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How (Not) to Crash Your Mavic Mini Indoors

Pidgeon

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I put my brand new MM in the Cinema mode, installed the propeller guards, and took off in my bedroom. Heart beating with excitement, I slowly maneuvered it around to get the feel for it. When I got confident enough, I have flown it out of the bedroom, and within minutes crashed it down the wall. Twice. In exactly the same way. Here’s how.
At one point, I moved it backwards and the propeller guards touched the wall, and the MM “leaned back” into the wall so that the front propellers were ever so slightly higher than the back propellers. I knew enough not to try to touch it. (I like my fingers; also I know it has sensors on the bottom, and it would move up and away from my hand if I approach it from below.) So my natural instincts were to fly it forward, away from the wall... Crash.
At this point let me reconstruct what happened. To fly forward, a drone increases the speed of the back propellers. That way it, leans forward and moves horizontally. But in this case, the back propeller guard is “hinged” at the wall. The more I pushed the joystick forward, the harder the back propeller worked which only made it lean back against the wall even more. The nose kept going up up until at some point my MM just slid down the wall and crashed. Thankfully, it was OK; the propeller guards really helped.
So here is how I think I could have gotten out of that situation. (With all the benefits of the hindsight and cooler head.) First, the drone is leaning back against the wall, nose up. If I was to first slowly pull it down a bit (left joystick down) and then also push it forward, it would bring its nose down enough so that the increase in the back propellers speed would detach it from the wall. Naturally, I haven’t tried this, but I would do that if I was to find myself in the same situation again.
I’ll be curious to hear from others, too. Any other ideas to resolve this situation?
 
I put my brand new MM in the Cinema mode, installed the propeller guards, and took off in my bedroom. Heart beating with excitement, I slowly maneuvered it around to get the feel for it. When I got confident enough, I have flown it out of the bedroom, and within minutes crashed it down the wall. Twice. In exactly the same way. Here’s how.
At one point, I moved it backwards and the propeller guards touched the wall, and the MM “leaned back” into the wall so that the front propellers were ever so slightly higher than the back propellers. I knew enough not to try to touch it. (I like my fingers; also I know it has sensors on the bottom, and it would move up and away from my hand if I approach it from below.) So my natural instincts were to fly it forward, away from the wall... Crash.
At this point let me reconstruct what happened. To fly forward, a drone increases the speed of the back propellers. That way it, leans forward and moves horizontally. But in this case, the back propeller guard is “hinged” at the wall. The more I pushed the joystick forward, the harder the back propeller worked which only made it lean back against the wall even more. The nose kept going up up until at some point my MM just slid down the wall and crashed. Thankfully, it was OK; the propeller guards really helped.
So here is how I think I could have gotten out of that situation. (With all the benefits of the hindsight and cooler head.) First, the drone is leaning back against the wall, nose up. If I was to first slowly pull it down a bit (left joystick down) and then also push it forward, it would bring its nose down enough so that the increase in the back propellers speed would detach it from the wall. Naturally, I haven’t tried this, but I would do that if I was to find myself in the same situation again.
I’ll be curious to hear from others, too. Any other ideas to resolve this situation?
Fly outdoors?
 
In the situation you have described, the craft will automatically try to resume level attitude and maintain the altitude at the same time even if no forward stick input is applied. It cannot achieve level attitude by dropping the nose only and leave the tail at the same position because that will lower the altitude of the craft. What it will try to do is the lower the nose and raise the tail at the same time. That will make the tail rotor cage press more firmly against the wall.

What you have suggested should work because pulling down the throttle stick will give permission to the flight controller to lower the altitude so the nose should drop without the tail being raised. Theoretically, that will detach the tail rotor cage from the wall.
 
Many people won't even consider flying a drone indoors, or indeed near any obstacles at all. Mine never gets within 3m of anything it could hit (tree, building, ground) for example. That's not to say you can't fly indoors, but you need to be sure of your skill level first.
 
Wonder what would happen if you told it to land???
 
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I know this is a very old thread but I am curious do you still have the txt and DAT flight llogs from this flight?
I fly a mini indoors all the time and I have at times flown it up to and against a finger, the finger acting as your wall. Sure enough if you give the drone elevator to make it try to fly further 'into' the 'wall' the side that is distant from the wall rises but it is my recollection that I have never experienced a problem in getting it to fly away from my finger.
I might have even done this ........ but MUCH MORE carefully 🤣with a Mavic 2, a Mini prop strike might hurt but a Mavic 2 prop strike is likely to dice a finger lol.
 
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