How often do flyaways happen?

[jonatious]

I am new here. I own the Mavic Air and never cared about flyaways. I have taken off from some dense places with 5 satellite signal and fly up to get more signal and then fly further. After reading about flyaways, things have turned out scary for me.

1. Is there are stats on how often flyaways happen?
2. What about the number of flyaways based on the model? I mean the M2P I think has dual compass/IMU. So it should perform better and malfunction lesser frequently right?
3. I am waiting to upgrade to the M3P, which should be similar to M2P. Being a newbie to forum, looking for an answer from a senior person for this. How often has this forum seen flyaways on M2P compared to others?

 

[Meta4]

I am new here. I own the Mavic Air and never cared about flyaways. I have taken off from some dense places with 5 satellite signal and fly up to get more signal and then fly further. After reading about flyaways, things have turned out scary for me.

The word Flyaway was invented back in the early days of drone flying to account for a lost drone when the flyer didn't understand why the drone was lost.
Things have moved on since then.
In 2015 DJI developed the Go app which recorded flight data that could be investigated to see what actually happened in a flight incident.
Now the actual cause of a lost drone could be seen and it became apparent that DJI drones don't "fly away" and while there are occasional genuine hardware faults, almost all flight incidents are a result of pilot confusion, misunderstanding and poor flying skills.

1. Is there are stats on how often flyaways happen?
2. What about the number of flyaways based on the model? I mean the M2P I think has dual compass/IMU. So it should perform better and malfunction lesser frequently right?
3. I am waiting to upgrade to the M3P, which should be similar to M2P. Being a newbie to forum, looking for an answer from a senior person for this. How often has this forum seen flyaways on M2P compared to others?

1. They must be very rare .. I'm still waiting to see one
2. No drone model is immune to pilot errors. Drones using a single compass have similar reliability to models with two compasses.
3. The same = zero.
.

 

[msinger]

After reading about flyaways, things have turned out scary for me

If you don't want to fear a flyaway situation, then you need to have a deep understanding of how your drone works. Start here:

Prevent a Crash or Flyaway with Your DJI Drone (The Complete Guide)

 

[Johnmcl7]

I went through the crash/flyaway forum and tried to summarise the causes of flyaways and crashes here:

Summary of drone crashes from the crash/flyaway forum

There's been a few posts by people concerned about the number of 'flyaways' which of course are mostly not the case so i decided to trawl through the crash/flyaway section here and for each thread note the model of the drone and whether the crash/flyaway was caused by pilot error, a fault with...

mavicpilots.com

Bear in mind this is a small percentage of drone owners and the drone fault percentage is likely a bit high but even then there's a very high percentage are caused by pilot error. Not only that but many of the crashes are easily avoidable and I'd highly recommend msinger's guide above for avoiding a crash or flyaway.

Unfortunately people are very quick to claim their problem is a flyaway and it gives a misleading view when you glance over the crash/flyaway forum which is why I decided to try and summarise the stats to show that in most cases the problems are caused by pilot error.

I've owned both a Mavic Pro and Mavic 2 Pro since shortly after their launch and never had a problem with either and both are still flying well.

 

[PhantomFandom]

I am new here. I own the Mavic Air and never cared about flyaways. I have taken off from some dense places with 5 satellite signal and fly up to get more signal

As @Meta4 correctly pointed out, the term fly-away is very misleading. It all comes down to pilot knowledge, preparations, decision making and skill. Your opening statement above shows the lack of preparations and decision making that can easily lead to the dreaded "fly away". Taking off in "dense places" with limited satellite coverage is a recipe for disaster. Taking off without GPS lock means that once the drone ascends above ground sensor range it will be in ATTI mode, and completely dependent on your control to keep it in a stable position. A stiff breeze or gusty winds will take the drone away unless promptly and skillfully controlled by the pilot. If "dense area" means you are surrounded by trees or structures then the drone can easily be blown into a collision with those structures.

From the point of view of a pilot it could look like a fly-away in that the drone drifted into an obstruction "on its own" without pilot input. In reality the drone was only doing what the laws of physics and aerodynamics say it could do, and that is to drift with the air current.

So in other words:

• Don't worry about modern DJI drones flying away. They do not just fly away on their own.
• Never take off unless you have a good strong GPS lock.
• Be prepared, aware, and ready for contingencies.
• Know your equipment, surroundings, weather, and flight characteristics.

 

[Lastrexking]

Genuine flyaways don’t happen often. Most losses are pilot error.

 

[peterc4]

A lot more than everyone thinks there are so many factors involved, my advice would be to be ready for your 1st loss and it wont be as bad, i waited 5 years for mine

 

[CareyL]

I am new here. I own the Mavic Air and never cared about flyaways. I have taken off from some dense places with 5 satellite signal and fly up to get more signal and then fly further. After reading about flyaways, things have turned out scary for me.

1. Is there are stats on how often flyaways happen?
2. What about the number of flyaways based on the model? I mean the M2P I think has dual compass/IMU. So it should perform better and malfunction lesser frequently right?
3. I am waiting to upgrade to the M3P, which should be similar to M2P. Being a newbie to forum, looking for an answer from a senior person for this. How often has this forum seen flyaways on M2P compared to others?

Check the wind.
Check the wind.
Check the wind!

 

[Twospot927]

A lot more than everyone thinks there are so many factors involved, my advice would be to be ready for your 1st loss and it wont be as bad, i waited 5 years for mine

HaHaHa......everytime i go up i ask myself is today the day i lose $1500??? hasn't happened yet in 3 plus years