DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Hypothetical: Can the Props on the Mavic Air 2 be started while the aircraft is in freefall?

I saw a video on YT recently in which someone intentionally emergency shut off his MA2. It did not restart and went on to fall in water. A question I have is if it was higher would it have more time to restart? Regardless, my own assumption will be that if I do an emergency shut off, then it is the end of that flight.
Yeah, the math I did is as follows to figure out how long it takes the aircraft to hit the ground:

d = displacement (distance to the ground in this instance) (122 m = 400')
v = initial velocity (zero, since the aircraft is hovering at altitude, or moving along the horizontal plane, which we're ignoring for these purposes)
t = time
a = acceleration, in this case, due to gravity

d = vt + (a/2)*t^2

122 m = 0*t + ((9.8 m/s/s)/2)*t^2

122 m = 4.9 m/s/s *t^2

squareroot(122 / 4.9) s = t

t = 4.98 seconds


it takes less than 5 seconds for the aircraft to fall from 400 feet AGL, assuming it falls straight down and does not reach terminal velocity.

Here's a graph, so you can see how long you have depending on how high the aircraft is (y axis is altitude in metres, x axis is time to the ground in seconds)

This graph and math doesn't take into account the time it takes for the aircraft to save itself, this is just an analysis of falling things.
 

Attachments

  • aircraft falling.png
    aircraft falling.png
    72.7 KB · Views: 7
Duct tape your drone to a wall and see if it'll start.
I'm more curious if DJI would replace it. They would know right away from the data that the strange flyaway was pilot induced.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MA2 317
The flight terminate will be in the logs and probably won’t get replaced. I might be wrong but I would not try it.

Care Refresh covers damage due to pilot error.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
131,089
Messages
1,559,733
Members
160,074
Latest member
SkyTechDji