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I lost my Mavic Pro Platinum.

Mavic Pro Platinum

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Location
Charlestown, Indiana, USA
I took my Mavic Pro Platinum off and flew straight up above me to take some pictures of the sky, keeping my gimbal pointing upwards. About a minute of flying straight upwards my controller said that the drone still was 42 feet away, then the controller said that it had weak GPS signal, but I was not by anything to interfere or block the signal. I had flew the drone from that same spot several times without any issues. I took a few pictures and my controllers weak GPS signal notification left and my location updated and it was TWO MILES AWAY! Immediately after the position was updated a Compass Error. Exit P-GPS Mode, IMU heading error Please restart the aircraft, Weak GPS signal Positional accuracy may be compromised. Please fly with caution., Aircraft GPS signal too weak. Home Point not updated. warnings appeared and I tried to fly my drone home but I did not make any headway, but I managed to hold position. I had only been flying for ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS, and had flew straight up, not touching any other controls. A few seconds later Weak signal. Adjust antenna and avoid signal block., Aircraft GPS signal too weak. Home Point not updated., Abnormal compass or GPS signal detected. Aircraft switched to ATTI mode. warnings appeared. I kept on trying to take my drone home. Thirty seconds later a couple more Aircraft GPS signal too weak. Home Point not updated. warnings appeared again. By now the drone was almost THREE MILES AWAY! The warnings The remaining battery is only enough for RTH. Return home now. High wind velocity. Fly with caution and land in a safe place ASAP. appeared. Right before I lost connection I hit Return To Home (RTH), and it was THREE MILES AWAY! I had the IMU and compass calibrated and there should have been no reason for weak GPS signal. I was not aware of the drone drifting, because I had the gimbal upwards for photos, but I was only up for one minute and forty seconds and I had no idea that I would drift. If I had realized that I would have immediately come home. My controller should have updated my position but it didn't. I am very disappointed as that I had got the drone for Christmas and had it two days. I looked everywhere on the flight path but did not find it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how or where to find it? Your suggestions would be appreciated. I will post the flight log.
 
If you look at distance and altitude you will see that the data are likely correct:

Graph0.png

Notice that it goes straight up, holding position just fine, until it climbs above 300 m or so, at which point it starts to move. That's because it switches to ATTI mode as a result of a significant yaw error, likely caused by taking off from a magnetically distorted location. I'll take a look at the DAT file to confirm that. At that point the wind took over, and it was strong - nearly 60 mph at 500 m altitude, so, even without the switch to ATTI there is no way that it could have held position.

I can try to estimate where it ended up, but I have to say that was an extraordinarily reckless flight.
 
If you look at distance and altitude you will see that the data are likely correct:

View attachment 57236

Notice that it goes straight up, holding position just fine, until it climbs above 300 m or so, at which point it starts to move. That's because it switches to ATTI mode as a result of a significant yaw error, likely caused by taking off from a magnetically distorted location. I'll take a look at the DAT file to confirm that. At that point the wind took over, and it was strong - nearly 60 mph at 500 m altitude, so, even without the switch to ATTI there is no way that it could have held position.

I can try to estimate where it ended up, but I have to say that was an extraordinarily reckless flight.
60mph is just beyond crazy to take a drone out in that kind of environment. I took my Mavic Pro platinum yesterday to fly and it flew well in 17mph winds, even though I was kind of worry because the winds was feeling strong at some point.
 
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OP when you finally saw your drone was 2 miles away and still moving away ,why didn’t you drop it down low and fly it back . The higher you go the more wind there is . Just asking ?
 
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Yes, it is. The winds on ground level were about 5mph. It was really dumb of me to take my drone up high where the winds were crazy, but I didn't think about that.
It is common sense to know that if on the ground the winds is 5 mph. The highest you take your Mavic, the wind gusts are very stronger. That's why yesterday the highest I took my Mavic was 100 feet. I didn't want to go higher than that feeling the wind gusts will take my Mavic away.
 
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OP when you finally saw your drone was 2 miles away and still moving away ,why didn’t you drop it down low and fly it back . The higher you go the more wind there is . Just asking ?
Probably because he is new at this and just learning. Regardless...
 
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Weird, I was wondering yesterday if it was 4 or 5 drones that have been lost recently due to wind. Fairly certain it is now 5 in a short period of time.
 
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Based on the battery depletion rate and wind speed altitude profile, it looks like it will have commenced autoland at around 945 seconds. Extrapolating drift rate assuming an airspeed of around 20 mph in RTH and a descent rate of 3 m/s gives the following:

estimate.png

That gives an estimate landing distance of 5250 meters from the home point. Since the aircraft was able to hold course but not distance, we can assume that it was approximately moving directly away from the home point in the final RTH phase, which puts the estimated landing site as shown below.


1546199487683.jpeg
 
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