What if you lose GPS flying and no line of sight to return home?

[Pointbob]

Hey all

Hypocritical question here..

If you are flying your mavic about 1 mile away and all of sudden you lose GPS mode and it switches to ATTI - how could you return the bird home?

Lots of times I'm flying out over ocean or inland so even a video signal on the phone may not be enough be able to clue together how to get the bird home...what would you do then? in ATTI mode only?

Thanks

 

[MavicCF]

Hey all

Hypocritical question here..

If you are flying your mavic about 1 mile away and all of sudden you lose GPS mode and it switches to ATTI - how could you return the bird home?

Lots of times I'm flying out over ocean or inland so even a video signal on the phone may not be enough be able to clue together how to get the bird home...what would you do then? in ATTI mode only?

Thanks

Well as long as you still have a connection you can watch your distance meter increase or decrease according to various stick inputs. Say you push right stick foreword, watching the gauge and it starts to increase. Stop and switch to right stick back, distance decreases for a while and then again starts increasing again. Again try the different right stick options until distance again decreases. Keep doing this until your bird is again in sight. What I usually do before taking off is to pick out some prominent landmark near me and use that to orient to my surroundings. -CF

 

[Pointbob]

Well as long as you still have a connection you can watch your distance meter increase or decrease according to various stick inputs. Say you push right stick foreword, watching the gauge and it starts to increase. Stop and switch to right stick back, distance decreases for a while and then again starts increasing again. Again try the different right stick options until distance again decreases. Keep doing this until your bird is again in sight. What I usually do before taking off is to pick out some prominent landmark near me and use that to orient to my surroundings. -CF

Ahhh...I did not know that. I thought the measured distance was calculated by the GPS connection. So distance is autonomous of GPS...very cool! THANKS

 

[Mission North]

Without a GPS position the "distance meter" will not work. If you still have a video feed you should be able to fly back by eye. Of course if you stick to the law and stay within VLOS you won't have a problem.

 

[Pointbob]

Without a GPS position the "distance meter" will not work. If you still have a video feed you should be able to fly back by eye. Of course if you stick to the law and stay within VLOS you won't have a problem.

Well if it's ok for the Chief - it's ok for me

Trump Administration Expands Drone Use to Beyond Visual Line of Sight

 

[MavicCF]

Without a GPS position the "distance meter" will not work. If you still have a video feed you should be able to fly back by eye. Of course if you stick to the law and stay within VLOS you won't have a problem.

I did not know that! Good info to know though (actually now that I think of it I don't know how I though it worked outside of GPS). Thanks for correcting me.

 

[MavicCF]

Well if it's ok for the Chief - it's ok for me

Trump Administration Expands Drone Use to Beyond Visual Line of Sight

Anyway, picking a good landmark and paying attention to your surroundings should get you back. I think that link talks mostly about commercial drones being able to fly BVLOS but still it would be cool...

 

[Dariof]

This happened to me, but I only lost the video feed, not the GPS. If I remember correctly, I still had the compass pointer and map.....just no picture.

I did verify my return home with the decreasing distance on the RC.

Of course RTH should have worked as well, but I wanted to do it manually.

 

[mel.m]

As long as u were going in one direction when it happened you could just reverse the stick input and sometimes a bit more elevation will help regaining signal.

 

[Robert Mitchell]

GPS loss to the ship is probably one of the least likely scenarios unless you are flying under bridges around tall buildings etc.

More likely is video feed or RC connection.

Not exactly an answer to the OPs question but one method, people often forget about:

if you loose video but still have RC connection, is to switch to home lock mode and pull back on the right stick.

 

[kakao]

How do you switch to home lock mode ...??

Do you mean RTH button?

 

[dvarapala]

Without a GPS position the "distance meter" will not work.

However, the compass should still work, right? So yaw the aircraft around until the arrow is pointing back at you, and then full-throttle forward until it comes back into view. Watch the video feed and avoid any obstacles.

 

[MavicCF]

How do you switch to home lock mode ...??

Do you mean RTH button?

That confused me too, it's one of the intelligent flight modes, but if your phone disconnects and isn't working, will it still let you switch flight modes?

 

[Robert Mitchell]

That confused me too, it's one of the intelligent flight modes, but if your phone disconnects and isn't working, will it still let you switch flight modes?

Home lock is on the same screen as the intelligent flight modes, and you're correct, it won't work if you have no RC connection. It WILL still work, however if you just lose video, which is most often what happens first.

 

[Robert Mitchell]

How do you switch to home lock mode ...??

Do you mean RTH button?

No not RTH. It is on the intelligent flight mode screen and one of the intelligent flight modes.



Just another tool to use in case you lose video feed but still have an RC connection.

 

[MavicCF]

Home lock is on the same screen as the intelligent flight modes, and you're correct, it won't work if you have no RC connection. It WILL still work, however if you just lose video, which is most often what happens first.

Usually when my phone disconnects it does this. AC is still connected but phone disconnects completely and goes to black screen. Can you still change flight modes in this instance? My solution has always been to hit the controller RTH button, wait a few seconds for the Mavic to orient itself, then hit the pause button and sport mode it home.

 

[Robert Mitchell]

Usually when my phone disconnects it does this. View attachment 32686 AC is still connected but phone disconnects completely and goes to black screen. Can you still change flight modes in this instance? My solution has always been to hit the controller RTH button, wait a few seconds for the Mavic to orient itself, then hit the pause button and sport mode it home.

Right, if your device disconnects, it can't send any data to the controller. In that case only commands from the controllers I.E. RTH, stick inputs, sport mode, will still work.

I'm mainly referring to loss of video feed from the Mavic due to distance, obstruction, camera malfunction etc.

Different situations require different responses, although most will just choose RTH because it is an easy solution.

 

[MavicCF]

Right, if your device disconnects, it can't send any data to the controller. In that case only commands from the controllers I.E. RTH, stick inputs, sport mode, will still work.

I'm mainly referring to loss of video feed from the Mavic due to distance, obstruction, camera malfunction etc.

Different situations require different responses, although most will just choose RTH because it is an easy solution.

Ok gotcha, I though you were referring to the phone/tablet disconnecting from the controller. In any of those scenarios you mentioned home lock does make perfect sence. -CF

 

[Robert Mitchell]

Ok gotcha, I though you were referring to the phone/tablet disconnecting from the controller. In any of those scenarios you mentioned home lock does make perfect sence. -CF

Just make sure you have sufficient altitude before using this method, as it will be coming home in an unknown orientation and sensors might not be facing forward.

Another reason most opt for RTH.

 

[MavicCF]

Just make sure you have sufficient altitude before using this method, as it will be coming home in an unknown orientation and sensors might not be facing forward.

Another reason most opt for RTH.

Yeah that's why I use the modified RTH I mentioned above.