Mavic Fly Away this evening. Shes Gone!

Robert Granata · Mar 10, 2017

RC Mantis said:
There is also A RTH setting where the Mavic tries to fly around an obstacle. In this case it flies sideways and as I know all to well the Mavic does not have any side avoidance sensors.

I believe that it does not do sideways obstacle avoidance. If it senses something in front of it, it goes up until it is 5m above the object then continues on home.
What may have happened in this case may be that since it was near sunset when the RTH started, it may have sensed the sun as an obstacle and continued to rise until it reached max altitude, hovered there until low battery forced landing. Could be up in the trees right at the end of the track or anywhere along a line between that point and home, depending on where and how often it saw the sun as an obstacle. Get some neighborhood kids and offer them a reward and search along the line between last known position and home.

Cyberpower678 · Mar 10, 2017

Looking at the flight log. There's additional info I can find provide. It may have started back home and crashed, or landed on the spot. What irks me is that there isn't even a mention of a signal loss on that log.

Mitch · Mar 10, 2017

I'm no expert at looking at flight data but, did you launch with 73% battery power? If so, how long had it been since your last full charge? I've read on forums that you should always start with a fully charged battery.

To the experts---What's the potential ramifications of launching with a battery not at full capacity? And, possibly one that's not been charged for a few weeks?

andynormancx · Mar 10, 2017

Looks like it was late in the day, flying west when you lost it ?

If so it was flying into the sun and there have been cases where the Mavic has been confused by the sun and thought it was an obstacle to avoid. So it may have gone into return-to-home, got stuck trying to avoid the sun and then landed somewhere between the last location and home when it ran out of power.

JoKhool · Mar 10, 2017

Mitch said:
I'm no expert at looking at flight data but, did you launch with 73% battery power? If so, how long had it been since your last full charge? I've read on forums that you should always start with a fully charged battery.

To the experts---What's the potential ramifications of launching with a battery not at full capacity? And, possibly one that's not been charged for a few weeks?

There are no "ramifications" (as you put it) to flying on 73% battery, he wasn't flying with a low or critical battery alert. Think of it this way, if you start a flight with a full battery, land mid flight to change a setting or add a filter and take off on the same battery... its the same thing. As far as the battery not being charged for weeks at a time, this is not possible with the mavic intelligent flight batteries because it will only stay charged for a maximum of 10 days from the last time it was charged before it auto discharges to 20% by itself. The settings can be found in the DJI go4 app under the advanced battery settings.

Medic31525 · Mar 10, 2017

It is so amusing to read people's comments that believe these UAV's are going to do everything perfect, because that is how their own personal drone performs. It seems to me that DJI has began to rush these mavics out of the factory and quality is suffering. If these products did exactly what they were supposed to then this forum would be a lot less busy. Yes I know there are lots of pilot error cases but these drones do have a mind of there own at times and have major malfunctions that are uncontrollable by the pilot. Trust me I know.

andynormancx · Mar 10, 2017

Which comments are those ? This thread is mostly people theorizing on a what could have gone wrong, not saying "doesn't happen with my Mavic".

Mitch · Mar 10, 2017

In looking more at the battery data, HealthyDrones shows the battery was never charged with minimal other data. Could this be a bug with the website?

flyNfrank · Mar 10, 2017

dewster said:
Maybe sport mode needs to be dialed back or DJI needs to put a 4S lipo on the Mavic.

His issue most likely has a lot to do with not following instructions. @msinger mentioned to him 2 times about a link that overall would have provided details for a better analysis. Healthydrones is not good for diagnosing issues.

Wacker2611 · Mar 10, 2017

Is it normal to have so few minor signal errors, mine are almost always in the 30's!

integlikewhoa · Mar 10, 2017

flyNfrank said:
His issue most likely has a lot to do with not following instructions. @msinger mentioned to him 2 times about a link that overall would have provided details for a better analysis. Healthydrones is not good for diagnosing issues.

Agreed

int3grate · Mar 10, 2017

I've attached historical weather data from NWS. Looks like wind was out of the north at 10-14 MPH.

If the battery failed, it probably would have fallen somewhere around here:

AlanTheBeast · Mar 10, 2017

Any of neighbours into high powered radio gear?

What were the wind conditions?

IAC, you were well clear of the ground and I assume there are no new towers there. Too high up for a shotgun to get it. If it crashed, you know where. If it ran on ... hard to estimate as you had 5 minutes in and how much charge at takeoff?

AlanTheBeast · Mar 10, 2017

int3grate said:
I've attached historical weather data from NWS. Looks like wind was to the north at 10-14 MPH.
View attachment 8143

If the battery failed, it probably would have fallen somewhere around here:
View attachment 8144

Wouldn't that mean winds "out of the north"?