to max efficiency.

So in my car no I would not floor it... with my Phantom and Mavic yep full forward absent sport mode. It has always worked for me..and I'm frequently testing the range limits of all my birds.


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[Helo]

That's an interesting observation. Logical and absolutely correct as it relates to cars. However, Pushing full forward really isn't flooring it with the Mavic. Sport mode full forward is but I'm willing to bet full forward with obstacle avoidance off is pretty close to max efficiency.

So in my car no I would not floor it... with my Phantom and Mavic yep full forward absent sport mode. It has always worked for me..and I'm frequently testing the range limits of all my birds.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

You would be hard pressed to find any aircraft that states there most efficient cruse speed is it's VNE (velocity never exceed).