Water Crash... Is this the VPS issue im now reading about?

[Cyberpower678]

I am also one of those that does a thorough analysis of flight logs for users. @Robbyg brought my attention to this thread. I'd very much like to see that DAT file too. You are the first instance of a successful water recovery from a drone force dropping itself into water.

 

[budfroggy]

So it would basically be a safe to say, to avoid potential "VPS Issues" when flying over water, the simple fix is to do your flying over water with Landing Protection off and once you're done flying over the water, just switch it back on in the settings? Switching it on while still flying will work, or does the AC have to be landed first to adjust these settings? Is there any AC settings that you can't just turn on and off during mid-flight?

 

[JLane]

I actually sent it in to DJI.

I suppose you could always try to ask DJI if they'd be able to send you a couple of the .dat file. There's a good chance they'll say no, but you could always try. You could possibly even ask somebody like DJI-Ken on the DJI forums to look into it for you. There's a small chance he'll help you getting the .dat file.

 

[Cyberpower678]

I suppose you could always try to ask DJI if they'd be able to send you a couple of the .dat file. There's a good chance they'll say no, but you could always try. You could possibly even ask somebody like DJI-Ken on the DJI forums to look into it for you. There's a small chance he'll help you getting the .dat file.

I missed the response where he said he sent it in. :-( I was really looking forward to staring at that DAT. This was probably going to be a really rare read.

 

[msinger]

Can you just toggle the sport mode switch or do you need dual mode enabled in the menu?

I guess you're referring to the "Multiple Flight Modes" setting? I haven't tried toggling the switch with that setting disabled.

 

[Bunny Too]

I guess you're referring to the "Multiple Flight Modes" setting? I haven't tried toggling the switch with that setting disabled.

Yes Sir, multiple flight modes, I have not enable it yet; I have not had any issues however I believe I will enable to make sure I can get out of a landing if needed.
Thank you msinger,
Regards,
-d.

 

[Grey Wolf]

So the bottom line is, can I fly with all the sensors turned on while over water ?
I shouldn't have to turn anything off anytime.

 

[Gary cato]

So the bottom line is, can I fly with all the sensors turned on while over water ?
I shouldn't have to turn anything off anytime.

the general opinion is no you can not keep everything on

over water downward sensors off

in the air over land precision landing obstacle check off

 

[JJM]

So the bottom line is, can I fly with all the sensors turned on while over water ?
I shouldn't have to turn anything off anytime.

Well you're gonna have to turn off landing protection and the downward sensors if you want to fly over water without fear of your mavic going down. It's just one of those things you gotta do...

 

[PaoloOne]

So it would basically be a safe to say, to avoid potential "VPS Issues" when flying over water, the simple fix is to do your flying over water with Landing Protection off and once you're done flying over the water, just switch it back on in the settings? Switching it on while still flying will work, or does the AC have to be landed first to adjust these settings? Is there any AC settings that you can't just turn on and off during mid-flight?

I'd like to know that too, in the case you turn the sport mode on and then switch it back the landing protection will be working so potentially it should even when the sensors are expressly switched off and on. If they don't is either a bug or a wanted feature. Worth trying.

 

[HiVac]

Actually I doubt that many people hit this button accidentally. Where do you get this information from?
The physical button you need to press and hold for 3s. The screen button requires an additional slide to confirm the RTH function.
Hard to do this accidentally...

I've done this accidentally myself. Especially if you are holding it with your left hand while you ad preoccupied with something else...(frying to see the little speck of black in the sky, etc....). It's easy to do (and cancel).... if you put it into RTH, you should be able to cancel it easily.... auto landing is a different story....

 

[Strafe1]

So the bottom line is, can I fly with all the sensors turned on while over water ?
I shouldn't have to turn anything off anytime.

Sorry, but the manual says that the sensors may not work over water......So really, you should. It's not a personal entitlement!

 

[msinger]

Well you're gonna have to turn off landing protection and the downward sensors if you want to fly over water without fear of your mavic going down.

You really only need to disable Landing Protection since that's what's causing these problems.

 

[Andrew F]

Sorry, but the manual says that the sensors may not work over water......So really, you should. It's not a personal entitlement!

I continue to fly with them on so that I don't get too low and get hit by a wave. However, when I am flying low over water there is usually substantial coral so perhaps the visual systems override any crazy sonar readings. I doubt it though. Seems to me sonar would trump in the programming hierarchy. It's a little akin to having bad brakes on your car and solving the problem by shutting them off. OK. Bad analogy but solving a negative but disabling a feature is not acceptable. DJI needs to get this fixed. If they can't repair the Hardware, then they need to fix the software. It's not a daunting software problem.

 

[JJM]

It's a little akin to having bad brakes on your car and solving the problem by shutting them off. OK. Bad analogy but solving a negative but disabling a feature is not acceptable. DJI needs to get this fixed. If they can't repair the Hardware, then they need to fix the software. It's not a daunting software problem.

Terrible analogy.

The thing is, it's not a "problem" in DJIs mind. They're basically telling you it does not work over water.

This is akin to someone demanding a blow dryer work in the shower when they explicitly tell you "don't use near water". Do you also demand that your (or your wife's) blow dryer work in the shower??

 

[Andrew F]

Terrible analogy to my admittedly bad analogy. The feature is especially important over water. More so in fact. It has almost always worked for me. When I have received anomalous readings (and I have) I've just brought it back in and all was good. The Mavic freaking out when it receives disparate readings is the problem. Mavics need to be able to fly safely over water - as they have been actively marketed. The solution is not to throw out a very valuable feature and say "oh well", but to correct the problem. Most people don't understand the multiple sensors providing geo-spatial information to the Mavic operating system. There is no valid reason for the Mavic to force auto land regardless one false sonar readings. In this case, GPS, visual, inertial all told the Mavic it wasn't .7m above the surface. The control sticks should ALWAYS override the automatic systems. Analogies aside, this is a fixable problem for a valuable feature.

 

[Dspace]

I have a 29' long pilothouse boat. The cockpit floor is a wide open 11' x 7 1/2' space.
Wind was 0-5 mph. Water was very calm.
I've practiced hand launching/catching several dozen times as well as landing on the boats deck while sitting on land. So with the conditions I was confident I could land. The first couple min of flight I flew just beyond arms reach to make sure catching could work. The backup plan was to fly to the boat launch & land on the parking lot if I couldn't land on the boat. I wasn't planning on flying more than a couple hundred feet away from the controller so didn't think losing signal would be a problem. I have RTH set to hover.

Nice boat! Couldn't ask for a better platform. I've practiced some hand catching/launching while docked too. Of course mine is just a 23 ft center console with a t-top in the way and not much open deck space at all. Fwiw i've been water flying so far with vps off and a set of recovery floats (Ala poster Matt). Think I'll keep it that way

 

[Achilles]

VPS for sure. Same thing happened to me too. Now, anytime I'm doing any water flying, turn off those sensors ahead of time.

 

[code_ultra_zyl]

Your Mavic was ascending on its own because the downward sensors were detecting the ground. When you moved the throttle stick to the full down position to counteract that automatic ascent, that caused the Mavic to switch to forced landing mode (since the downward sensors were still detecting the ground). As noted above, toggling sport mode on/off would have cancelled the forced landing. If you had the "Landing Protection" setting disabled, that would have prevented both of those issues from occurring.

Yes, ****. I have placed it in "forced landing" by accident over water... I believe you can hit cancel on your tablet/phone... but do it quick.

 

[JLane]

Yes, ****. I have placed it in "forced landing" by accident over water... I believe you can hit cancel on your tablet/phone... but do it quick.

Currently the only way to cancel the forced auto-landing is by flicking the Sport mode switch: Tip: How to Cancel Auto Landing in v01.03.0500 (DJI, please Fix)