Writing one of those posts I hoped I’d always read and never need to write myself...
Driving home on the freeway, saw a really beautiful sunset in a particularly scenic place that ‘needed’ to be filmed. Pulled over on the side of the road and flew the Mavic around for a full battery worth of flying.
First low battery warning came on, and Auto RTH too, so I promptly cancel RTH (so it doesn’t unneccessarily climb to 300 ft) and instead I flew back to where my car was pulled off into the grass. Once it was directly over my head (also the home location) I started bringing it down when suddenly I saw police lights behind me.
I froze. Set the remote down, and walked back to the police car with nothing in my hand. I told the officer I didn’t need any help, my car was ok, and he quickly barked back that it was illegal to pull off to the side of the road where I was. I said ok, I’ll move, never mentioned the drone.
Went back to the car and didn’t know what to do, drone was still hovering out of sight, about 100 ft up directly above me. I quickly realized the officer wasn’t going anywhere until I left, so plan A of “just wait it out” was out of the question. Plan B was “just land anyway” but in my panicked state i thought that If he was already mad at me for just being pulled over in the grass, didn’t want to see what he’d do when I landed a drone right in front of him on the side of the road. So I just started driving.
I took the remote off the passenger seat and flew the Mavic up the road as well, trailing a bit behind my car. Remember it’s been beeeping at me this whole time, and starts going into critical low battery mode. Making me panic more, and begins to descend itself.
Cop is gone now (drove past me) so I steer it to the next freeway exit as I drive there myself, and it starts going down in a pretty ideal spot, behind some old railroad tracks on a flat gravel patch far from any people or vehicles just a few blocks from the freeway exit. As it goes down i hit video record just in case. a few warnings come up I don’t remember exactly since I’m trying to drive and fly at the same time. Finally I see the drone go over some knee high weeds and it tells me autoland is unsuitable or something, and I can swipe to land anyway. I see just 15 feet forward is clear gravel, so I push to stretch it a little further and cancel the autoland. I get over the gravel and it tries to land again. I keep bringing it lower, directly over the flat gravel patch, having cleared another autoland warning by now, and suddenly I lose signal.
In a panic I keep driving to the spot where I saw it go down in the video display, which matches the last gps location recorded in find my drone. It’s getting dark of course (was filming a sunset) and I arrive at the site about 5 minutes after losing signal.
I go to the site and the Mavic is nowhere to be seen, gps location is in the middle of a 40 ft radius clear area , so it shouldn’t be hard to find, but it’s not there. I widen the radius and look in all the knee high weeds in the surrounding 70 ft or so, before it gets really dark and I have to head home.
Sorry for the long winded back story, I plan to go back and look in the morning, but wanted to know if anyone can help me refine my search strategy since I haven’t found a definitive answer on RTH vs Critical battery, or have any idea of what to try next (besides wait for sunlight and keep looking):
when I cancel an autoland once or twice and i’m hovering 15 or so ft from the ground when I lose signal, is there any chance of that the Mavic could start drifting or even enabling RTH and going back to where I was with the cop? It seems like RTH would already be overridden By this point. And if it did activate, I probably would’ve picked up signal again as it climbed up to my RTH altitude of 300ft...
I’m wondering if I should trace the 1200 or so ft space between my intended landing site and the home site, or just widen the radius around my intended landing site.
Just seems so improbable that it would be far from its last recorded location, since I gave no stick inputs after positioning it over the gravel patch, and the GPs shows it right where I wanted it, so I’m a little stumped. Also very improbable that in such a remote place, that someone would’ve gone and taken it in the 5 min it took me to arrive , but that’s starting to feel like the most believable outcome at this point.
In any case, appreciate any knowledge or advice any of you have at this point. And if it helps at all, aircraft was latest firmware, MPP, sport mode, RTH setting enabled @ 300ft, and relatively little/no wind.
Thanks in advance
Driving home on the freeway, saw a really beautiful sunset in a particularly scenic place that ‘needed’ to be filmed. Pulled over on the side of the road and flew the Mavic around for a full battery worth of flying.
First low battery warning came on, and Auto RTH too, so I promptly cancel RTH (so it doesn’t unneccessarily climb to 300 ft) and instead I flew back to where my car was pulled off into the grass. Once it was directly over my head (also the home location) I started bringing it down when suddenly I saw police lights behind me.
I froze. Set the remote down, and walked back to the police car with nothing in my hand. I told the officer I didn’t need any help, my car was ok, and he quickly barked back that it was illegal to pull off to the side of the road where I was. I said ok, I’ll move, never mentioned the drone.
Went back to the car and didn’t know what to do, drone was still hovering out of sight, about 100 ft up directly above me. I quickly realized the officer wasn’t going anywhere until I left, so plan A of “just wait it out” was out of the question. Plan B was “just land anyway” but in my panicked state i thought that If he was already mad at me for just being pulled over in the grass, didn’t want to see what he’d do when I landed a drone right in front of him on the side of the road. So I just started driving.
I took the remote off the passenger seat and flew the Mavic up the road as well, trailing a bit behind my car. Remember it’s been beeeping at me this whole time, and starts going into critical low battery mode. Making me panic more, and begins to descend itself.
Cop is gone now (drove past me) so I steer it to the next freeway exit as I drive there myself, and it starts going down in a pretty ideal spot, behind some old railroad tracks on a flat gravel patch far from any people or vehicles just a few blocks from the freeway exit. As it goes down i hit video record just in case. a few warnings come up I don’t remember exactly since I’m trying to drive and fly at the same time. Finally I see the drone go over some knee high weeds and it tells me autoland is unsuitable or something, and I can swipe to land anyway. I see just 15 feet forward is clear gravel, so I push to stretch it a little further and cancel the autoland. I get over the gravel and it tries to land again. I keep bringing it lower, directly over the flat gravel patch, having cleared another autoland warning by now, and suddenly I lose signal.
In a panic I keep driving to the spot where I saw it go down in the video display, which matches the last gps location recorded in find my drone. It’s getting dark of course (was filming a sunset) and I arrive at the site about 5 minutes after losing signal.
I go to the site and the Mavic is nowhere to be seen, gps location is in the middle of a 40 ft radius clear area , so it shouldn’t be hard to find, but it’s not there. I widen the radius and look in all the knee high weeds in the surrounding 70 ft or so, before it gets really dark and I have to head home.
Sorry for the long winded back story, I plan to go back and look in the morning, but wanted to know if anyone can help me refine my search strategy since I haven’t found a definitive answer on RTH vs Critical battery, or have any idea of what to try next (besides wait for sunlight and keep looking):
when I cancel an autoland once or twice and i’m hovering 15 or so ft from the ground when I lose signal, is there any chance of that the Mavic could start drifting or even enabling RTH and going back to where I was with the cop? It seems like RTH would already be overridden By this point. And if it did activate, I probably would’ve picked up signal again as it climbed up to my RTH altitude of 300ft...
I’m wondering if I should trace the 1200 or so ft space between my intended landing site and the home site, or just widen the radius around my intended landing site.
Just seems so improbable that it would be far from its last recorded location, since I gave no stick inputs after positioning it over the gravel patch, and the GPs shows it right where I wanted it, so I’m a little stumped. Also very improbable that in such a remote place, that someone would’ve gone and taken it in the 5 min it took me to arrive , but that’s starting to feel like the most believable outcome at this point.
In any case, appreciate any knowledge or advice any of you have at this point. And if it helps at all, aircraft was latest firmware, MPP, sport mode, RTH setting enabled @ 300ft, and relatively little/no wind.
Thanks in advance
