Hi everyone! I'm new to the Mavic Pro, and now I'm going to learn how to repair one that crashed from 400 feet. I was enjoying some evening flying, and ran her up to 400 feet to avoid annoying the neighbors while getting some cool sunset pictures. I decided to fly off a thousand feet over a neighboring corn field to get a better perspective on our lake.
As I was nearing 700 feet from home (and out of sight due to some trees) I was annoyed by the slow progress I was making. Due to a breeze the Mavic was only making 12 mph. So I decided to see if Sport mode would help. While cruising max forward I used my index finger to click the mode switch to Sport.
Bad idea apparently. It immediately doubled over and began spiraling to the ground. I released all control inputs assuming that it would right itself....still spinning...so I quickly switched back out of Sport mode....no help. After a few more seconds of spinning blur the controller lost connection and I was in shock. I've only flown this thing a few hours, and had no idea this could happen. That's why I bought the Mavic, so I could rely on its gyros and RTH features to avoid unnecessary crashing! How was I ever going to find my Mavic in that massive corn field?
Luckily a few minutes later I got a distress call from my downed bird. The controller regained a connection, and I saw dirt and shredded corn leaves on the screen. I grabbed my boots and followed the map to where it should be. I stopped and heard the cooling fan running in the distance! After clawing through the corn a little ways further in the direction of the the sound I saw a pitiful sight.
She was alive, but badly damaged. The gimbal and camera was hanging by a wire. Only one prop was broken, but both rear arms were rotated up 20 degrees further than they should be able to go. The one front arm was fine, the other has essentially a dislocated shoulder, and both have broken landing gear. And mud is packed in the motors, and pretty much everywhere else. But her heart was beating, and the lights were on. I sadly pressed her button, powered her down, removed the battery, and placed her in a medically induced coma. Still... Not bad for a 400 foot fall. I'd probably look a lot worse.
So what went wrong? I guess flipping to Sport mode while flying max forward was too much for the stability control to handle, but then why couldn't it recover? I want to learn from this so that it doesn't happen again. In the mean time, I need to scrub in for a several hour surgery.....
As I was nearing 700 feet from home (and out of sight due to some trees) I was annoyed by the slow progress I was making. Due to a breeze the Mavic was only making 12 mph. So I decided to see if Sport mode would help. While cruising max forward I used my index finger to click the mode switch to Sport.
Bad idea apparently. It immediately doubled over and began spiraling to the ground. I released all control inputs assuming that it would right itself....still spinning...so I quickly switched back out of Sport mode....no help. After a few more seconds of spinning blur the controller lost connection and I was in shock. I've only flown this thing a few hours, and had no idea this could happen. That's why I bought the Mavic, so I could rely on its gyros and RTH features to avoid unnecessary crashing! How was I ever going to find my Mavic in that massive corn field?
Luckily a few minutes later I got a distress call from my downed bird. The controller regained a connection, and I saw dirt and shredded corn leaves on the screen. I grabbed my boots and followed the map to where it should be. I stopped and heard the cooling fan running in the distance! After clawing through the corn a little ways further in the direction of the the sound I saw a pitiful sight.
She was alive, but badly damaged. The gimbal and camera was hanging by a wire. Only one prop was broken, but both rear arms were rotated up 20 degrees further than they should be able to go. The one front arm was fine, the other has essentially a dislocated shoulder, and both have broken landing gear. And mud is packed in the motors, and pretty much everywhere else. But her heart was beating, and the lights were on. I sadly pressed her button, powered her down, removed the battery, and placed her in a medically induced coma. Still... Not bad for a 400 foot fall. I'd probably look a lot worse.
So what went wrong? I guess flipping to Sport mode while flying max forward was too much for the stability control to handle, but then why couldn't it recover? I want to learn from this so that it doesn't happen again. In the mean time, I need to scrub in for a several hour surgery.....