FREE MAVIC AIR!!!

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

Absolutely free Mavic Air to one enterprising person! First come first served. Drone is almost brand new and is available (when I wrote this) at the following location!

33.4259780, -118.4167885

So, I took off from the deck of a boat and was doing some aerial imaging of a fishing charter, after a few moments I realised that my stick input was not translating to the drone. Upon glancing at the screen I saw a notice that read something like " Auto Landing initiated" . The drone was now about 50' off the water so I wasn't really looking at the screen but trying desperately to fly her back to the boat. I couldn't get it to lift at all, even after cancelling the message and eventually I only made it back to the GPS co-ordinates above before she hit the drink.

My tablet does not have a log for this flight. Is that normal? Is there anywhere else I could look for any info that might help determine what happened and why I couldn't cancel auto land in the ocean?
I know that there are several NFZ's around Catalina island, I also know that I was outside them when I took off, so I probably wandered into one, but I didn't realise there was no way to over ride the land command. OR is there and I just didn't know it?

Any help retrieving logs would help so I can understand how I cocked that up and don't do it again. (hopefully !)
Literally the only thing I have been able to find from that Amelia Earhart flight is the cache video, no logs , no pictures, nada.

Thanks for your time!

Simmo · Jul 17, 2018

Click on the link and follow the instructions. Upload the log and put the link to it back here.
DJI Flight Log Viewer

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

Simmo said:
Click on the link and follow the instructions. Upload the log and put the link to it back here.
DJI Flight Log Viewer[/QUOT
The last log is from the flight on the 10th, which was also a problematic flight with several issues. I posted that log in a previous thread, but there is no log for the 12th, when this incident happened. Is there any other way to find it?

Simmo · Jul 17, 2018

Dunno, it should be there. The last one recorded..

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

Simmo said:
Dunno, it should be there. The last one recorded..

not there. last one is on the 10th of July, this flight was 12th of July. The only thing from that date is the cache video of the 2nd flight.

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

ambarcapoor said:
Absolutely free Mavic Air to one enterprising person! First come first served. Drone is almost brand new and is available (when I wrote this) at the following location!

33.4259780, -118.4167885

So, I took off from the deck of a boat and was doing some aerial imaging of a fishing charter, after a few moments I realised that my stick input was not translating to the drone. Upon glancing at the screen I saw a notice that read something like " Auto Landing initiated" . The drone was now about 50' off the water so I wasn't really looking at the screen but trying desperately to fly her back to the boat. I couldn't get it to lift at all, even after cancelling the message and eventually I only made it back to the GPS co-ordinates above before she hit the drink.

My tablet does not have a log for this flight. Is that normal? Is there anywhere else I could look for any info that might help determine what happened and why I couldn't cancel auto land in the ocean?
I know that there are several NFZ's around Catalina island, I also know that I was outside them when I took off, so I probably wandered into one, but I didn't realise there was no way to over ride the land command. OR is there and I just didn't know it?

Any help retrieving logs would help so I can understand how I cocked that up and don't do it again. (hopefully !)
Literally the only thing I have been able to find from that Amelia Earhart flight is the cache video, no logs , no pictures, nada.

Thanks for your time!

@msinger any ideas boss? this has me well and properly stumped.

laurens23 · Jul 17, 2018

@ambarcapoor : I'm not the boss, but here goes my explanation: Autolanding happens at critical battery level. So, assuming no malfunctions, it looks like it just ran out of battery. Maybe you took off with a battery that was supposed to be full, but was not, either due to auto discharge or putting in an already used battery by mistake. Of course a fault in the drone is always possible but without data/log Occam's Razor prevails.

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

laurens23 said:
@ambarcapoor : I'm not the boss, but here goes my explanation: Autolanding happens at critical battery level. So, assuming no malfunctions, it looks like it just ran out of battery. Maybe you took off with a battery that was supposed to be full, but was not, either due to auto discharge or putting in an already used battery by mistake. Of course a fault in the drone is always possible but without data/log Occam's Razor prevails.

Very true... If I think back to the incident calmly, I remember looking at my checklist (yes, I'm one of those guys ...LOL) and verifyng a full battery. Given that everything is less than 2 months old and hasn't been flown too many times, I think it is safe to say that the battery was charged and didn't suffer imminent failure. I also recall glancing at the battery level and it being well over the 75% mark, this whole debacle happened a few minutes after launch.

Is there such a thing as autoland where I cannot over ride it? I think that is what is getting my goat the most, because I could've certainly recovered the craft had I been able to get 18" of altitude. Dagnabit!

I'm looking at the log again and I don't have the log for that day. the only thing I have from that day is the saved cache video from the flight prior to the fatal flight. Does the log only generate after a successful landing?

And you're all the Boss!!! in my newbie eyes ....

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

SO I rebooted the kindle and the log showed up!!! I see it says NFZ and auto landing but, really? No option to do anything else?

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

laurens23 said:
@ambarcapoor : I'm not the boss, but here goes my explanation: Autolanding happens at critical battery level. So, assuming no malfunctions, it looks like it just ran out of battery. Maybe you took off with a battery that was supposed to be full, but was not, either due to auto discharge or putting in an already used battery by mistake. Of course a fault in the drone is always possible but without data/log Occam's Razor prevails.

after rebooting the kindle the log appeared in the folder...

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

ambarcapoor · Jul 17, 2018

so where exactly is the drone resting? I am guessing at the end of the 2nd green line, to the right of the start flag?

Mossiback · Jul 17, 2018

ambarcapoor said:
... I didn't realise there was no way to over ride the land command. OR is there and I just didn't know it?...

I have not tested but have read that applying up stick will halt the downward travel allowing you to fly at the present altitude until critical battery level.

ambarcapoor said:
...I also recall glancing at the battery level and it being well over the 75% mark, this whole debacle happened a few minutes after launch...

I have also read where heat can adversely affect the Mavic batteries. According to the battery guide, the highest temp to fly in is 104 F. Above 122 F "can lead to a fire or explosion".

laurens23 · Jul 20, 2018

with the help of the log and the map/ location it was easy to figure out the probably cause:

you took off in Atti mode before you had GPS lock. At 51 seconds you got GPS and it detected you were in the Authorization Zone of Catalina airport. Therefore it went into autoland without ability to keep flying by pushing the stick up.

@51: OSD.flightAction: AirportAvoidLanding
@51: FlyCState: AutoLanding

conclusion: Sorry, but it looks like pilot error due to poor flight preparation,
1: taking off without GPS lock
2: not researching the flight location rules/limitations

msinger · Jul 20, 2018

ambarcapoor said:
so where exactly is the drone resting?

Your flight log shows it landed at 33.42603127, -118.4167313.

Bazzam · Jul 20, 2018

laurens23 said:
with the help of the log and the map/ location it was easy to figure out the probably cause:

you took off in Atti mode before you had GPS lock. At 51 seconds you got GPS and it detected you were in the Authorization Zone of Catalina airport. Therefore it went into autoland without ability to keep flying by pushing the stick up.

@51: OSD.flightAction: AirportAvoidLanding
@51: FlyCState: AutoLanding

conclusion: Sorry, but it looks like pilot error due to poor flight preparation,
1: taking off without GPS lock
2: not researching the flight location rules/limitations

Modded drone : freedom
Unmodded drone : bottom of the ocean

ambarcapoor · Jul 20, 2018

Bazzam said:
Modded drone : freedom
Unmodded drone : bottom of the ocean

Hahahahahaha
Next time for sure...
Can you elaborate on the mod part? What mods should I look into to avoid this on the next go around

ambarcapoor · Jul 20, 2018

msinger said:
Your flight log shows it landed at 33.42603127, -118.4167313.

Thank you. Time to Don the scuba gear...

ambarcapoor · Jul 20, 2018

laurens23 said:
with the help of the log and the map/ location it was easy to figure out the probably cause:

you took off in Atti mode before you had GPS lock. At 51 seconds you got GPS and it detected you were in the Authorization Zone of Catalina airport. Therefore it went into autoland without ability to keep flying by pushing the stick up.

@51: OSD.flightAction: AirportAvoidLanding
@51: FlyCState: AutoLanding

conclusion: Sorry, but it looks like pilot error due to poor flight preparation,
1: taking off without GPS lock
2: not researching the flight location rules/limitations

Thank you for the edification. I had mentioned that this was probably the case but it's good to have confirmation from a more educated source. To be sure, it will definitely be a lesson well learned!