Air 3 Loses signal abruptly

[woodstock777]

First, hello. Newbie here. Please forgive this long post. I simply would like to explain. I have flown various drones for nearly 20 years. I only recently found myself in a position to fly commercially so it's off to take the test next week. I have flown in many areas, states, cities, counties, etc. In this time I have had one crash that was 100% my fault, and a heart breaking failure of a Phantom 4 pro. My most recent purchase of the Air 3, a spectacular piece of equipment I might add, has provided a modern tool to the fullest extent, for consumer use at least. I loved my Phantom 4 Pro but on a perfectly clear day, as I flew it out to about a half mile in the forest it completely dropped the connection, the screen went dark, and to my horror, it never returned to home. I walked through the thick woods using the GPS and found it broken on the ground exactly where I lost the signal. It simply shut down and plummeted to the earth. I never figured out why. I checked everything and even sent the data to Houston,TX but never found out why.
So, when I took my new drone out for its 4th flight, testing the distance in wooded areas you can imagine my horror when the same thing occurred. During the flight, I had a really great signal even flying in a very wooded area. It easily surpassed my older drones abilities in distance but after only one signal warning it abruptly dumped the connection. OH NO! I climbed up on the bed of my truck to increase my height in hopes it would reconnect and after 35 seconds of terror, bam, there it was. I checked the flight data to see if it was returning home but there was a gap in the data of about a tenth of a mile so I am not sure. Due to the loss of my PH 4, I am really nervous about trusting these drones to return in case of a loss of signal. One would assume the technology would be there now, but after what happened, I am highly skeptical.
I would like to know if anyone out there has had similar incidents as I had with the PH 4 and if anyone has had to rely on the newer Air 3 to return home own its own.

 

[old man mavic]

@woodstock777 ah the dreaded trees strike again
firstly welcome to the forum
the Air 3 has the very latest transmission system developed by DJI and in many respects it is able to give a more robust connection between the RC and drone
but like all systems that use this kind of connection ,it still falls fowl of the connection being compromised due to obstructions like trees ,being in the path of the signal between the RC and the drone
you dont mention what height you were at when the signal was lost, you just have to put your trust in the system, or dont fly in a manner that could cause such an issue to occure

 

[AeroJ]

If we are in the woods, the RTH mode should never be set to climb a set amount and then try and return to launch point. It's just way too risky in terms of what the craft will rise into as it tries to clear the tree canopy, OA or not.

And of course woods are very risky to fly in regardless, but much more so at a distance, where every bit of trunk or foliage between you and the craft is absorbing or diffusing / scattering your signals. Woodland is EXACTLY the sort of place where signal could be expected to suddenly drop, and the best RTH mode on signal loss for these situations is 'land in place' or 'hover' if you want the least chance of a damaging crash.

 

[3rdof5]

Flying in tight quarters while BVLOS is asking for trouble with any model, including the P4. I'm not gonna preach about flying BVLOS as I'm as guilty as anyone but I always keep a fairly decent line of sight between my RC and the aircraft to maintain control signal. And has been already mentioned, relying on any mode of RTH while in tight quarters is also asking for trouble. I suspect your aircraft(s) were functioning perfectly and you just got yourself into trouble in tight quarters.

 

[mark426]

I fly my Air 3 All fishing boats at long distances over open sea. I have noticed that my signal (icon RC2) often goes from full strength to to loss of signal very rapidly. My Mavic signal decreases much more gradually and linear.