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Can you lose your drone if you aren't on GPS mode and you have no cellular service? And why did my remote disconnect on the holidays?

nomadichonky

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I have recently bought a Mavic Pro Platinum after a year of wanting one and testing a Mavic Pro.

I went on a holiday to New Zealand in December and had the most amazing and beautiful countryside, rivers, lakes and hills to film and photograph and was out of cellular service for most of the trip.

I'm a bit of a wuse and chose not to take off when I had no GPS or Cellular service. Was I right to not take off?

Also when in a reasenable service on the Australian East Coast a month after I found my drone disconnected quite a few times.

I've gotten quite scared to fly and lose the drone. Can someone explain what is happening and if I'm correct to be so stressed about losing the drone?

Thanks in advance.

Nomadic
 
I personally do not take off unless my aircraft has GPS lock. When flying without GPS, your drone would be more susceptible to uncommanded movements due to wind. If there are significant changes in locations between power-ups, it could take as long as five minutes to get a lock. Cellular connectivity is optional.
 
You want GPS (and it should work anywhere unless heavily covered/indoors), but cellular is completely irrelevant and unnecessary.

Seems you wasted a lot of opportunities. NZ is awesome...
 
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Can you lose your drone if you aren't on GPS mode and you have no cellular service?
People manage to lose Mavics with and without GPS every week.

Cellular service? Why would you worry about cellular service? What do you want that for?
I've used a wifi only tablet for flying for five years and never had cellular service.

Do you know why you had no GPS at times?
 
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Can’t remember any time at all (outdoors) that I couldn’t get a gps lock.
Cell service is for phones not drones.
And one more thing. Compass calibration is NOT a cure all.
 
did you check how many sats you had locked before take off if you are flying in very mountainous places it is possible to loose sats if you are to far below the horizon you need visible sats to get a lock
 
I have recently bought a Mavic Pro Platinum after a year of wanting one and testing a Mavic Pro.

I went on a holiday to New Zealand in December and had the most amazing and beautiful countryside, rivers, lakes and hills to film and photograph and was out of cellular service for most of the trip.

I'm a bit of a wuse and chose not to take off when I had no GPS or Cellular service. Was I right to not take off?

Also when in a reasenable service on the Australian East Coast a month after I found my drone disconnected quite a few times.

I've gotten quite scared to fly and lose the drone. Can someone explain what is happening and if I'm correct to be so stressed about losing the drone?

Thanks in advance.

Nomadic


When you are back at hom find a large open field and power on the quad, if you are still struggling to get gps lock I would suggest taking the quad to a repair shop
 
I have recently bought a Mavic Pro Platinum after a year of wanting one and testing a Mavic Pro.

I went on a holiday to New Zealand in December and had the most amazing and beautiful countryside, rivers, lakes and hills to film and photograph and was out of cellular service for most of the trip.

I'm a bit of a wuse and chose not to take off when I had no GPS or Cellular service. Was I right to not take off?

Also when in a reasenable service on the Australian East Coast a month after I found my drone disconnected quite a few times.

I've gotten quite scared to fly and lose the drone. Can someone explain what is happening and if I'm correct to be so stressed about losing the drone?

Thanks in advance.

Nomadic
Just my 2 cents as a rank beginner with drones...I think you showed great discipline in not launching your Mavic without a GPS lock. Great photos and video would not matter if you lost your expensive machine in the process of getting them.

Kim
 
I believe you need the GPS to return home if you lose your connection with Drone!

Also, you need GPS for auto return home feature

Without GPS your Drone doesn’t know where it is. Flying blind as they say
 
No need cellular service, only GPS is important....I've flown my MA many times without sim card on my phone, I have no issues, MA fly smoothly!!
 
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I believe it’s always a good idea to “a little scared”, or in better words, respect the equipment and environment in which you fly.

If you have a strong enough GPS signal (from enough satellites) your drone will default to GPS mode, which basically means that you are not flying the drone, merely you are telling it to go there and there in “GPS-space” and the drone “flies it self”. You sort of tell it “go towards that point on the ground in that altitude”. If you let go of the sticks, the drone will try its best to stay at that position. If not enough GPS signals can be received, the drone will enter ATTI mode which means YOU are flying the drone. That also means you have to consider wind and other forces acting on the drone. If you fly the drone forwards and let go of the sticks, the drone will not stop. It’s like a car, you have to break “manually”. This is something some ppl new to the drone world don’t understand and can be “scary” when first happening. This can thus cause crashes. Knowing about it and “expecting” it in certain conditions will make you a better pilot :)

I hope this helped you [emoji4]
 
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You only need GPS on the drone+remote. You don't need GPS on your phone/tablet. As long as the drone is showing gps lock you are good to fly. Not sure which GPS you meant.
 
The drone flies using a GPS receiver in the aircraft itself. The GPS in the phone or tablet is not required for flying except if you want to relocate the home point while flying, and also the tracking mode where the aircraft follows the remote.
 
Then we agree, Congoblue. I misread your post, I thought you meant there was a gps unit in the remote ("You only need GPS on the drone+remote.").

But yes, the drone flies perfectly well without gps, with gps only in the aircraft or on both units. The better GPS signal you have, the less of a chance of a "run away" (I don't like this words as the drone exceptionally rarely just flies off, usually its pilot error) and the less "piloting" you need to do yourself as the drone sort of flies itself, you just have to let it know where to go.
 
Then we agree, Congoblue. I misread your post, I thought you meant there was a gps unit in the remote ("You only need GPS on the drone+remote.").

Sorry for confusion, I meant that you need to see on the remote that the drone has got GPS lock, rather than seeing if the phone has its own GPS working. The original post was not clear as to whether they were talking about the Mavic's GPS or the phone's GPS.
 
I bought a couple of cheapy drones which I play with from time to time to keep my hand in (and have fun with). I've bounced them off trees and the ground a few times but they still keep going. I even managed to loose one in the woods one time but it re-appeared sat on a post by a nearby bus stop a couple of weeks later. Some people are honest! They are purely manual mode with no 'come home', GPS or anything else. If my Mavic ever decides to go into atti at least I am confident in my ability to fly it manually.
 
I bought a couple of cheapy drones which I play with from time to time to keep my hand in (and have fun with). I've bounced them off trees and the ground a few times but they still keep going. I even managed to loose one in the woods one time but it re-appeared sat on a post by a nearby bus stop a couple of weeks later. Some people are honest! They are purely manual mode with no 'come home', GPS or anything else. If my Mavic ever decides to go into atti at least I am confident in my ability to fly it manually.
after reading this, is their a drone for like 50-100 u.s you can recommend to me to practice with? Just in case my MPP goes into attitude mode.
 
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