Today I lost my Drone. I'm not sure what happend. I changed 1 setting and that's the return to home.

[AlanTheBeast]

 

[MavicCF]

The other possibility was instead of saving the new home point to where the controller was, you might have set it accidentally the drone's location. That would explain why it started toward you then went back out to sea. It went to critical low battery and tried to return to home, which was now out over the ocean there it hovered until the battery died. Just an idea and it is probably wrong. -CF

 

[Frogster]

View attachment 15837

So this was my error of judgement

 

[MavicCF]

It looks like according to that log that it knew it was flying away from the home point. What would cause it to do that?

 

[AlanTheBeast]

The other possibility was instead of saving the new home point to where the controller was, you might have set it accidentally the drone's location. That would explain why it started toward you then went back out to sea. It went to critical low battery and tried to return to home, which was now out over the ocean there it hovered until the battery died. Just an idea and it is probably wrong. -CF

The new home point was on the beach 161 m to the south east from the take off point.

It looks like according to that log that it knew it was flying away from the home point. What would cause it to do that?

It was flying (heading) to the home point. Wind speed was high for the lowish RTH speed.

 

[dwallersv]

So this was my error of judgement

Hi buddy.

Again, I feel for you and your loss.

Don't know if you read my post above... I'd say in my opinion the biggest error in judgement was flying to such a low reserve power condition over water, leaving you with no opportunity to correct when something went wrong.

An easy mistake to make -- it's nearly impossible to be thinking about something going wrong when you're setting out on an exciting flight.

 

[MavicCF]

The new home point was on the beach 161 m to the south east from the take off point.

Why do you think caused it to fly away from the home point? It appears to gain altitude and increase the distance from the home point instead of returning toward it like its supposed to.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

So this was my error of judgement

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." - Will Rogers

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Why do you think caused it to fly away from the home point? It appears to gain altitude and increase the distance from the home point instead of returning toward it like its supposed to.

It was pointed home (226°) and flying that way. The wind was stronger than the RTH speed, I guess. So it was going backwards relative to the ground.

Odd behaviour for low battery condition as the best speed is about 50 km/hr for range/battery. Same with the P4P: RTH speed is not a battery conservation speed.

 

[bas4241]

Well, for some reason my Mavic (.400 firmware, GO4 4.1.0) doesn't behave the way you describe at all.

When I'm in RTH, I can use pitch (Mode 2 right stick forward/back) to speed it up, all the way to 33mph at full stick, without canceling RTH.

I can also change altitude with the left stick, without canceling RTH.

Just did exactly these maneuvers yesterday, precision landed within 2 inches of take-off.

So, somethings different about my Mavic from yours -- radically so.

Further: Turning the controller off to initiate RTH is an exceedingly foolish idea. Perhaps the most important "rule" when flying a remote piloted aircraft:

Do not ever deliberately lose control of the aircraft when you have control; you may not be able to re-establish control​

I'm hard-pressed to think of any worse advice than to completely remove your ability to control the drone while in flight. Autonomous control during RTH is not some sort of sophisticated AI that will avoid dropping on someone's head. No, it will drop the drone into a crowd if it hits critical battery. If you are connected, you can still control the aircraft quite a bit, get it out of the way, and sacrifice IT instead of people.

Finally, Failsafe RTH -- initiated from signal loss -- is different from Smart RTH, initiated by pressing the button. The behavior in flight and response to control inputs are not the same.

Please review the details of these features thoroughly, as it seems you have some misunderstanding. And please do not advise people to deliberately disconnect their RC from the aircraft as a means to initiate RTH. This is very risky, and to be blunt, foolish.

You should always be connected to and in control of your aircraft if possible, even when flying autonomously during RTH. You must be able to cancel RTH immediately if necessary for safety, take control and fly the aircraft.

I just checked again and my left stick appears to cancel RTH, unless I am just not waiting long enough to see it resume. On the control of aircraft issues you are probably correct. I remember it being in one of the DJI training videos during my Phantom 2 days that they said you could just turn off the controller at any time to bring it back home. That's when I started doing that, and it has always worked, but maybe not the best idea, especially in more urban areas. I will take your advice. Thanks....

 

[Kilrah]

That is the same thing as "return to controller", yes you only have to do it once but if it works correctly it doesn't matter where or how far you have moved the bird should RTH to your current position even if it is a mile away from the original takeoff point.

No. When saying "return to controller" people expect to enable it once and the aircraft to come back to "whatever the current controller position is at the time RTH is initiated" even if the controller has moved since, but what it is in reality is return to "the position the controller was at when setting to home point to it".

That's correct. DJI GO does not include a dynamic home point feature.

Incidentally there's an exception since right now, the Inspire 2 just got that feature in today's firmware update (needs optional remote GPS)

 

[mark_t]

Incidentally there's an exception since right now, the Inspire 2 just got that feature in today's firmware update (needs optional remote GPS)

I'm looking forward to testing that one before I fully believe the update notes...

 

[JoKhool]

Well, for some reason my Mavic (.400 firmware, GO4 4.1.0) doesn't behave the way you describe at all.

When I'm in RTH, I can use pitch (Mode 2 right stick forward/back) to speed it up, all the way to 33mph at full stick, without canceling RTH.

I can also change altitude with the left stick, without canceling RTH.

Just did exactly these maneuvers yesterday, precision landed within 2 inches of take-off.

So, somethings different about my Mavic from yours -- radically so.

Further: Turning the controller off to initiate RTH is an exceedingly foolish idea. Perhaps the most important "rule" when flying a remote piloted aircraft:

Do not ever deliberately lose control of the aircraft when you have control; you may not be able to re-establish control​

I'm hard-pressed to think of any worse advice than to completely remove your ability to control the drone while in flight. Autonomous control during RTH is not some sort of sophisticated AI that will avoid dropping on someone's head. No, it will drop the drone into a crowd if it hits critical battery. If you are connected, you can still control the aircraft quite a bit, get it out of the way, and sacrifice IT instead of people.

Finally, Failsafe RTH -- initiated from signal loss -- is different from Smart RTH, initiated by pressing the button. The behavior in flight and response to control inputs are not the same.

Please review the details of these features thoroughly, as it seems you have some misunderstanding. And please do not advise people to deliberately disconnect their RC from the aircraft as a means to initiate RTH. This is very risky, and to be blunt, foolish.

You should always be connected to and in control of your aircraft if possible, even when flying autonomously during RTH. You must be able to cancel RTH immediately if necessary for safety, take control and fly the aircraft.

I'm funny the latest updates on all of my equipment, and my bird behaves like yours during RTH.

 

[stratos]

Per AirData, the wind direction during flight was a near perfect TAIL WIND OUTBOUND at about 17 miles per hour with gusts to 29 mph.

Okay the following is a bit rushed because I have to leave soon. But here's my take on it.

A new Home Point was updated at 13:30.7. That home point is on the beach 161 m to the SE of the original Home Point.

After battery low RTH began, the drone pointed toward the beach and began coming home.

@15:20.7: "Warning__The remaining battery is only enough for RTH. Return home now."
@ 15:22.7: " Low Power. Returning home."

At this point the heading is 226. ie: pointing at the beach.

@15:55.5: "Critically Low Power. Aircraft Landing"

Heading is toward the beach. But movement is out to sea - wind seems stronger than the RTH speed.

@ 19:34.5: "Critically Low Voltage Warning__Land as soon as possible, or battery will be damaged."
@ 19:35.5 ""Critically Low Voltage Warning__Landing"

Sundry strong wind warnings.

So, it was attempting to come back but with the low power at 19:35 it started to land. Turned to its takeoff heading and did its thing.

Brace yourself: Pilot error. Windy flying outbound leg with a tail wind.

In those conditions, you should have switched to S-mode and beated towards the beach at max throttle forward when the battery was below 50%.

Edited: added wind speed and direction.

Wise words as always buddy. If you need to fly against the wind to return home, please bring back you mavic with at lest 50% battery and punch in the sport mode.
I had a scare the other day (even if I can consider now myself a seasoned pilot). I was about 1km out to the sea got a bit distracted by someone asking me the typical questions and when I realized I had less than 40%and had to fly against the wind.

Here comes the advice:

• If flying against the wind on your return try to fly low as the wind gusts typically are not so fast
• Punch S mode and while coming back chose an alternative landing site
• Try finding the alternative landing hover above the site and run/walk/drive to the mavic.

 

[Lake_Flyer]

My take on this:

Trusting RTH to bring it home, while it is outside of VLOS, and on top of that, heading out with tailwind.
At least 3 pilot errors.

RTH (to HOME or RC) by the way, is a FAILSAFE and only to be used in critical situations, NEVER to be trusted as a standard procedure. Only to be tested in a controlled situation every once in a while, after a firmware update.

Anyone, saying here that the best thing to do is to switch off the controller to invoke RTH should be corrected! It is about the stupidest thing to do. You give all the controls out of hand (to the FC or whatever might act up, even rogue wifi signals) and even break the binding with the RC by switching it off. There's always a slight chance the rebinding does not work correctly when you switch it back on to land 'manually'.

Learn to basically fly it yourself and don't trust RTH. If you must fly further than VLOS perse it's better to use the map view or radar or homelock. But always stay in direct control. And have an observer aid you with a pair of good binoculars! You are totally obligated to keep full control of your bird at all times.

 

[Lake_Flyer]

From my own experience during the controlled testing of RTH on y Phantoms and Inspire1 (my Mavic is still too new to take in the equation), I had several times that I switched back to manual because I decided it would probably fail to return.

Many, many people here always use RTH.
Everyone has the right to lose his bird when doing so. Out of 50 RTH's, there's a big chance one will fail. Like 2%. But it could be the first and it might also be the 150th, you NEVER know.

 

[geigy]

Good advice here, but respect, guys. We are all learning and name calling gets in the way of the process of passing on knowledge. Just my two cents.

 

[FlashGJ]

I have always thought of RTH as a fail safe feature and personally have never had to use it. I prefer to always maintain control and using VLOS or the map on the controller, manually fly it back to me.

The OP did not fully understand the Return to Controller feature, but that did not cause him to loose his MP. It was the strong headwind and low battery that caused it to fail in its attempt to come back.

 

[Lapeer20m]

I almost never use rth other than to show people how awesome the technology is.

When I am trying to impress my friends, I like to draw an outline of mavic in the parking lot using a sharpie marker prior to takeoff, fly to the edge of vlos and push rth. It often lands within an inch.

 

[Lake_Flyer]

Good advice here, but respect, guys. We are all learning and name calling gets in the way of the process of passing on knowledge. Just my two cents.

I assume you say this in general because I can't find any name calling in my posts.