Any Tips For Finding My Drone?

KiterTodd · Aug 20, 2017

After months of no crashes, it happened. And I couldn't find it...

Was flying on a desolate beach area. On the way back, I was flying lower than usual, doing a strafing shot of the water and I think I hit a dune. This was due to a natural curve of the beach or me not having the bearing that I thought I'd had, right at water's edge. In any case, I hit a dune, or a bird, and it went down and all I saw was green foliage.

Searched for a couple hours and couldn't find it before heading back to family. I was using the map on the display, and as it is a low cell service area, my position would come and go, sometimes be north of the drone, sometimes south. I was usually still connected to the drone, but had no luck finding it.

Going back tomorrow morning and going to use the "Find My Drone" feature to hopefully pinpoint it.

Any tips for making this work out in a low service area? Do I have to pre-load anything before getting out there?

Anyway, appreciate any tips or condolences. Hopefully I find it. If not...I guess I'm buying a new body.

msinger · Aug 20, 2017

If you upload your TXT flight log here, you can find the coordinates of the last recorded location. If that's where your Mavic crashed, it should be there. If it continued to fly after that point, then it might be located elsewhere.

mkp2020 · Aug 20, 2017

If you were recording there should be some clues in your video. Also if you look at your flight record within the app you should see the gps coordinates at the bottom of the screen.

KiterTodd · Aug 21, 2017

Thanks.

I entered those coordinates in Google. Comes up with a likely spot. I'll have to see how the phone behaves tomorrow. Hopefully it takes me to it.

sar104 · Aug 21, 2017

KiterTodd said:
After months of no crashes, it happened. And I couldn't find it...

Was flying on a desolate beach area. On the way back, I was flying lower than usual, doing a strafing shot of the water and I think I hit a dune. This was due to a natural curve of the beach or me not having the bearing that I thought I'd had, right at water's edge. In any case, I hit a dune, or a bird, and it went down and all I saw was green foliage.

Searched for a couple hours and couldn't find it before heading back to family. I was using the map on the display, and as it is a low cell service area, my position would come and go, sometimes be north of the drone, sometimes south. I was usually still connected to the drone, but had no luck finding it.

Going back tomorrow morning and going to use the "Find My Drone" feature to hopefully pinpoint it.

Any tips for making this work out in a low service area? Do I have to pre-load anything before getting out there?

Anyway, appreciate any tips or condolences. Hopefully I find it. If not...I guess I'm buying a new body.

I'm a bit confused by your comment on positioning, because cellular service is not involved - positioning is via GPS. If the aircraft was still connected to your RC then you should have had distance and direction to it independent of any cellular service.

KiterTodd · Aug 21, 2017

sar104 said:
I'm a bit confused by your comment on positioning, because cellular service is not involved - positioning is via GPS. If the aircraft was still connected to your RC then you should have had distance and direction to it independent of any cellular service.

SAR, that makes sense, but that wasn't what occurred. I'm not sure why either, but my phone would loose GPS accuracy (it'd go from a dot on the map to a huge circle) and I'd also lose position a bit. The drone position was always fixed. My position was not.

It was difficult to debug at the time. High sun. Bright. Hot. Poor phone visibility.

KiterTodd · Aug 21, 2017

Found it!

mkp2020 said:
...if you look at your flight record within the app you should see the gps coordinates at the bottom of the screen.

Thanks, this helped a lot. I knew there was a log file to extract, but I've never taken it off so didn't know how to get at it. The Flight Record had the last postilion you noted, easily visible on the screen. I typed it into Google Maps and the location was pretty darn precise.

Found the Mavic upside down in a bush. Had some morning dew on it, but otherwise seemed okay. I had one cracked blade and one chipped blade. I replaced those and it looks good as new. I'm going to let it completely air out before I start it up, to make sure all condensation is out of it.

Thanks for the quick tips.