Bye Bye Mavic - How to lose it in 5 easy steps... (and how not to)

[HFMan]

You don't even have to drag it out... just tap on the map view, and it becomes the main view- the video view goes to a small window. Tap the small video window again to make it the main view.

 

[sparrowhawk360]

Hi All

After reading Wellsi's sad story and his extremely good post event account of what he did wrong (see link if U have not seen his video here it is.

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In wellsi's case if he had looked at the Radar he would have seen the point where the Mavic passed his position, and then he would have understood why the Distance readout was increasing.
Waylander

A good argument for a bigger screen. I think Wellsi mentioned that earlier and it'd definitely made me think of getting a 2nd hand ipad mini just for that purpose.

The only thing is - I don't want one with a cellular contract and tethering it with my phone will kill the battery and just create another potential point of failure.

 

[Jimbob]

Actually no! I've tried all over and there is nothing.... So I'm back to just Bluetooth based (50 metres max) or cellphone based (how often you do you lose your cellphone signal when out in the countryside?)
Market gap me thinks......

Ian

You may want to look at these The Award Winning Loc8tor Tracking Device

RF version

 

[Blucenturion]

What the OP and I are referring to here is disabling the Landing Protection setting specifically, not the whole VPS or downward sensors. This prevents the Mavic's rise away from your hand, while still maintaining the benefits of having VPS enabled.

Thanks for stating this. Super helpful.

 

[Blucenturion]

A good argument for a bigger screen. I think Wellsi mentioned that earlier and it'd definitely made me think of getting a 2nd hand ipad mini just for that purpose.

The only thing is - I don't want one with a cellular contract and tethering it with my phone will kill the battery and just create another potential point of failure.

Flights are short; not a huge batt drain on a phone.

 

[mig25]

Hello all
Well, after a few months of fun, I managed to completely lose my new toy, meaning I couldn't even claim on DJI Refresh.

Lost it whilst flying down near Dover, UK, by managing to convince myself it was being blown backwards out to sea by the wind. Funny how one simple error can compound itself and steer your mind into making further mistakes as the panic slowly increases. End result: completely lost and truly unlikkely ever to be found by anyone...

Anyway, I made a video using the streamed footage and flight data. After flying for over 18 months I'd have liked to think I was experienced enough not to make any of these mistakes. But I did, so I guess others could too. Here they are, in all their glory, so hopefully someone, somewhere, won't do the same!

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Cheers,

Ian

Thank you for taking the time to do this. We all learned from it

 

[Fletcher500]

Late to the party, but also wanted to say thanks for posting. I also fly it over the water and have had some similar close calls. The wind off the ocean can be deceiving.

 

[Cutaway]

Well, I did this video to help people; given its narrow subject matter, I think the usual YouTube revenue of $1.50 per thousand views won't even stretch to a new pair of propellers LOL.
Of course I'd always be grateful for replacement help to my paypal at Pay Ian In London using PayPal.Me but truly, I made the video for fun and to let people take away some tips to avoid making the same mistakes!
Cheers,
Ian

Hope your get your replacement Mavic soon mate! Cheers.

 

[Gerry65]

Ian, that was a great video. Thanks for sharing. Sorry for your loss. Maybe add another lesson learned - attach a GPS tracker of Marco Polo to your Mavic. That may have helped you find it. I liked how, when you realized you weren't going to make it back, you started looking for a known place to safely put it down immediately. One thing I don't understand - when you set it down in the park, I'm assuming that you cut the motors. How then did it restart, take off again and RTH, all after signal loss?

I saw my phantom3standard do this right in front of me. I was manually landing on low battery warning and had cut the motors by pulling down the sticks and, suddenly, it went into critical battery mode and the motors, that were slowing, started up and the bird started to rise up to RTH because of critical low battery level being reached. Anyway, that's what I interpreted it as. If that is what happened to Ian, the landing would have had to have been exactly when the critical battery level was intitated. Does that make sense? not anything near an expert here but that what happened to him sounds like my experience.

 

[Gerry65]

Hi All

After reading Wellsi's sad story and his extremely good post event account of what he did wrong (see link if U have not seen his video here it is.

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To try and help newbies I'm prompted to add some advice from my own experience, I was flying FPV ( yea I know VLOS etc etc. ), it was a very dull day and very low cloud level, the terrain where I was flying from was at an altitude of 1000' or so, and as is want to happen on this particular moor, a fog bank rolled in really quick, I was already out of VLOS and had no chance to see her even from100' feet away.

So the point of my post, the Radar on the DJI go app is your best friend, ( that and the altitude readout), yaw the bird until the Radar arrow is pointing at you ( the Home Point) and push the right stick forwards, she will come come back, no need to try and work out the direction needed to fly in, or drift caused by cross winds, use the yaw control to keep the arrow pointing at you ( the Home point ), stop and check every so often that the arrow is pointing straight at you and adjust using the Yaw control accordingly. After a few minutes I heard the noise from the rotor's, and a combination of sound and the Flight readout's got her back.

In wellsi's case if he had looked at the Radar he would have seen the point where the Mavic passed his position, and then he would have understood why the Distance readout was increasing.

Put some headphones on play loud music and fly around ( at altitude ) using only the Radar, you will soon learn to pilot the bird without VLOS, and get her back to you.

Sorry for your loss Wellsi, and many thanks for such a good post.
Waylander

thank you for posting that as I have used that radar map on numerous occasions to fly back to the home point. I put it into full display to really get a handle on where it is and pointing and then just rely on my stick inputs based on its orientation. I think it makes you better prepared for some of the crisis situations we face while flying.

 

[Ian in London]

Hope your get your replacement Mavic soon mate! Cheers.

Thanks Cutaway! I now have the replacement and with a load of lessons learned, I'm flying happy again!
Thanks again to all the positive comments on here! Good reading and some good guidance.
Cheers again guys
Ian

 

[Ian in London]

You may want to look at these The Award Winning Loc8tor Tracking Device

RF version

Hi Jimbob.....
The Loc8tor does look like a great alternative to Bluetooth or Cellphone based trackers. Good price too. Have you used one? I think I'm pretty much sold on that tbh..... Thanks a lot for the link.
Ian

 

[AlanTheBeast]

You may want to look at these The Award Winning Loc8tor Tracking Device

RF version

That would be good if you knew where it was reasonably well. On a flyaway w/o data getting to the GO app, not so much. Also would need to how it does with foliage penetration.

 

[iamSteve]

Thanks for sharing your story and video in the OP, so annoying when you landed it safely and it decided to take off for home again.

 

[Glasswalker]

Know I'm late joining this one, but perhaps a suggestion to DJI on this would be to add an "Emergency" command to the drone (interestingly enough, we already have the CSC!)

This emergency command initiates an emergency procedure including

• Immediately go into hover
• Display critical info to the pilot (not sure if we can creatively do this via the controller, perhaps blinking an indicator or something at least to indicate it's in emergency mode)
• If app is not connected:
  • Wait X seconds, then change begin emergency (controlled) landing
  • If CSC has been released (important) and is then encountered again, then kill the motors (allowing full motor-kill anyway)
• If app is connected:
  • Display critical info through app very clearly:
    • Position
    • If stable hover is not possible, display warning and rate/vector of movement
    • Estimated wind direction/strength
    • Battery level
    • Etc
  • Display short, simple emergency checklist via app to pilot, to go through rational thought process to cope with emergency (maybe even guided somehow).
  • If pilot decides to initiate emergency landing as part of this procedure, then disable RTH on signal loss
• Log/Document steps, and all communication in separate "Emergency Text Log" on the RC and/or app, to aid in analysis if things go sideways.

You could have an option in the app to "Trigger Guided Emergency Mode" for the CSC command when in-flight. So if you choose it can still be "kill motors" if you really want.

Process above is just off the top of my head, I'm sure with a fair bit of planning/discussion (involving more seasoned pilots than myself lol) a real solid (and minimal) process could be developed, that could help guide the pilot (quickly) through a potential emergency.

I personally would consider a feature like this a great safety addition. Not to mention it should be doable entirely with firmware/software.

 

[Member]

I know that was the topic, but I must have missed a separate 'landing protection' setting only. Thanks for the heads up, I'll give it another look.

 

[Wipster]

that's why I got marco polo

 

[Ian in London]

Marco Polos don't seem to be available outside the US...... Had a few comments from people unable to get them in Europe, so I've ordered a Loc8tor now...

 

[Soundtekk]

Marco Polos don't seem to be available outside the US...... Had a few comments from people unable to get them in Europe, so I've ordered a Loc8tor now...

Just bought and tested a Trackimo, works very well.

 

[Ian in London]

Just bought and tested a Trackimo, works very well.

Good to hear; although my issue with Trackimo is the reliance on 3G cellphone signal.... Many places in the open countryside just don't have cellphone signal, especially at ground level or in a ditch even... Where I lost my drone under the cliffs, there was no signal....