Almost lost it!

[WoostyD]

My son had a mavic mini today for his birthday. We thoroughly read the manual and all about it. First flight it was up about 30m when we pressed the return to home button. Nothing happened and then the drone just took off at high speed and disappeared!!

We did everything correctly, why would it do this?
Luckily got it back via Facebook but could have been an expensive day.
Also the gimbal mount seemed to be on then incorrect side and I had to take it off and turn it around (tiny rubber piece) to fit it in the slot. Poor quality standards!

 

[old man mavic]

welcome to the forum ,sorry for your issues ,what part of the UK are you based in ,i ask because if you tried to fly today then at least where i an in Wales it is far to windy for the MM
sounds like as soon as you pressed RTH at the height you were at,the drone was unable to make any headway against the wind and simply got blown down wind if you post the logs someone will be able to help you find out what happened

 

[Dakarenduro]

Did you check to see you had enough gps satellites locked before pressing RTH? and did you hear the Home Point Recorded message?

Finally, what kind of wind? At 30m the wind can be dramatically more than ground level and the Mini can not handle very much wind....

Also, did you set the RTH altitude for the flight profile? What was the RTH altitude set to?

 

[Lastrexking]

My son had a mavic mini today for his birthday. We thoroughly read the manual and all about it. First flight it was up about 30m when we pressed the return to home button. Nothing happened and then the drone just took off at high speed and disappeared!!

We did everything correctly, why would it do this?
Luckily got it back via Facebook but could have been an expensive day.
Also the gimbal mount seemed to be on then incorrect side and I had to take it off and turn it around (tiny rubber piece) to fit it in the slot. Poor quality standards!

You’ll need to share your flight logs with us. You can find how to do that here Flight log retrieval and analysis guide

Not sure where you are in the UK, but here in a Yorkshire it’s pretty windy. I wouldn’t even take any of my bigger Mavic out today, never mind the Mini.

 

[jwp721]

Do you remember what your son had set the RTH altitude at? Could be the reason the Mini seemed to take off and disappear. Also what actions did you/your son take within the first few seconds after the Mini took off at a high speed? Those first few hand motions you make when your drone seems to ignore your commands or gets into a dicey situation can be pretty important....

As for the gimbal I will reserve that for others as I haven't paid much attention to mine since I got my MM. It just simply works fine....

 

[dirkclod]

Need a picture of it.

 

[WoostyD]

welcome to the forum ,sorry for your issues ,what part of the UK are you based in ,i ask because if you tried to fly today then at least where i an in Wales it is far to windy for the MM
sounds like as soon as you pressed RTH at the height you were at,the drone was unable to make any headway against the wind and simply got blown down wind if you post the logs someone will be able to help you find out what happened

Thank you for your reply, that makes a lot of sense as it didn’t seem windy low down but when it got higher the wind was stronger so your explanation makes a lot of sense. Thank you

 

[Dakarenduro]

you would be well served by reading through the Mini forum on here as well as search some "My Mini crashed/lost/flew away" threads. You will learn about wind and other problems the Mini has and how to hopefully overcome them.

 

[Dakarenduro]

one other tip, if you havent already, might want to put a sticker on it with "If found call XXXX"

 

[jwp721]

one other tip, if you havent already, might want to put a sticker on it with "If found call XXXX"

lol. That was one of the first things I did to my MM.

It says, " If found please call John @ ______ He is in a panic right now!"

 

[Bosco Bear]

It sounds like your Mini had a different opinion of where home was than you. There are a few things that can cause you a lot of grief when you hit that button. Incorrect compass calibration, taking off with weak GPS reception, taking off from a metal structure such as a car, failing to set the RTH altitude to an appropriate height for the area, etc. You said that you pushed the RTH button and nothing happened, then it took off like a shot and disappeared. The part where "nothing happened" was probably the drone adjusting upwards to the RTH altitude before it proceeded to head "home". If the home location is not set correctly at the beginning, it's not going to where you want. Return to home can either be your best friend or your worst enemy depending on how you use it. This is just one possible explanation for what happened.

 

[Meta4]

Thank you for your reply, that makes a lot of sense as it didn’t seem windy low down but when it got higher the wind was stronger so your explanation makes a lot of sense.

It's always a good idea to find out exactly what happened, rather than having people guess.
The app has something like a black box recorder that saves the flight data so that the actual cause of an incident can be seen.
Analysis of the recorded flight data is very useful to help understand the incident and learn how to prevent similar events.

To have someone look into your incident go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.

 

[raymacke]

Really curious how you were able to recover it via Facebook. It sounds like an interesting story!

 

[Skyfli]

Thank you for your reply, that makes a lot of sense as it didn’t seem windy low down but when it got higher the wind was stronger so your explanation makes a lot of sense. Thank you

Hi there
Without doubt it was too windy for flying yesterday in the UK. We had 25mph gusting to 35mph.
That’s wind strength of Force 6-f8 on the Beaufort scale - Aka - blowing a hooley!

Only fly when the wind is still enough to light a match at ground level! 0-5mph wind.

For good real-time wind data use XCweather.com and UAV app ??

 

[Skyfli]

Wind Map - Britain Observations

 

[Lurch003]

Download UAV forecast... triple check your RTH settings before you attempt any height/distance... Oh, and don't fly in wind !

Mini's aren't designed to be flown in anything more than a light breeze unless you've got the balls and experience to bring it back, or land in a safe location if it won't.

Glad you got it back

 

[crlmjohnson]

My son had a mavic mini today for his birthday. We thoroughly read the manual and all about it. First flight it was up about 30m when we pressed the return to home button. Nothing happened and then the drone just took off at high speed and disappeared!!

We did everything correctly, why would it do this?
Luckily got it back via Facebook but could have been an expensive day.
Also the gimbal mount seemed to be on then incorrect side and I had to take it off and turn it around (tiny rubber piece) to fit it in the slot. Poor quality standards!

my wife have a mavic mini, and before she flew it for the first time, she had to go into the settings and make sure that all of the setting was setup correctly.

 

[KJT]

welcome to the forum ,sorry for your issues ,what part of the UK are you based in ,i ask because if you tried to fly today then at least where i an in Wales it is far to windy for the MM
sounds like as soon as you pressed RTH at the height you were at,the drone was unable to make any headway against the wind and simply got blown down wind if you post the logs someone will be able to help you find out what happened

Sorry to hear that you had such an experience. But I'm glad you got it back!
I agree with your comments regarding the weather OMM, I too live in Wales and the flight app has been saying "not good to fly" the last couple of days, and there's no way I'd be taking my mavic mini up when I see those kinds of warnings - especially to 30m...

 

[FLPilotshark]

My son had a mavic mini today for his birthday. We thoroughly read the manual and all about it. First flight it was up about 30m when we pressed the return to home button. Nothing happened and then the drone just took off at high speed and disappeared!!

We did everything correctly, why would it do this?
Luckily got it back via Facebook but could have been an expensive day.
Also the gimbal mount seemed to be on then incorrect side and I had to take it off and turn it around (tiny rubber piece) to fit it in the slot. Poor quality standards!

1st care to share the flight logs with us? 2nd did hear on your Iphone or tablet or your Android phone say that your home point has been set?

 

[Capt KO]

WoostyD, wish you came here before your 1st flight, not after. Stuff you can’t get from a manual. Stick around and enjoy the fun. And your little bird.

from Florida ?