Anyone get a vortex ring state on video?

[AMann]

A vortex ring state is the situation where you start to descend from a hover or turn back into your own propellers’ downwash causing loss of lift. Has anyone experienced it with their Mavic and have video showing what it was like? A few here experienced it, I was curious about the results.

Ive experienced it once flying for work, we were hovering to drop a sling load and it just started but the pilot backed sideways out of it and recovered very quickly so it just felt like a bit of turbulence. But not all are so lucky. At 1:05, this tour went south quickly after they had a VRS incident. The pilot turned back into his own downwash and couldn’t recover so they lost it:

 

[VortexSpin]

Descending into your down wash. [emoji576] The vortex ring state, also known as settling with power, is a dangerous condition that may arise in a rotary wing flight, when a vortex ring system engulfs the rotor causing severe loss of lift.

 

[Meta4]

Has anyone experienced it with their Mavic?

Ever since the Phantom 3 series, DJI's drones have been engineered to prevent getting into a vortex ring situation.
Look closely and you'll see the motors are offset rather than sitting vertically.
The descent speed is another factor.
Since the P3 came out, I haven't heard of any DJI drones having that problem.

 

[AMann]

Ever since the Phantom 3 series, DJI's drones have been engineered to prevent getting into a vortex ring situation.
Look closely and you'll see the motors are offset rather than sitting vertically.
The descent speed is another factor.
Since the P3 came out, I haven't heard of any DJI drones having that problem.

I noticed that the thrust is a bit offset between the front and rear rotors, and if the Mavic does not descend fast enough it should be able to avoid that situation... I had a slightly squirrely flight on my last try that got me thinking about how easy it would be for that to happen with these, thus why I posted this...

 

[old man mavic]

when its windy at say 150 ft and you are on a RTH as the mav descends it does wobble about a bit as its fighting the wind and it can be a tad unsettling as you watch it come down as Meta4 said the descent speed is set to hopefully prevent VRS from happening. what i tend to do if its windy is cancel RTH when it gets close , and descend in a gentle spiral flying forwards all the time as it comes down ,that way you are never going to be in the prop wash as you are constantly moving away from it

 

[PortCanaveralFlorida]

One of the best examples of Vortex Ring State

 

[AMann]

One of the best examples of Vortex Ring State

Thinking how to simulate this using a non-hazardous smoke source on the M2 (as per FAA rules). Maybe just hold a hose from a smoke machine over the Mavic. It would be pretty cool to see how the offset blade configuration handles it.

 

[Microwave89]

@Parameter modders and FC patchers:
If you modified the downward velocity on your Mavic, did you ever encounter that condition?
Could you recover your bird? How?

Speaking of me 3 months ago, I used to modify the downward velocity down to -10 m/s.
After that I couldn't descend faster no matter whether Atti or P-Modes, or what modifications.
It would not exceed -10 m/s. For me it also didn't look as unstable as with -3 m/s?
I regularly encounter wobble but one does even with -3 m/s if I'm correctly.
Never ever encountered my Mavic seem "unrecoverable".

 

[gnirtS]

Vortex Ring (not settling with power!) is the mean reason the Mavic has a reduced maximum descent speed (which is significantly less than its ascent speed).
In theory the software could allow faster descent speed if theres also some horizontal movement but that'd make the FLCS much more complicated so easier not to bother.
Lots of factors are needed to trigger a vortex ring state though so simply going down "too fast" wont always trigger it. Its also a small drone that doesnt create much wash and in a tiny area where 2 seconds of drifting will place you laterally outside the problem area so the drone itself can probably "recover" without anyone even noticing to an extent.