first flight today,,,,,,,,,scared the,,,,,, out of me

[genesimmons]

hi all, i got my mavic on boxing day, busy with xmas and new years and crappy weather lately so i havent had her out, had plenty of time to read and be prepared, so today was nice weather so i took her out, calibrated the compass and ime and everything fully charged, went to a large field with not many obstacles, i took off and had it in beginner mode and got used to the controls, took a few pics and had some fun, i flew until the battery warning came on, i was very close to where i was standing so i kept flying, it automatically went into return to home mode, this is where it got scary, it began to fly eratically and i had no control over it, i pushed the pause button and nope kept flying eratticaly, was flying all over the place up down and left and right, i finally got it to land safely, after all my reading befrore the flight i cant say i set the return to home before flying, would not setting that cause the eraatic controls? after it landed i changed the batery and took another flight, i set the home this time for sure, i was to scared to fly till the return to home came on so i flew till 20% then landed manually, i flew all 3 bateries and all was good got some nice photos but that erratic behavior scared me, any thoughts on what i may have done wrong

 

[Robbyg]

Most likely you got caught in a rookie mistake of not fully understanding how RTH works. It happened to a lot of us!
I suggest reading that section again and look at how to cancel an RTH plus the other finer details.

What I think happened was that you where moving the sticks and fighting the RTH so it appeared like it was randomly doing things.

Rob

 

[msinger]

any thoughts on what i may have done wrong

Check out your TXT flight log to see if it explains what happened. You can upload and view it online here. If you'd like other people to review and comment on your flight log, then please post a link back here after you upload it.

 

[Boog0822]

Easiest way to cancel return to home, flip it into sport mode?

 

[hainerob]

IMHO you should be just landing earlier. I aim to land my mavic with 30% battery left. I don't like the idea of the failsafes kicking in, as you have seen they could be unpredictable if your not familiar with how they operate. Fly with a safe margin and your likely to still have your mavic by next Christmas!

 

[51 Drones]

Easiest way to cancel return to home, flip it into sport mode?

Easier is to just hit the RTH button again. Stops immediately.

 

[ajsiemers]

Easier is to just hit the RTH button again. Stops immediately.

nice one.....I click "ok" when it says it will return to home when I should click "cancel"....every time! I feel stupid every time too

 

[genesimmons]

ok i figured out how to get the file and see the log, doesnt really show much to me, would being in beginner mode have any issues with rth? i see the rth altitude is higher than the beginner mode allows, so maybe that was fighting and i am sure i was fighting it, it didnt seem like it was going home it was very erratic and the controls wouldnt allow me to do much of anythng, very weird feeling, here is the text file if any one is intersted in looking into it further to see what happend, thanx for the replies so far

 

[ronk]

Here is your log: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[genesimmons]

awsome thanx does it show any reason for the erratic behavior and non control of the mavic, would beginner mode have anything to do with it

 

[ronk]

When you are in beginner mode, you are limited by a maximum flight altitude and distance. it looks like you were trying to go past that limit. Finally the mavic triggered a return to home because you reached the critical battery level. I recommend you really understand RTH in the manual and by watching a couple of videos before you fly..

 

[genesimmons]

yes i understand the limitations for beginner mode, i get how rth works but what i dont understand is why i couldnt control the unit, i was lucky i was in a open area because it was flying all over the place uncontrollable,

 

[maverickau]

yes i understand the limitations for beginner mode, i get how rth works but what i dont understand is why i couldnt control the unit, i was lucky i was in a open area because it was flying all over the place uncontrollable,

While it was trying to return to home you were making stick inputs which was fighting your Mavic. You simply had to cancel the RTH to regain full control.

 

[Simmo]

I'd love @sar104 or @msinger to take a look. But you certainly were fighting it! I think maybe maverickau could be right.

 

[Robert Granata]

So what happens if RTH altitude is set higher than Beginners Mode allows?

 

[MicheleStapleton]

I have used return to home on almost every flight, including my first one, and I'm pretty sure I was in beginner mode in some of those. Most of the time it's an extremely smooth, very precise landing. I did have one that was very erratic when it got within about five feet of the ground, totally uncontrolled, going this way and that. I thought that maybe the wind was playing games with the drone as I was standing near a passageway through a building that could have produced a wind tunnel like effect. I cancelled RTH and landed it with the sticks.

 

[MicheleStapleton]

I also always head for home when I get the 30% battery warning. No use risking things.

 

[dennyc39]

I'm also a newbie, with 3 flights. My flight envelope so far has been a mere 500 ft x 150 ft. Everything works, but my biggest problem so far is poor communication with my copilot (the brains in the mavic). Main reason is lack of familiarity, even though I've been all through the manual. Knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it.

When I need to change something, e.g., RTH altitude, max distance, camera setting, change to sport mode, etc., it takes me five minutes to find it in the menus. Another is slow response of the video display unless you are using lower resolutions. Practice helps, but I am still keeping my drone on a short leash.

 

[dronerdave]

A flow chart would be nice for us newbies. I haven't had any issues lately but it jumped into ATTI mode several months back and I had a time getting it home. It wasn't in beginner mode though. I did find that you need to activate the sport mode switch in the menu or it has no effect. At the time I hadn't done that. If I had known what to look for I might have seen a warning. As it was I noticed the altitude was dropping (no hover) or climbing depending on the last stick movement. Everything seemed sluggish and slow. Looked at the controller screen and it showed ATTI. I still don't know why it went into that mode. Landed and put it away. Later it said a FW upgrade was ready and I updated it. No problems since.

 

[genesimmons]

thanx for all the great replies, i took her out again today and i used a different phone for the monitor, hoped this one would be brighter but it wasnt, she flew awsome and i got some incredible pics, but about halfway thru battery one, the phone disconected from the controller and wouldnt come back on line, it went into atti mode and for a few min it didnt seem like the controller was respnding to my actions, i mnaged to get her down to land and i powered every thing off then back on and all was well, what would cause a complete disconect? also the image seemed very choppy, mybe the phoen isnt powerful enough to handle the video feed? could the phone have froze maybe? very strange, much better flight today and i am super happy with the images, but for the life of me i dont see the hdr images, are they labled different or the same as reg images, i took about a dozen photos and some hdr but i dont see them in the media folder, again thanx for all the replies