I have lost mavic mini

[Chaaku]

Hi,
Firstable sorry for my English, but i have to do everything to find my drone
So today i was flying my DJI Mavic Mini nearby my house. After flying 200 metres i started to have problems with connection. After 1-2 minutes i lost it completely. I tried to catch it and run near position where i recently saw it but still i didn't have connection. I'm sure that wind took him away. And my question is, is it possible to find him? I found the last localization where he should be through "Find my drone" in application DJI GO and also check everything in airdata.com. I add it here so maybe someone can tell me if Mavic should land in last localization? Cause its weird for me that he was on 970 ft.

I'm grateful for any help.

 

[old man mavic]

welcome to the forum,sorry about your drone our resident experts will be along soon to try and help you

 

[slup]

Jeez ... you made a fatal mistake to set the RTH height to 396m!

-When you lost connection at 139sec. you were at 73m height & the winds was moderate, around 5-6m/s.
-Then disaster struck ... at 470sec when the connection returns briefly the AC now are at 396m at 499m distance ... up in strong winds & the AC drifts away at approx 0,5m/s.
-Then you lost connection again & again & again ...
-In the end you had applied negative throttle in short bursts & was down to 296m ... but now drifting between 1-2m/s.
-Then the connection is lost for the last time at 1042m distance from HP ... the battery level there was 30%, with a battery land threshold of 16%, and 418sec of useful battery time until landing will start.

If you had dialed in a reasonable RTH height the Mini had definitely returned home.

 

[sar104]

Jeez ... you made a fatal mistake to set the RTH height to 396m!

When you lost connection at 139sec. you were at 73m height & the winds was moderate, around 5-6m/s. Then disaster struck ... at 470sec when the connection returns briefly the AC now are at 396m at 499m distance ... up in strong winds & the AC drifts away at approx 0,5m/s. Then you lose connection again & again & again ... in the end you have applied negative throttle in short bursts & are down to 296m ... but now drifting between 1-2m/s. Then the connection is lost for the last time at 1042m distance from HP ... battery level there was 30%, with a battery land threshold of 16%, and 418sec of useful battery time until landing will start.

If you had dialed in a reasonable RTH height the Mini had definitely returned home.

You going to take a shot at this, or shall I load the data?

 

[slup]

You going to take a shot at this, or shall I load the data?

You do it ... soon midnight here, need to be awake at work tomorrow

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Welcome to the forum @Chaaku
Sadly, too many mini owners make their first post in this forum section.

sar104 should be back again shortly, and hopefully be able to give you a fairly good search area to check.
Good luck !!

 

[Meta4]

So today i was flying my DJI Mavic Mini nearby my house. After flying 200 metres i started to have problems with connection. After 1-2 minutes i lost it completely. I tried to catch it and run near position where i recently saw it but still i didn't have connection. I'm sure that wind took him away. And my question is, is it possible to find him? I found the last localization where he should be through "Find my drone" in application DJI GO and also check everything in airdata.com. I add it here so maybe someone can tell me if Mavic should land in last localization? Cause its weird for me that he was on 970 ft.

Here's what that flight data looks like: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
You lost signal at 2:18.5 which caused the drone to initiate RTH.
As RTH height was set at 369 metres, the Mini would climb to 369 metres before coming home.
When signal was regained 4:50 later, the drone was 369 metres up, where the wind was stronger than the wind at ground level.
The Mini normally flies home at 8 metres/sec but with a wind of more than 8 m/s the Mini will be blown backwards.
Up high your Mini was being blown backwards at up to 3 m/s and getting further away.
The Mini sometimes has trouble holding altitude and yours gradualy lost height as it flew.
As it came lower, if the wind eased, the Mini was slowly making way towards home and at other times going backwards.

At 8:33.7 you started bring the drone down lower (but not low enough to help much).
You also did some things with the right joystick which helped send the drone further away rather than bringing it back.

Signal was lost and the data ends at 14:40.5 with the drone 296 metres up and almost holding position while trying to RTH.
It was then 1041 metres from home.
Battery level was down to 30%.
It will have flown a little longer before the battery reached critical low voltage and the Mini will have started to descend.
As it got lower, the wind will have been less and the Mini will have been able to hold position while descending.

The problem is knowing where the drone was before it started to descend.
As the wind was not constant, it will be difficult to estimate this position.

When signal was lost the drone was above 50.09650 20.043245 and the drone could be +/- a couple of hundred metres along this white line but I can't guess where.

 

[sar104]

Well that's a mess of a record. The problem wasn't actually the wind, except in the sense that this was another Mavic Mini that couldn't achieve specified pitch and hold altitude. Looking at the overview, and extrapolating the battery level to autoland, shows that at the end of the flight record it was 181 seconds from entering autoland:



Looking at the end of the flight it is clear that it could maintain altitude, but not with enough pitch to hold position, or it could hold position but without sufficient lift to maintain altitude:



A conundrum for the FC. So we don't know exactly what it chose in those last 181 seconds, but we can bound the problem. Maximum velocity while holding altitude was around ±1 m/s, and so the farthest it is likely to have moved is 180 m. Probably less, since it was switching between applying the required pitch and holding altitude:



Course was steady enough, which just reflects a fairly steady wind direction:



Plotting the range of possibilities on the map gives the following, which is pretty close to @Meta4's estimate:



I'd look along the broad red line, starting at the last position recorded.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Nice job fellas, two reports so close, got to be a good chance for a search.

@Chaaku . . . I'd recommend make up some fliers with your info (name / phone), pic of the mini, and drop into the houses along and within perhaps 300m either side of the lined search area, possibly ended up in a homeowners back / front yard and someone has found it.
Might be worth dropping these in letterboxes while you are walking about looking for it.

Ask in the flyer if they would mind keeping an eye out for it, nad if you offer a small reward, local children may actively search for it.
Good luck . . . (heck, you might end up with 5 or 6 minis if you're lucky !!)

typo fixed

 

[LazerMan]

again I'll ask did you have any contact info on your drone. This should be one of the first thing new drone owners should do. Attach some contact info on your drone, so when you lose it if somebody fines it they can get a hold of you.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

OP has only posted the one message, may or may not have been back to view the thread.
Be a shame if all the work Meta4 and sar104 did wasn't viewed by the OP, could be at least a chance to get his drone back.

 

[Chaaku]

Unfortunetly i didint have anything on my Drone. Today morning i was there looking for it, but it’s not easy to find it cause there is a lot of high trees and houses. Now i finish my work and go there to search again and ask people if they found my Drone. I have many ads with the photo of the Drone and information about my lost. In the afternoon my friend will take his Drone and we will search my Mavic this way.
I’m really impressed and grateful for everyones work on this forum. I’ll write you what we achieved today. Thank you very much for your help

 

[KB9Radio]

Nice job fellas, two reports so close, got to be a good chance for a search.

@Chaaku . . . I'd recommend make up some fliers with your info (name / phone), pic of the mini, and drop into the houses along and within perhaps 300m either side of the lined search area, possibly ended up in a homeowners back / front yard and someone has found it.
Might be worth gropping these in letterboxes while you are walking about looking for it.

Ask in the flyer if they would mind keeping an eye out for it, nad if you offer a small reward, local children may actively search for it.
Good luck . . . (heck, you might end up with 5 or 6 minis if you're lucky !!)

The name and address cards is a good idea. I know of one case in my area where some kids were looking for a lost drone. A few days later someone found it in their back yard, but had no idea who the kids were that were looking for it. The person who found it put a message out on Facebook regarding it, but who knows if they ever got it back to them.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

The name and address cards is a good idea.

Yep, pretty much walking past all those homes anyway, might as well pop a half page flier in the letterboxes as to OP goes by.

 

[Bosco Bear]

again I'll ask did you have any contact info on your drone. This should be one of the first thing new drone owners should do. Attach some contact info on your drone, so when you lose it if somebody fines it they can get a hold of you.

Good advice. I wrote my name and phone number on mine with a permanent marker "just in case"!

 

[Dakarenduro]

For those of us who have been doing this for a few years, putting a "If found call xxx=xxx=xxxx" sticker on your drone is old habit. Way back when, instead of a Return To Home sometimes we had Return To China software bugs.... now not so much.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

putting a "If found call xxx=xxx=xxxx" sticker on your drone is old habit. Way back when, instead of a Return To Home sometimes we had Return To China software bugs

Should have had the info in English and Chinese then, lol ?

 

[Garbage]

Did I read this correctly that his RTH was set to an altitude of 1,210 feet (369 Meters)?

 

[droneloverair]

Ohhooh my. 396meters of RTH height?

pure user error.
even more so that the OP neverbothered to put his contact info on the drone.
it is required to put yourcontact info on drone. Clearly hewas not doing any research before droning.

Im also new to drones but iv been reading this forum months before i even signed up.
now im addicted.

 

[shb]

I'm surprised they let you set the rth that high. He must have thought he was setting it to 396 feet. Government regulations forced DJI to make it so light, so they are partly responsible for these mini wind loses.