DJI Mavic Mini - Flyaway Assistance

[Raulapower]

Hello Everyone,

I am a new DJI pilot and bought my Mavic Mini on 18 Dec.
I followed whatever threads i could to religiously learn & vigorously practice before I started doing proper videography - using youtube links from here.
Wanted to take capture the good looking Norway for my New Year's vacation.
On 30th Dec, while flying my drone near a waterbody, it started swaying away. When I pressed RTH, it started gaining height - as it usually does while performing RTH.
This probably led to more swaying and the distance between me & the drone kept increasing.
I cancelled the RTH, switched to Sports mode and tried to bring the drone down, but all efforts were going in vain.
The drone kept flying away, as I ran behind it (as it went past a waterbody, I had to run the full circumference), but finally, it lost connection.
I spent 2 hours trying to spot the drone from the missing location, but with no success.
I informed the locals, who put it on their local facebook page - with information about the missing drone. Last I checked, no one has posted any update.
I finally came back to my home country and have been able to access the flight logs and a way to upload them. Have posted the link below.
Is there any chance I can get my precious drone back? or all hopes are lost?
Any help would be welcome.

Thanks in advance to the pilots for any advice/suggestions.

Cheers

 

[Gryphon962]

If you download the kml file from that page, then open it in google earth, you can see the flight profile in 3d. The profile ends in mid air, and the drone still had 46% battery, so it will have flown for some time after the disconnect. Looking at the flight profile it seems pretty certain that it would have continued out over the water.

 

[Raulapower]

Hi Gryphon962,

I saw the kml file, and it is mindblowing as to the amount of data a simple flight log can capture, only if it could also tell us its last location!



Anyway, I have a few questions that follow -
1. Why did it get blown away (flew away) at a wind speed of 8 mph which converts to 3.5 mts/sec. This, even when I tried sports mode to fly it down, and back to me, it kept flying away.
2. Why did it lose contact with me at approx 1000 meters, when Mavic Mini has a range of 2.4 miles.
3. If I reached the missing point (last connected point) within 30 secs of connection lost, should the drone not connect back automatically to my RC and get the camera display back?

Again, thanks for taking out time to view & reply.

 

[netsonic]

1. Why did it get blown away (flew away) at a wind speed of 8 mph which converts to 3.5 mts/sec. This, even when I tried sports mode to fly it down, and back to me, it kept flying away.
2. Why did it lose contact with me at approx 1000 meters, when Mavic Mini has a range of 2.4 miles.
3. If I reached the missing point (last connected point) within 30 secs of connection lost, should the drone not connect back automatically to my RC and get the camera display back?

To 1) Your altitude was above 40 m. This translated over 10 stories high. Down would have been 5-10 m. At this height the wind is not only 8mph, this was at the ground level. Up there it's much stronger. The "Not enough force/ESC error" happens in high wind scenarios.
To 2) What frequency band were you on? On 2,4 GHz it can reach 2000 m, on 5.8 GHz much less. Environment (trees or any other wireless interference) could also contribute.
To 3) It should, however the antenna positioning might have been off. You said that you ran behind it. One cannot argue how the antennas were positioned and how strong the signal was (see below point in regard to frequency).

This being said, I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Anyway, I have a few questions that follow -
1. Why did it get blown away (flew away) at a wind speed of 8 mph which converts to 3.5 mts/sec. This, even when I tried sports mode to fly it down, and back to me, it kept flying away.
2. Why did it lose contact with me at approx 1000 meters, when Mavic Mini has a range of 2.4 miles.
3. If I reached the missing point (last connected point) within 30 secs of connection lost, should the drone not connect back automatically to my RC and get the camera display back?

Again, thanks for taking out time to view & reply.

Sorry you lost your bird . . . I really feel bad for you. @sar104 and @BudWalker will (hopefully) chime in but here's my thoughts:

Question #1 response: The wind speed is considerably higher at altitude. You were at 324' at one point. It ascended at RTH request and got caught in the wind speeds at that altitude.

Question #2 response: The 2.4 miles connectivity claims are in ideal conditions i.e. (a desert or plain with zero WIFI interference). Urban/mountain areas decrease the WIFI stability significantly.

Question #3 response: Not if the drone is continuing to be blown away further. Connection is about strength of signal, not necessarily location. You can have a disconnect 30' away.

There are others that are far more suited to help than I . . . hope sar104 and budwalker can help find your bird. They are the best at it.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

To 1) Your altitude was above 40 m. This translated over 10 stories high. Down would have been 5-10 m. At this height the wind is not only 8mph, this was at the ground level. Up there it's much stronger. The "Not enough force/ESC error" happens in high wind scenarios.
To 2) What frequency band were you on? On 2,4 GHz it can reach 2000 m, on 5.8 GHz much less. Environment (trees or any other wireless interference) could also contribute.
To 3) It should, however the antenna positioning might have been off. You said that you ran behind it. One cannot argue how the antennas were positioned and how strong the signal was (see below point in regard to frequency).

This being said, I'm sorry for your loss.

You beat me to it netsonic . . . I would not have posted. You covered it all.

 

[netsonic]

No problem, at least we reinforce the message.

Safe flight!

 

[Raulapower]

Thanks @Skywatcher2001 & @netsonic. This helps.
I was flying at 2.4 GHz. But what exactly does this error mean "Not enough force/ESC error"

Calling out to @sar104 and @BudWalker to throw any further light!
Any help is appreciated, though my hopes aren't too high now.

Cheers

 

[netsonic]

what exactly does this error mean "Not enough force/ESC error"

It means that the drone had not enough power to move in the direction you are directing it to go. In your case, you tried to fly back in sports mode, but it was carried away by the high altitude wind. This message is known to us, as we all had it on firmware version .0200. It was fixed in version v01.00.0300 that did contain this two fixes among others:

• Increased flight stability in some scenarios.
• Optimized propulsion system status prompts.

Official release notes: https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/Mavic_Mini/20191231/Mavic_Mini_Release_Notes_en.pdf

Since then, it was fixed. I have not seen it in any of my logs in over 1 month. If however it still shows up now, it must be only due to the wind carrying it away.

What firmware were you on ? I assume on 01.00.0300 as airdata shows your RC app to be v1.0.3 but i cannot be sure.

 

[sar104]

Yes - unfortunately that one has gone. Winds were around 30 mph out of the SSW a couple of hundred feet up - too much for the Mini. Extrapolating the battery depletion rate to the smart battery autoland level puts the autoland point at around 1720 m from the home point.



On Google Earth, that makes for a wet landing:

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Sorry for your loss . . .

 

[slup]

As sar104 already have stated ... a clear blow away due to pilot only took the ground wind forecast into consideration ...

From Airdata windmap (payed function) ... a bit higher winds than claimed by the OP. Further more the RTH altitude were set to 100 meters wow!



Here some advice's I posted yesterday ...

 

[slup]

By looking at the first Sport mode part, along the shore close to the HP point ... again we see the Mini not achieving the correct tilt angle for the Sport mode, I bet that the motors were maxed out in the same way we have seen before in heavy winds. The large variation of tilt angle during constant full elevator input could be an indication of heavy gusts.

 

[sar104]

By looking at the first Sport mode part, along the shore close to the HP point ... again we see the Mini not achieving the correct tilt angle for the Sport mode, I bet that the motors were maxed out in the same way we have seen before in heavy winds. The large variation of tilt angle during constant full elevator input could be an indication of heavy gusts.

View attachment 90146

I looked at that, but at that time the aircraft was flying with the wind, and so maximum tilt was not required to achieve the required ground velocity.

 

[slup]

I looked at that, but at that time the aircraft was flying with the wind, and so maximum tilt was not required to achieve the required ground velocity.

If you look at the first full elevator input period (in Sport mode) in the chart, at the marked time ... to me it looks like the Mini were directed head on to the wind with full positive elevator commanded & did not succeed to outrun the wind but instead reached a speed of 1,37m/s backwards. At that time the tilt angle were 14,6 degrees. (Or have I interpreted something wrong here ..?)

In case of me being correct in the event description above, do you mean that it's normal with half the maximum tilt angle during this period? Can you elaborate that a bit more so I understand ...

Or do you just reflecting over my believed indication of gusty winds due to tilt variation?

 

[dkuhne]

Feel sorry for all these people. For every person that posts a flyaway on this forum, there must be 20 others who do not. DJI's customer service must be sooo busy in the past month.

I don't understand how the combo of 249 grams weight and weak motors being a catalyst for fly aways didnt become apparent to DJI in their product testing.

 

[EricJT]

Feel sorry for all these people. For every person that posts a flyaway on this forum, there must be 20 others who do not. DJI's customer service must be sooo busy in the past month.

I don't understand how the combo of 249 grams weight and weak motors being a dcatalyst for fly aways didnt become apparent to DJI in their product testing.

I began with drones via small, totally manually controlled "toy" drones. Even indoors it quickly became apparent to me that a considerable amount of practice was required to fly them with any degree of success. As for flying outdoors, any hint of wind required double the caution when flying.

Then along came my P2V with built in stabilization and a realization it was way beyond a "toy" and winds could affect it too, especially at higher altitudes AGL.

My rambling is meant to share the point that I assumed the responsibility for the drones and could not blame the manufacturers if I didn't apply caution when flying....self-education is required.

 

[RickMz]

It means that the drone had not enough power to move in the direction you are directing it to go. In your case, you tried to fly back in sports mode, but it was carried away by the high altitude wind.

Net, I have not had this issue but, would it have worked better (assuming he could keep signal) if, instead of S mode he would have lowered altitude (hopefully to lower winds) to bring it back? Thanks.

 

[Camino Ken]

I don't understand how the combo of 249 grams weight and weak motors being a catalyst for fly aways didnt become apparent to DJI in their product testing.

Every product has limitations. The tiny toy drones cannot handle the air flow out of my heating vents while small manned aircraft can handle 50mph winds. Jets can handle 200mph wind. Every product is designed for a purpose with known limitation. The mini is designed for light winds at best. You push any product beyond its design parameters it will have problems.

 

[slup]

Net, I have not had this issue but, would it have worked better (assuming he could keep signal) if, instead of S mode he would have lowered altitude (hopefully to lower winds) to bring it back? Thanks.

No "not instead of Sport mode" ... in case of an upcoming BlowAway situation BOTH flip to Sport AND descend.