I think I lost my mavic mini

[Thomas B]

.... and whenever possible fly out into the wind and return with the wind.

 

[JustAGuy]

.... and whenever possible fly out into the wind and return with the wind.

As a relatively new pilot myself, this cannot be emphasized enough. Flying into the wind absolutely kills your battery life.

On Christmas Day I flew about a mile into a ~10 mph (at ground level) wind to a property my uncle owns. It took me from 100% battery down to 65% to get there. I hovered and took pictures until 60% when I came back. I landed back at my location at 51% battery.

FWIW, I’m flying in a rural area over farmland that I have been familiar with my entire life. I don’t do this anywhere near people.

 

[brokesmack]

Hello all,

Today I lost my mavick mini. The flight was normal, no errors and suddently a strong wind message appears. I pressed RTH and then drone go further away, lost signal and lost. The log can be found here DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com I went to the last location but the drone is nowhere. Any help please, I am desperate!

 

[Capt KO]

Hello all,

Today I lost my mavick mini. The flight was normal, no errors and suddently a strong wind message appears. I pressed RTH and then drone go further away, lost signal and lost. The log can be found here DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com I went to the last location but the drone is nowhere. Any help please, I am desperate!

If you don't get a reply soon you might want to start another new post. Sorry for your loss good luck
This Thread is almost a year old and might not get noticed. Title it the same way lost mavic Mini Help

 

[Deleted member 103366]

From what I can see you had the fail safe action set to RTH and the RTH height set to 62m above the takeoff point. Where you records end it looks as if it was over a courtyard with 'high' buildings downwind. How high are those buildings relative to the takeoff point? i.e. at 200ft above the takeoff point would the mini have cleared those buildings? If not then I'd guess its in that courtyard or on a balcony. If if did clear those buldings then I'd say it probably the far side of the "Leof. Amfitheas" road. Given the way the battery charge was declining I doubt it went much farther before the automatic landing kicked in.

The above needs to be verified or refuted by someone else.


If you down load CsvView and use it to open the txt you uploaded you will get a results page that lists various 'readings' that can be presented. Click on "empty" and the drag the bottom of the chart as high as it will go then click on the buttons highlighted in green, "click Update plot" and you should get the chart shown

 

[Meta4]

Today I lost my mavick mini. The flight was normal, no errors and suddently a strong wind message appears. I pressed RTH and then drone go further away, lost signal and lost. The log can be found here DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com I went to the last location but the drone is nowhere. Any help please, I am desperate!

The big problem with that flight was that you flew the same direction as the wind on a windy day.
At 2:23 and again at 3:09, with the drone hovering at 20 metres, it was being blown backwards at up to 2 metres/sec in the gusts.
Later around 4 minutes, you flew north in sport mode and could only manage 0-3 metres/sec flying against the wind at 60 feet.

At 5:16.7 you initiated RTH and the Mini climbed to your set RTH height of 61 metres.
As it climbed, it was exposed to stronger winds (The wind up higher is almost always stronger).
In RTH mode at 60 metres the drone was being blown backwards at 2m/s.
You cancelled RTH at 6:07.4 and changed to Sport Mode but left the Mini hovering rather than flying it toward home.

You brought it down to 40 metres and tried flying manually in SPort mode which gave you 2 m/s in the right direction but didn't do that for very long.
You mysteriously then flew backwards at 7:24.1, which took you further away again and then left it hovering and blowing backwards.
At 8:07.1 you gave up and initiated RTH again which sent the drone back to 61 metres again where it continued to be blown backwards until signal was lost at 12:5.5 with the drone 822 metres away.

Searching at the point where signal was lost wouldn't help because the drone was still 60 metres up and being blown further away at 1-2 m/s.
Before the battery reached critical low level and the drone landed, your drone would have been blown south for another 2-300 metres (rough estimate).
It doesn't look like easy searching in that area and given the uncertainty of where it came down, I think you are out of luck.

 

[Rich Farren]

Definitely get UAV forecast, it's a great app and will show you what the winds aloft may be like. If you find your drone drifting away due to strong winds you need to immediately:
- Switch to Sport mode to give you maximum forward speed ability (tap the mode icon on screen - top left)
- Yaw (turn) the drone to point at yourself so you can fly home (the red line on the map overlay shows you the direct course home)
- Descend whilst applying full forward pitch. Only stop descending when you see that you are making forwards progress unless there are obstructions. The wind is almost always less strong at lower altitude.

If the above doesn't seem to be working you will want to try and land the drone before you lose signal. Why? Because then you will know the location that you have landed in rather than trying to guess where it landed 1km downwind after disconnecting and losing signal. Also you can land in a safe / clear location. Once you land, the DJI Fly app has a nice "Find my Drone" feature which shows you the last position received over the telemetry link. Once you are close you can then click a button in the Fly app to enable flashing lights / beeping sounds if you still can't see it. Another reason to land early is you still have enough battery to do this some time after you have landed.