I've been flying my Mavic 2 Pro for only 6 months, but I've been fairly active. Lately, I've been capturing a series of Autumn photos, doing near daily shots to get the foliage transition. I've gotten some beautiful shots. I also did a couple of video/photo sessions of an area behind my house called Wrack Meadow (as I think it's unique in a web search, you can find my area).
Well, a couple of weeks ago, after doing my 2nd shoot at Wrack Meadow, I started to do my daily foliage shots; these are shots above my driveway, most at 380 feet, max ceiling (close enough). However it was a very windy day; I didn't realize how high the winds were until I later checked the flight at Airdata, but I had average winds at 26 MPH and max gusts at 37.7MPH! I did get the wind warnings, but had no issues with the wind oddly enough; my shots were still rock solid, the drone performed wonderfully, but looking at that data, I'm amazed it did so well, no drifting, no image issues, rock solid.
All went well until the pilot error; I was using my Samsung Phone, I was out at about 275 feet, way up at 380 feet, easily visible, but I have heavy woods and lots of WiFi around my house (I'm an offender with 2 ISP's/Wifi setups . The Pilot Error was to hit Land instead of RTH on the phone; they're really close together (as everyone knows) and I fat fingered the wrong spot on the phone. Well, the drone dutifully started coming down and I saw this and had a moment of confusion, but I thought it was oddly descending to my RTH altitude, and I was still in the mental mode of thinking it was doing an RTH (I know it normally doesn't do this). However, probably due to remote controller interference, when it got down to about 250 feet, I started losing the video feed and by this time, I started pushing UP on the stick to gain altitude, but it wasn't taking. I'd get glimpses of video showing the AC still descending and by now, I had lost VLOS. I kept pushing up on the sticks, but then lost all contact with the AC. And I'm only 278 feet away, but it's now on the ground in a heavily wooded area.
I had gotten myself a Marco Polo for my wetlands shooting to help me recover the drone should I lose it. I used that and the find my drone map to find it. As I approached the location, again only 278 feet away from my home location, I got signal back and could see lots of ferns, good, it wasn't in a tree. Searching for a few minutes, I found it, still turned on with 17% battery left, my gimbal protector/shade (to prevent solar flares from the sides) was knocked off and by the side, the Marco Polo came un-velcroed but was nearby, and one of the strobes was knocked off (and it was OFF somehow, so it was a little hard to find in the leaves). But I found the drone.
The right rear leg of the drone got hyper extended upwards, denting the cowling, and the drone arm can now extend up a bit where it should not be able to do so. It's spring loaded, and appears to stay in position in flight (I tried maneuvers up and down, sport mode, it seemed to stay put just fine). AND, at first I thought that was the extent of the damage. However, on one of my sets of foliage shots after that, I got one shot that was tilted about 3 degrees or so, then the next was horizontal. Checking the camera and gimbal carefully, I found that one of the vibration stability tabs on the drone that mates with the bottom of the gimbal using rubber grommets had broken, allowing the camera to tilt at times. I found I could correct it with camera movements. It barely affects the camera use at all, I was able to even get nice 360 pano's with it as it. BUT, since I have DJI Care Refresh, I'll call it in and get it replaced when I'm done with my Autumn image series. I'll see how the refresh experience goes. If anyone has any advice for working with DJI for a replacement, please pass it on. Thanks in advance!
I have now retrained myself to use the RTH button on the controller, not the phone to prevent this fat fingering accident. I am also being more careful with wind conditions, though I don't think that ultimately was a contributing factor to this crash. I have a a Notification showing the drone lost contact with the controller for over 1.2 seconds (by notification, longer by lack of response), and lots of WiFi interference warnings around the same time, so I was unable to correct my initial error, ONCE I realized what I had done (which took a few seconds as well). AND I wasn't positioned in the best spot relative to my house; While I could still see the drone at 380 feet, as it descended, I had the corner of my house in the path to the drone for a few seconds after it descended to a certain altitude; I had to move to get line of sight back and by then it was behind trees. 2nd lesson is to be more careful to not let VLOS escape me as it did when it ducked behind the corner of my house from where I was standing; I should have already moved to the right to prevent that. Third lesson, while I often disable my WiFi on my phone, while I'm not certain, I likely didn't for this flight as I was planning on just doing a 5-10 minute flight to get my standard daily shots. I'll be sure to disable WiFi from now on as well as WiFi interference was definitely a factor in losing my connection at such close range.
So, an unfortunate accident but I learned some lessons that will help make me a safer pilot going forward; just using the controller for RTH will prevent that fat fingering accident.
Just for fun, here's a shot; I had to crop it quite a bit to make it small enough to upload. In the foreground you can see the South part of Wrack Meadow, Wachusett Reservoir, and then Mt Wachusett. In the center of the photo you can see Mt Monadnock NH, about 40 miles away as a crow flies. Shots in the opposite direction show Mt. Pisgah and the tops of the buildings in Boston, but I'll save that photo for sharing later:
Well, a couple of weeks ago, after doing my 2nd shoot at Wrack Meadow, I started to do my daily foliage shots; these are shots above my driveway, most at 380 feet, max ceiling (close enough). However it was a very windy day; I didn't realize how high the winds were until I later checked the flight at Airdata, but I had average winds at 26 MPH and max gusts at 37.7MPH! I did get the wind warnings, but had no issues with the wind oddly enough; my shots were still rock solid, the drone performed wonderfully, but looking at that data, I'm amazed it did so well, no drifting, no image issues, rock solid.
All went well until the pilot error; I was using my Samsung Phone, I was out at about 275 feet, way up at 380 feet, easily visible, but I have heavy woods and lots of WiFi around my house (I'm an offender with 2 ISP's/Wifi setups . The Pilot Error was to hit Land instead of RTH on the phone; they're really close together (as everyone knows) and I fat fingered the wrong spot on the phone. Well, the drone dutifully started coming down and I saw this and had a moment of confusion, but I thought it was oddly descending to my RTH altitude, and I was still in the mental mode of thinking it was doing an RTH (I know it normally doesn't do this). However, probably due to remote controller interference, when it got down to about 250 feet, I started losing the video feed and by this time, I started pushing UP on the stick to gain altitude, but it wasn't taking. I'd get glimpses of video showing the AC still descending and by now, I had lost VLOS. I kept pushing up on the sticks, but then lost all contact with the AC. And I'm only 278 feet away, but it's now on the ground in a heavily wooded area.
I had gotten myself a Marco Polo for my wetlands shooting to help me recover the drone should I lose it. I used that and the find my drone map to find it. As I approached the location, again only 278 feet away from my home location, I got signal back and could see lots of ferns, good, it wasn't in a tree. Searching for a few minutes, I found it, still turned on with 17% battery left, my gimbal protector/shade (to prevent solar flares from the sides) was knocked off and by the side, the Marco Polo came un-velcroed but was nearby, and one of the strobes was knocked off (and it was OFF somehow, so it was a little hard to find in the leaves). But I found the drone.
The right rear leg of the drone got hyper extended upwards, denting the cowling, and the drone arm can now extend up a bit where it should not be able to do so. It's spring loaded, and appears to stay in position in flight (I tried maneuvers up and down, sport mode, it seemed to stay put just fine). AND, at first I thought that was the extent of the damage. However, on one of my sets of foliage shots after that, I got one shot that was tilted about 3 degrees or so, then the next was horizontal. Checking the camera and gimbal carefully, I found that one of the vibration stability tabs on the drone that mates with the bottom of the gimbal using rubber grommets had broken, allowing the camera to tilt at times. I found I could correct it with camera movements. It barely affects the camera use at all, I was able to even get nice 360 pano's with it as it. BUT, since I have DJI Care Refresh, I'll call it in and get it replaced when I'm done with my Autumn image series. I'll see how the refresh experience goes. If anyone has any advice for working with DJI for a replacement, please pass it on. Thanks in advance!
I have now retrained myself to use the RTH button on the controller, not the phone to prevent this fat fingering accident. I am also being more careful with wind conditions, though I don't think that ultimately was a contributing factor to this crash. I have a a Notification showing the drone lost contact with the controller for over 1.2 seconds (by notification, longer by lack of response), and lots of WiFi interference warnings around the same time, so I was unable to correct my initial error, ONCE I realized what I had done (which took a few seconds as well). AND I wasn't positioned in the best spot relative to my house; While I could still see the drone at 380 feet, as it descended, I had the corner of my house in the path to the drone for a few seconds after it descended to a certain altitude; I had to move to get line of sight back and by then it was behind trees. 2nd lesson is to be more careful to not let VLOS escape me as it did when it ducked behind the corner of my house from where I was standing; I should have already moved to the right to prevent that. Third lesson, while I often disable my WiFi on my phone, while I'm not certain, I likely didn't for this flight as I was planning on just doing a 5-10 minute flight to get my standard daily shots. I'll be sure to disable WiFi from now on as well as WiFi interference was definitely a factor in losing my connection at such close range.
So, an unfortunate accident but I learned some lessons that will help make me a safer pilot going forward; just using the controller for RTH will prevent that fat fingering accident.
Just for fun, here's a shot; I had to crop it quite a bit to make it small enough to upload. In the foreground you can see the South part of Wrack Meadow, Wachusett Reservoir, and then Mt Wachusett. In the center of the photo you can see Mt Monadnock NH, about 40 miles away as a crow flies. Shots in the opposite direction show Mt. Pisgah and the tops of the buildings in Boston, but I'll save that photo for sharing later:
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