Almost lost drone

[shb]

Two days after getting my repaired Mavic 3 back from China, I almost lost it again. I made a manual waypoint mission and was flying it. I had 30 some percent battery, so I knew I might not finish it. So I got down to 15% battery, and I aborted a RTH. It was getting close to finishing the mission, which was at my house. I figured I would hit RTH when it got to 10%. But when it got there, a dialog came up, saying it would start a forced landing in 8 seconds, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was only 400 feet from my house. So it started to land on a house, and I forced it up. I made it to the street, and there were all kinds of wires I had to avoid. I lost signal before it landed. So I frantically started looking for it on my street, and the next street. Nothing. When I was walking home, a trike driver, a Philippine 3 wheel taxi, stopped by me, and asked me if I had a drone? I said yes, and he said his friend had it, and he could take me to him. So I jumped in. I had looked for it where it landed, but I guess the trike driver had taken it before I got there. So I got it back. It looks undamaged. I gave them each 500 pesos, $10. I didn't know it would do an unabortable forced landing at 10%. Wonder how many guys here know that. I wanted to do find my drone, but I guess I don't know how. I'll have to learn that.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I would guess most people who read the forum would know of this behaviour in all? DJI drones.
It is NOT wise to ignore or cancel a low battery RTH.
You got lucky this time.

 

[shb]

I would guess most people who read the forum would know of this behaviour in all? DJI drones.
It is NOT wise to ignore or cancel a low battery RTH.
You got lucky this time.

I guess I learned something. Can goto maybe 15% if your right by your home point, but no less.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Many of us seasoned pilots have been bitten by the forced landings .

This is because there are several aspects of flying that can set it off. such as flying over water, weather, low battery , fog , rain, snow can all trip the drone up to wanting to force land.

The key to negotiating a force landing is to not panic, Keep the drone going up the entire time from the moment you get the forced landing do not let up and keep it that way do not let go or that drone is coming down fast. Some times you only get one shot at this so you have to practice it and than you can land at 5% battery safely.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water and know the skill of Forced Landings.

 

[shb]

Many of us seasoned pilots have been bitten by the forced landings .

This is because there are several aspects of flying that can set it off. such as flying over water, weather, low battery , fog , rain, snow can all trip the drone up to wanting to force land.

The key to negotiating a force landing is to not panic, Keep your Stick up and keep it that way do not let go or that drone is coming down fast. Some times you only get one shot at this so you have to practice it and than you can land at 5% battery safely.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water and not know the skill of Forced Landings.

Unfortunately I tend to panic. DJI should give you more warning they're going to initiate a forced landing, and allow you to abort it. I was close enough, with enough battery, to do a normal RTH. Hopefully reading what happened to me, will help educate other guys. I certainly learned something. Maybe someday I should practice handling forced landings when I'm in a big open field.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Unfortunately I tend to panic. DJI should give you more warning they're going to initiate a forced landing, and allow you to abort it. I was close enough, with enough battery, to do a normal RTH. Hopefully reading what happened to me, will help educate other guys. I certainly learned something. Maybe someday I should practice handling forced landings when I'm in a big open field.

You dont need a big open field , you can learn a lot by just hovering 40 ft above your landing spot .
Wait for the battery to go low and force land , than practice holding your stick up and you will learn quickly how to keep the drone up in the air while it wants to force land and than you can take it down to a little below zero percent .

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.

 

[GadgetGuy]

If you want to safely land below 10% battery under complete pilot control, there is also a free parameter setting change through www.Drone-Hacks.com to cancel the Autoland function. That is the very best solution. Just hook up your drone, and use the website executable to access the drone parameters, and find the relevant parameter string settings that control autoland.

The string to turn off Autolanding is :
bat_enable_smart_bat_landing_protect [value: 0]. 1 is on, 0 is off.

Setting the low battery levels to their minimum values of 10% and 5% will also minimize the distractions.

Set Level 1 at 10% and Level 2 at 5%
dji_bat_level_1 [value: 10]
dji_bat_level_2 [value: 5]

However, you are now fully in charge, and any problems are your fault!
This is what the screen looks like for the Air 2S, instead of the Mavic 3.

 

[Meta4]

there are several aspects of flying that can set it off. such as flying over water, weather, low battery , fog , rain, snow can all trip the drone up to wanting to force land.

Not sure where you got the idea, but flying over water, fog, rain or snow won't force your drone to land.

 

[slup]

...Can goto maybe 15% ... but no less.

No, you can't count on that at all.

The forced "Critical Low Voltage Auto Landing" that all DJI crafts have to prevent that the drone freefalls like a rock if ignorant pilots is operating it not paying attention or are overly optimistic about the battery levels... are height dependent & factor in the time the drone needs to reach ground (or actually 0m above HP) before the battery goes totally flat. The landing can be stopped/delayed or turned to a slow ascent by applying a constant large amount of throttle so you can navigate to a safer landing spot.

If you are up really high, the landing will start much earlier than 10%... being up on the max possible height above the HP (500m) can initiate a forced landing close to 50% battery on certain drone models.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Many of us seasoned pilots have been bitten by the forced landings .

This is because there are several aspects of flying that can set it off. such as flying over water, weather, low battery , fog , rain, snow can all trip the drone up to wanting to force land.

The key to negotiating a force landing is to not panic, Keep the drone going up the entire time from the moment you get the forced landing do not let up and keep it that way do not let go or that drone is coming down fast. Some times you only get one shot at this so you have to practice it and than you can land at 5% battery safely.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water and know the skill of Forced Landings.

I would suggest "Keep the drone going up the entire time from the moment you get the forced landing", if taken literally, is not the thing to do since it is increasing height at time when that is possibly the last thing desired/needed.

Yes lots of throttle are required.... to keep the drone in the air whilst it is moved to 'safety' but to aim to gain height is perhaps, circumstances depending, unwise.


@shb I would suggest that, in order to reduce your level of panic in such circumstances, you make a few practice flights in a safe area and let the drone hover, fairly low, over a safe landing area until forced landing kicks in. Then experiment with the throttle to see how much throttle is required to keep the drone in the air AND what horizontal movement control you have. Note the latter will probably noticeably decrease as the battery charge falls.
Note only a few flights, do too many and you may damage the battery. Note also that at some point, if the charge gets low enough, the motors will be stopped with the drone in mid air, so, I would aim to land such experiments before the battery reached 0%.

 

[shb]

Thanks for all the good advice guys. I'll definitely check out that dronehacks website. To me, DJI should let you adjust the battery levels in the settings.
I just finished watching the 4k footage. It didn't stop recording until I was handed it 12 minutes after it landed, and I turned it off. It was going to land on a building with solar panels tilted at a angle. I barely aborted that, and made it to the street. The landing was normal. A kid on a bicycle was riding by when it landed. He picked it up and gave it to the trike driver. They were holding and looking at it for about 10 minutes. Then he wrapped it in a cloth, and put it in his trike. Lucky it wasn't wrapped up too long, or it may have overheated. I'll try to put a video or 2 out later. Thanks again.

 

[shb]

I knew find my drone existed but I didn't know how to use it. So I just googled it and found out how to use it. It showed exactly where it landed. Next time I will know!

 

[TwoSticks]

I have been caught out a few times with my Avata and low battery and it’s been funny(ish). Outside flying through a tree hit the threshold and it took off upward for RTH and chewed up the leaves then hitting the ground. Indoors it got stuck to the ceiling when it thought it needed to accelerate up for RTH. It took some work to get it off the ceiling and to the ground where I was ready to land. With my camera drones, I stop what I’m doing to come back when the warning comes in since past that it will fight with you. Glad you got your drone back.

 

[slup]

I knew find my drone existed but I didn't know how to use it. So I just googled it and found out how to use it. It showed exactly where it landed. Next time I will know!
View attachment 158248

Be aware that the position in "Find my drone" will only be correct if your controller stays connected with the drone the whole way down until it have landed... if for instance losing the connection airborne, initiating a failsafe RTH & something happens to the drone on the way back, the last position you will have is where you lost the connection.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

To me, DJI should let you adjust the battery levels in the settings.

Why?
I would guess that DJI/the-drone's-software is in better position to calculate the battery needed to RTH etc. than many pilots.
You ignore/cancel the low battery RTH at your peril, even if that is only through damaging the battery. ( I do not know if wind is considered in that calculation.)
Have you not yet seen messages to the effect that flight-speeds/battery-power/current is restricted to prevent battery damage?

 

[slup]

...( I do not know if wind is considered in that calculation.)

All battery calculations totally disregard wind speeds & directions... all that is left over to the pilot & that is usually what makes newbies fail to get their craft home before the critical low battery auto landing starts.

 

[shb]

Why?
I would guess that DJI/the-drone's-software is in better position to calculate the battery needed to RTH etc. than many pilots.
You ignore/cancel the low battery RTH at your peril, even if that is only through damaging the battery. ( I do not know if wind is considered in that calculation.)
Have you not yet seen messages to the effect that flight-speeds/battery-power/current is restricted to prevent battery damage?

I just checked the screen capture, and I got the low battery RTH warning when the battery was 19% and I was only 800 feet from home. So it wasn't even close to not being able to make it home. It took about 3 more minutes to get down to 11%. But I understand what you're saying. I learned my lesson.

 

[shb]

Don't want to make excuses, but one reason this happened was the low default speed of the waypoint missions. I made one manually in the air. It put the default speed of 5 mph in. Way to slow for being at 300 feet. So I guess the first thing I have to do with waypoint missions is make the speed at least 15 mph or more. Wonder why DJI made it so slow?

 

[zeusfl]

Is not easier to just fly secure with a full battery and get ready to land on 20% left?
This habit is more secure for the battery and your and others' safety.

I personally don't like the idea of changing the force landing behavior, otherwise the drone will just drop like a rock from the sky and can hurt somebody once run out of battery.

Again, just have better planning and land safely leaving some 15% extra time for any inconvenience like strong winds. The drone will have sufficient juice to fight strong winds and go home safely. Do you want to keep flying longer? swap the battery. easy.

By flying longer under 15% you are just hurting your battery killing the lifespan.

 

[shb]

Is not easier to just fly secure with a full battery and get ready to land on 20% left?
This habit is more secure for the battery and your and others' safety.

I personally don't like the idea of changing the force landing behavior, otherwise the drone will just drop like a rock from the sky and can hurt somebody once run out of battery.

Again, just have better planning and land safely leaving some 15% extra time for any inconvenience like strong winds. The drone will have sufficient juice to fight strong winds and go home safely. Do you want to keep flying longer? swap the battery. easy.

By flying longer under 15% you are just hurting your battery killing the lifespan.

Yes, you're right. I had no real need to complete the waypoint mission other than I thought I could. Guess I won't try that again.