Sometimes, the only way to trust technology is to test it!

[Marko9219]

I flew the Mavic out about 3/4 of a mile from me (A very wide open and desolate area), turned off the controller, threw it on the car seat and waited. And waited. And waited. And then I heard it. Growing louder by the moment. Then I saw it. It returned and it landed, right where it took off from. Just as advertised.

 

[Ianc]

You are a (xxxxxx)* man!

ianc

* supply your own adjective here

 

[BD0G]

It takes blind faith. I know exactly how you felt as I have done similar myself.

 

[Marko9219]

It takes blind faith. I know exactly how you felt as I have done similar myself.

Well, it wasn't "blind" faith. Blind faith means no emperical reason to believe, yet you continue to believe.
I had lots of evidence and other's experiences to give me the faith to turn that controller off. .

 

[Jonez]

I flew the Mavic out about 3/4 of a mile from me (A very wide open and desolate area), turned off the controller, threw it on the car seat and waited. And waited. And waited. And then I heard it. Growing louder by the moment. Then I saw it. It returned and it landed, right where it took off from. Just as advertised.

Gosh I love it" I did the very same thing I didn't take it serious until I lost her up there some where "an then she pops up right behind me !.....

 

[charliesRig]

I flew the Mavic out about 3/4 of a mile, turned off the controller, threw it on the car seat .

.
Like a BOSS.!
.

 

[Marko9219]

A couple things that I wasn't expecting from this drill. Not strange or weird, just that I didn't really think about it beforehand: First, I never thought about the video keeping recording during controller disconnect. Yup, I realize it does, but it never crossed my mind prior to viewing the video afterwards. Secondly, while viewing the video, after the disconnect, the Mavic started to climb to the RTH altitude as expected. However unexpected was it's pause in climb, yaw towards homepoint, then a continuation of the climb to the RTH altitude. I expected the yaw maneuver AFTER reaching RTH altitude, not during the climb AFTER pausing for the yaw. Interesting to see that behavior. It climbed for about 10 seconds, stopped, yawed 180 (ish) degrees towards home, then climbed for another 5 seconds before starting forward movement.

 

[Anthony]

I always test the RTH function after ever firmware update along with a few other things. It has always landed within a few inches of its take off position.

 

[locoman]

Yes, this is an awesome bird.

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

A couple things that I wasn't expecting from this drill. Not strange or weird, just that I didn't really think about it beforehand: First, I never thought about the video keeping recording during controller disconnect. Yup, I realize it does, but it never crossed my mind prior to viewing the video afterwards. Secondly, while viewing the video, after the disconnect, the Mavic started to climb to the RTH altitude as expected. However unexpected was it's pause in climb, yaw towards homepoint, then a continuation of the climb to the RTH altitude. I expected the yaw maneuver AFTER reaching RTH altitude, not during the climb AFTER pausing for the yaw. Interesting to see that behavior. It climbed for about 10 seconds, stopped, yawed 180 (ish) degrees towards home, then climbed for another 5 seconds before starting forward movement.

Great description of your findings...thanks!

 

[Jbourne210]

I've noticed the same thing during RTH. My RTH is typically 100 feet, but upon activation of RTH, it climbs to approximately 60', yaws to the new flight direction, then continues to climb vertically to RTH altitude. Then it comes on home. Strange...

 

[TxArch DroneGuy]

Well, it wasn't "blind" faith. Blind faith means no emperical reason to believe, yet you continue to believe.
I had lots of evidence and other's experiences to give me the faith to turn that controller off. .

I’ve done something similar. You either trust the technology or not.

 

[Youser]

I had to use it unexpectedly. Phone turned off, Mavic was quite a bit away. Engaged RTH and watched the distance counter on the RC start to reduce. Brought a smile to my face lol.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Good test, but you could have done this VLOS and still got the successful test, but be able to see anything unexpected happening and correct it

 

[Lake_Flyer]

Nice test but from my own experience, I would advise not to do it this way.

Switching the RC off, the Mavic really can't do anything else than do a preprogrammed action like RTH or hover in place or land (whatever is programmed). There's nothing intelligent about that. The receiver switches one of its channels to its default setting when no signal is received for a few seconds. If the receiver is working correctly during flight you can safely assume it also will switch that channel when it comes to it.

The problem however is that whenever you need to gain back control during the test, you can only hope that switching the RC back on will result in rebinding with the bird. It will 99% of the times but sometimes not, due to radio interference for instance. I have had (only a few) instances that I had to turn everything (bird and RC) on and off twice before the RC connected properly. Before a 1st flight as well as after a battery change. And I have had that with my Inspire1 and Mavic drones.
I once switched off the RC while flying my Phantom1 and it did RTH fine. However nothing happened when I switched on the RC and I just had to watch it land itself, nothing I could do to make it rebind. After turning the P1 off and on it worked again.

Knowing this can happen I will never switch off my RC while flying. Doing an RTH test (during flight) with the button is just as much proof that it works. If the light is flashing yellow after switching off the RC (while on the ground) you know it is in the Control Signal Lost procedure and that it will perform the last and only instruction left.

Also consider this: if Landing Protection happens to be on, it might just hover over the homepoint and wait for an instruction to actually land, before it finally falls to the ground. If you fail to rebind your RC at that time you do have a bit of a problem.

 

[marc.mavik]

I lost control of my MP last saturday ("Aircraft disconnected"). It came back in RTH mode. As I was unuable to have the control back, i restarted DGI GO whith no effect then switched off the RC. Then the MP was hovering above the home point due to obstacle avoidance (the take off was under trees ... not a good idea). When i switched on the RC and the App, the RC reconnect to the MP and then i was able to land safely. In the logfile, i saw that was the app which disconnect first.

 

[Tiny]

I always test the RTH function after ever firmware update along with a few other things. It has always landed within a few inches of its take off position.

What are the few other things?