Mid air malfunctions poll

[niclariv]

Hi everyone!
I'm still waiting for my Mavic (should have it on Monday or Tuesday supposedly), but in the mean time I've been browsing this forum. I've seen a few posts about sudden loss of control in the air.. things like:
•unexpected ATTI mode, sudden loss of satellites
•someone said they had no control when this happened and the flight log showed their control sticks making movements they hadn't made

For some of these cases I've seen on this forum, they happened after quite a number of flights, which is really unfortunate because by the time you've flown that much and nothing has gone wrong, you probably have a fair amount of confidence in your drone and might be flying it in an area that might be dangerous with it out of control (near buildings, over water, over people, cars, etc).

So, as a soon-to-be new Mavic owner, I thought I'd do a poll and see how common these problems are. Because many of the errors have happened only after a large number of flights, I think the best thing would be to only participate in the poll if you've either had more than 20 flights, or have experienced loss of control below 20 flights... but if you've had more than 20 flights and nothing has gone wrong please do add to the poll so we can get a sense of how common this is vs how many Mavics are flying just fine.

What I want to find out is, should every single Mavic owner 'not get too comfortable' and be prepared for this happening at any moment even after a large number of flights, or is it only a portion of Mavics sold that have a problem. Either way, hopefully DJI can fix whatever is actually a bug and not user error.

One common thread in all the forum posts about these issues is people asking about calibrating the compass, IMU, and sticks. To clarify - this is direct from the manual 'Only calibrate the compass when the DJI GO app or the status indicator prompt you to do so.' Though it's funny because it also says to recalibrate 'When flying in a new location or in a location that is different from the most recent flight.' ...so how can it be calibrated out of the box for your current location when it comes from China..

Anyway, in the online poll I think it might be worth keeping track of which calibrations people have done as well and see if there's any correlation between the frequency of calibrations and the errors.

Because of the free poll maker I used, I have to do 2 polls to keep track of the errors vs calibrations.

Poll 1: Have you had mid-air loss of GPS (despite being in an area where there's no reason to lose GPS) or control?

Quick poll

Poll 2: If you have had a problem, how often do you calibrate the compass and have you calibrated the IMU?

http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=58376244e4b0e8b35e80a888

Thanks everyone! Sorry if this was poorly worded as I'm new to drones.. but I think it will help out! My last quick point to say is that I hope everyone who can say without a doubt that what they experienced was a bug and not user error has reported it to DJI so they can do something about it.

Note: yes I know you can build the poll in to the forum, but when I tried that it looks like the poll doesn't show up on the iOS app for the forum

 

[Anton Chigurh]

I have 22 flights on my Mavic, and I've had no issues whatsoever.

 

[m0j0]

18 flights it is perfect. I've calibrated once. Not touching the IMU. 22 stress free flights Even a very long distance one. As to your anxiety though. You should always remember what this is.. it is essentially a flying lump of plastic. Don't ever fly it where a malfunction could hurt someone. If it fails and crashes in some rocks or the ocean.. so be it. If it force lands in the middle of a Forrest tough noogies. Don't ever fly it where if it malfunctions there is a high risk of injuring people. Use common sense and that will take you far. I won't preach the rules because honestly I've been known to be outside of them. I will say minimize the chance that this falls on someone by not flying over people. Stay away from large events. Stay away from aircrafts and airports.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[niclariv]

I understand, but my main purpose for this is filming concerts (that I play with my band), which I know I'll need a special license to film (Canada) and it can't actually be above people, but I'm hoping for a high overhead and nearby but not above anyone shot of the stage and grounds at big festivals. It's all good as long as it stays roughly in its position and doesn't take off and get quite far away. I guess the good news is that in all these cases it seems that the drone is maintains it's altitude even thought it's drifting


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[schpenxel]

43 flights, no issues. Did compass calibration the first time I powered it up (per app's request) and that's it. I've never done one again and never done any sort of IMU calibration. No issues.

 

[kmaluo]

30 flights perfect except for Android app quiting once in awhile after last 2 GO updates. No IMU recalibration, only calibrated compass once.

 

[generaltso]

Mine switched to atti mode during my last flight. I still had control over it, but landing was a challenge. I had just done an IMU calibration per DJI Support to resolve a gimbal judder issue. I did not calibrate the compass, which may be what caused it to switch to atti mode. I'll calibrate the compass before my next flight.