Landing at night, help wanted.

[the CB4]

Greetings,

I'm a new pilot, but have been diligent in flying often since getting my mavic. Tonight I was testing the battery and RTH functions, and decided to throw in disconnecting my phone from the controller. The mavic was approx. 10ft in front of me and 7ft above the ground...here's what happened:

The "Low Battery" signal was on for the previous 5 minutes or so, then, I disconnected my phone to see if it would return to home and land safely. My controller battery was 53% and the mavic's battery changed from 1% to 0%. it suddenly accelerated down and hit the pavement and spun around twice and then died.

I've been trying to read to figure out the specifics of the landing preferences in the drone/RTH, but I don't feel totally competent. Can anyone help clear up this situation so I can figure out if it was complete user-error, or just the Mavic doing what it's programmed to do?

Thanks.

 

[Drone Master]

Greetings,

I'm a new pilot, but have been diligent in flying often since getting my mavic. Tonight I was testing the battery and RTH functions, and decided to throw in disconnecting my phone from the controller. The mavic was approx. 10ft in front of me and 7ft above the ground...here's what happened:

The "Low Battery" signal was on for the previous 5 minutes or so, then, I disconnected my phone to see if it would return to home and land safely. My controller battery was 53% and the mavic's battery changed from 1% to 0%. it suddenly accelerated down and hit the pavement and spun around twice and then died.

I've been trying to read to figure out the specifics of the landing preferences in the drone/RTH, but I don't feel totally competent. Can anyone help clear up this situation so I can figure out if it was complete user-error, or just the Mavic doing what it's programmed to do?

Thanks.

With all due respect. Have you by any chance read the manual? The only reasons that would cause your mishap would be possible battery settings were set to zero for RTH or Smart RTH was not enabled. Or both.
Also the last thing you want to do is pull the connection from your device knowing there is only little time to land. Letting the battery get below 10 percent is just a no no and should have been averted.
Was the controller beeping or the app warning you of what was going on? We're the lights on the Mavic flashing red?
I'm sure some others will chime in on this.
Hope you did not sustain any damage.

 

[james_mav]

Greetings,

I'm a new pilot, but have been diligent in flying often since getting my mavic. Tonight I was testing the battery and RTH functions, and decided to throw in disconnecting my phone from the controller. The mavic was approx. 10ft in front of me and 7ft above the ground...here's what happened:

The "Low Battery" signal was on for the previous 5 minutes or so, then, I disconnected my phone to see if it would return to home and land safely. My controller battery was 53% and the mavic's battery changed from 1% to 0%. it suddenly accelerated down and hit the pavement and spun around twice and then died.

I've been trying to read to figure out the specifics of the landing preferences in the drone/RTH, but I don't feel totally competent. Can anyone help clear up this situation so I can figure out if it was complete user-error, or just the Mavic doing what it's programmed to do?

Thanks.

Greetings,

I'm a new pilot, but have been diligent in flying often since getting my mavic. Tonight I was testing the battery and RTH functions, and decided to throw in disconnecting my phone from the controller. The mavic was approx. 10ft in front of me and 7ft above the ground...here's what happened:

The "Low Battery" signal was on for the previous 5 minutes or so, then, I disconnected my phone to see if it would return to home and land safely. My controller battery was 53% and the mavic's battery changed from 1% to 0%. it suddenly accelerated down and hit the pavement and spun around twice and then died.

I've been trying to read to figure out the specifics of the landing preferences in the drone/RTH, but I don't feel totally competent. Can anyone help clear up this situation so I can figure out if it was complete user-error, or just the Mavic doing what it's programmed to do?

Thanks.

If you hit RTH with the mavic 10ft in front of you it will attempt to land. It will not go up to the preset return height.

Maybe the Mavic suddenly accelerated down since it was out of juice. You stated you were flying with 1%, the next thing is zero. The Mavic was so close that it wouldn't initiate the normal functions like attempting to land at the critical levels since it was within 20 meters. I think it just ran out of power.

 

[msinger]

Can anyone help clear up this situation so I can figure out if it was complete user-error, or just the Mavic doing what it's programmed to do?

Please upload your TXT flight log here and post a link back here.

 

[the CB4]

With all due respect. Have you by any chance read the manual? The only reasons that would cause your mishap would be possible battery settings were set to zero for RTH or Smart RTH was not enabled. Or both.
Also the last thing you want to do is pull the connection from your device knowing there is only little time to land. Letting the battery get below 10 percent is just a no no and should have been averted.
Was the controller beeping or the app warning you of what was going on? We're the lights on the Mavic flashing red?
I'm sure some others will chime in on this.
Hope you did not sustain any damage.

I appreciate your response! And ya I actually did read the manual. And I changed my battery settings and Smart RTH the day I got it, and actually always check the battery for RTH before flight. The smart check I did not specifically look and check before flight, so maybe that was it.

And yes, the controller was beeping, the app was not because I had closed out of it, and the lights were flashing red. I knew full-well that meant it would disable, but I simply did not react fast enough (regretable, yes, but I knew that could be a possibility before testing it out, so I can only blame myself for not catching it). But I just wanted to know if anyone else had something similar happen to them. Truthfully I was just checking to see if it was me or not, seeing what other people had noticed. I wanted to see if without a connection through the app, that the mavic would land automatically if the controller was still connected IF the battery were going dead. It had said "Landing" For almost 10 minutes, so I figured it would land itself. When it didn't, I got curious to see how low the battery would go before landing. Clearly not my best idea.

Thanks!

 

[Drone Master]

I appreciate your response! And ya I actually did read the manual. And I changed my battery settings and Smart RTH the day I got it, and actually always check the battery for RTH before flight. The smart check I did not specifically look and check before flight, so maybe that was it.

And yes, the controller was beeping, the app was not because I had closed out of it, and the lights were flashing red. I knew full-well that meant it would disable, but I simply did not react fast enough (regretable, yes, but I knew that could be a possibility before testing it out, so I can only blame myself for not catching it). But I just wanted to know if anyone else had something similar happen to them. Truthfully I was just checking to see if it was me or not, seeing what other people had noticed. I wanted to see if without a connection through the app, that the mavic would land automatically if the controller was still connected IF the battery were going dead. It had said "Landing" For almost 10 minutes, so I figured it would land itself. When it didn't, I got curious to see how low the battery would go before landing. Clearly not my best idea.

Thanks!

Ok, No worries, was not trying to be a tool. Just being straight forward. Have you tried uploading your flight log to msingers log viewer? Post your results so we can see what the last few seconds were like. That could determine the answer. Good luck. BB..

 

[the CB4]

Ok, No worries, was not trying to be a tool. Just being straight forward. Have you tried uploading your flight log to msingers log viewer? Post your results so we can see what the last few seconds were like. That could determine the answer. Good luck. BB..

Haha no worries! I didn't take it that way, I'd probly have asked the same question. I'll upload the flight log soon.
Thanks!

 

[Andrew F]

Haha no worries! I didn't take it that way, I'd probly have asked the same question. I'll upload the flight log soon.
Thanks!

Hey CB4,

I applaud you for being "experimental" but your "test" was "pretty crazy" - using technical drone speak (haha.) First, when batteries get that low, the software is only guessing how much juice is really left. It appears your cells gave out. I'm guessing the crash would have occurred regardless of the APP being disconnected. Second, as a retired professional trouble shooter, may I suggest you test only one variable at a time? When you throw in 3 or 4 variables while testing, it makes it virtually impossible to draw any specific conclusions. Also, if you really want to test certain functionality that may result with the crash of your drone, which I most certainly don't want to test, be sure to do so in a very soft landing area devoid of hard objects. I'd also suggest using the gimbal cover as impacting the camera has another whole list of negatives. Good luck!

 

[Anthony]

Sorry to see the Mavic crashed, I have tested the RTH often and always after a FW update and I a way I do what you tried to do and that is to say I fly up 10 meters and away 10 to 20 meters ( as you need to be at least 10 meters away from the RTH point for it to work ... I then turn off the RC and wait for the Auto RTH to kick in and so far every time it has worked.

I would like to echo the points above about the battery level I have mine set at 30% & 10% and always land at around the 20% mark at least.

I suspect the Mavic did run out of power which is maybe why it crashed but it is possible that the combination of extremely low power and the disconnect confused the Bird ....

It will be interesting to see what detail is in the flight log.

Is your Mavic still air worthy ?? hopefully it is and you can repeat your test but with better testing conditions as it is nice to see the Mavic do what you expect it to do the conditions are within its operating window.

 

[the CB4]

Sorry to see the Mavic crashed, I have tested the RTH often and always after a FW update and I a way I do what you tried to do and that is to say I fly up 10 meters and away 10 to 20 meters ( as you need to be at least 10 meters away from the RTH point for it to work ... I then turn off the RC and wait for the Auto RTH to kick in and so far every time it has worked.

I would like to echo the points above about the battery level I have mine set at 30% & 10% and always land at around the 20% mark at least.

I suspect the Mavic did run out of power which is maybe why it crashed but it is possible that the combination of extremely low power and the disconnect confused the Bird ....

It will be interesting to see what detail is in the flight log.

Is your Mavic still air worthy ?? hopefully it is and you can repeat your test but with better testing conditions as it is nice to see the Mavic do what you expect it to do the conditions are within its operating window.

Thankfully, it still flys great. I got lucky, and learned some lessons.



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