Long story short: I lost my beloved Mavic Air yesterday afternoon. While flying a short litchi mission from my house, I lost contact with the drone (for the first time ever) about 3/4 of the way through the mission. Without panicking I hit the RTH button, expecting to hear the drone buzzing towards me as I always do. Then, silence.
Suddenly I get signal back and can see the drone is clearly stuck, very high, in a pine tree. NOOOO!!!
I have 65% battery and am getting a clear video link, so I set out in my truck to see if I can locate and retrieve the drone. After much hard tracking I feel 99.9% sure I have located the huge pine the drone is in. I can’t visibly see the drone which is driving me crazy. Battery dies eventually before I realize I could have attempted to *ding the drone via the DJI Go4 app. Tree is directly in the back yard of someone’s house and is massive, well over 100ft, with zero climbing branches and surrounded by smaller shade trees, making the view tricky into the crown where I *think the drone is.
Last night passes and I check again this morning at the base of tree, hoping that the drone fell out overnight. But nothing.
What do I do?
My question is, if the drone is truly stuck for good (there is no way someone is going up the tree) can I replace just the drone? Will my controller and remaining two batteries work with the replacement?
I am just bumming hard, and the thought of nearly knowing where the drone is, knowing it won’t come down without a miracle, and needing a replacement ASAP is just crushing me. I have flow this MA safely and successfully for over 60 missions. Smart flying is critical to me and it was a shock when I lost the video signal. I was confident that my pre set RTH parameters would get me home, and was shocked to see the screen flicker to life with the drone clearly stuck.
What to do? What would you do in this situation?
Suddenly I get signal back and can see the drone is clearly stuck, very high, in a pine tree. NOOOO!!!
I have 65% battery and am getting a clear video link, so I set out in my truck to see if I can locate and retrieve the drone. After much hard tracking I feel 99.9% sure I have located the huge pine the drone is in. I can’t visibly see the drone which is driving me crazy. Battery dies eventually before I realize I could have attempted to *ding the drone via the DJI Go4 app. Tree is directly in the back yard of someone’s house and is massive, well over 100ft, with zero climbing branches and surrounded by smaller shade trees, making the view tricky into the crown where I *think the drone is.
Last night passes and I check again this morning at the base of tree, hoping that the drone fell out overnight. But nothing.
What do I do?
My question is, if the drone is truly stuck for good (there is no way someone is going up the tree) can I replace just the drone? Will my controller and remaining two batteries work with the replacement?
I am just bumming hard, and the thought of nearly knowing where the drone is, knowing it won’t come down without a miracle, and needing a replacement ASAP is just crushing me. I have flow this MA safely and successfully for over 60 missions. Smart flying is critical to me and it was a shock when I lost the video signal. I was confident that my pre set RTH parameters would get me home, and was shocked to see the screen flicker to life with the drone clearly stuck.
What to do? What would you do in this situation?
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