Help please lost drone

[Dronage]

The Mavic did not record any GPS coordinates after about 5m 13.9s when it was at 40.18205451, -105.0639574. You (or your daughter) continued to fly for about 6 minutes after that point. There was a light wind blowing toward the northeast and the Mavic was pointed north for most of the time when it was being commanded forward. If that heading is accurate, I can only assume it's somewhere to the northeast of the last location in your flight log. The real unknown is how far did it travel before it auto landed.

Superb msinger..!!
That was like reading Sherlock Holmes for drone owners..!
As someone who struggles to understand the most basic functions of any given software, my hat goes off to you..!
Or, come to think about it, Billy out of Predator shouting intel back to Dutch..!

 

[sar104]

Superb msinger..!!
That was like reading Sherlock Holmes for drone owners..!
As someone who struggles to understand the most basic functions of any given software, my hat goes off to you..!
Or, come to think about it, Billy out of Predator shouting intel back to Dutch..!

Actually the aircraft recorded GPS coordinates until the connection was lost just before the 12 minute mark - it just doesn't record position in the txt log when it has switched to ATTI due to navigational errors.

 

[BudWalker]

That changes the answer by a large amount, which doesn't give me great confidence that the wind was at all steady. However, for what it's worth the landing point now looks to be here:

View attachment 69680

I'd put an uncertainty of several hundred meters on that, but probably worth a look around that area.

I'm gonna go for this being the landing spot.


I assumed that critical landing started at 15% and the depletion rate was roughly 13 secs per 1% depletion. The last recorded Battery% was 39% so that's 312 secs to critical landing I used your assumption of 15 secs to descend. I then extrapolated the last 30 secs of recorded GPS lat and long values. How am I doing?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Not much between both locations on the map, the poor bloke is probably out there now in knee high grass looking madly in those paddocks.
Thoughts going his way for a positive result.

 

[Bigbird48]

You guys have worked hard to help this guy hope he finds it awesome Job Sar and Bud

 

[sar104]

I'm gonna go for this being the landing spot.
View attachment 69762

I assumed that critical landing started at 15% and the depletion rate was roughly 13 secs per 1% depletion. The last recorded Battery% was 39% so that's 312 secs to critical landing I used your assumption of 15 secs to descend. I then extrapolated the last 30 secs of recorded GPS lat and long values. How am I doing?

That looks like an underestimate with regard to time. A least square linear regression fit to the battery level during ATTI mode, intersected with the SMART_BATTERY_landBattery level, which was 11% rather than 15%, gives a duration of 368 s past the end of the log to the start of autoland:



The problem is the velocity of the aircraft. Even after stick inputs ended the GPS data show oscillatory velocity data:



It appears to be settling around 3.5 m/s at the end, but who knows what it does in the following 368 seconds. Anyway - assuming 3.5 m/s, that suggests it flies another 1290 meters before commencing autoland. That will take around 15 s from a height of 45 meters, giving a total distance of 1340 meters. Plotting that on Google Earth, assuming that the track stays constant, gives this:

 

[Trollistika]

Op, by any chance did you put your info like phone number stickied on the drone? Wondering how many people have done that.

 

[msinger]

I'm thinking it landed somewhere inside of this red box:

 

[MavProPlat1968]

Wow...I think I found the right place to learn about my new adventure. This is good stuff. OP, hope you find your drone, and that's off to the ones smart enough to help pinpoint possible landing sites!

 

[BudWalker]

ok so I started a conversation on accident but I believe files had changed name while in my pocket but I had to rename files as I found them like this ....
FLY493.DAT@19-04-15_08-28-20-865

Are there any more .DAT files ending FLY493.DAT? You submitted 3 that were part of the original FLY493 as was described in post #31. If there is a 4th that would like likely contain more info about where the MP landed.

You could also try zipping the entire contents of the MCDatFlightRecords directory and posting via DropBox. I've seen a few cases where the .DAT got labelled more or less randomly.

 

[msinger]

@BudWalker, the usable time remaining at the end of the 3rd DAT file is consistent with the time remaining in the TXT, so there are likely no more DAT files.

 

[BudWalker]

@BudWalker, the usable time remaining at the end of the 3rd DAT file is consistent with the time remaining in the TXT, so there are likely no more DAT files.

Not sure I understand what's meant by "usable time". The .txt was about 367 secs duration. The 3 submitted .DATs lasted about 710 secs. At 710 secs the RemainingBat% was 39%, so still quite a way to go.....

 

[msinger]

Not sure I understand what's meant by "usable time". The .txt was about 367 secs duration. The 3 submitted .DATs lasted about 710 secs. At 710 secs the RemainingBat% was 39%, so still quite a way to go.....

I was referring to this data:

TXT:


DAT #3:



Both data end with ~525 seconds of usable flight time.

 

[sar104]

Not sure I understand what's meant by "usable time". The .txt was about 367 secs duration. The 3 submitted .DATs lasted about 710 secs. At 710 secs the RemainingBat% was 39%, so still quite a way to go.....

Actually the txt log went to 710 seconds also. Both ended with the disconnect.

 

[BudWalker]

I was referring to this data:

TXT:
View attachment 69794

DAT #3:
View attachment 69795


Both data end with ~525 seconds of usable flight time.

So, doesn't that mean another 525 secs of flight is possible?...

 

[BudWalker]

Actually the txt log went to 710 seconds also. Both ended with the disconnect.

Guess I got confused - maybe with another flight. Anyway, it's possible that there was a reconnect and there would be a FLY494.DAT. Possibly also another .txt after DJIFlightRecord_2019-04-15_[08-29-47].txt.
@Ajleoso1 could you look and see if there is a FLY494.DAT?

@msinger

 

[msinger]

So, doesn't that mean another 525 secs of flight is possible?...

Yes. It also likely means there are no more logs since the TXT and DAT both ended at that point.

 

[BudWalker]

Yes. It also likely means there are no more logs since the TXT and DAT both ended at that point.

Guess I'm just not seeing it. If there was a reconnect why wouldn't there be a subsequent .DAT and possibly another .TXT?

 

[msinger]

If there was a reconnect why wouldn't there be a subsequent .DAT and possibly another .TXT?

A remote controller reconnect? The TXT flight log does not split when the remote controller disconnects and reconnects. It could have split if the OP restarted DJI GO though.

 

[BudWalker]

A remote controller reconnect? The TXT flight log does not split when the remote controller disconnects and reconnects. It could have split if the OP restarted DJI GO though.

You're correct. I took another look at an incident where it looked like another .txt was created after an RC reconnect. But, it wasn't clear that the Go App had not been restarted.