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I wouldn't hire dji to babysit my least favorite kid.... - near crash story

Red_Raven

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Joined
Feb 16, 2017
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Location
Reykjavik, Iceland
I want to share a story of a insident where I almost lost my mavic.
I had an assignment where I had to fly near airport, a low altitude shot without any danger involved even though flying in the guts of a no fly zone. I, being a law abiding citizen contacted the authorities, in this case simply the flytower of my city's airport. I was granted their permission to do what I described I would have to do. This flight involved take off inside the NFZ and simply I would fly out of it. Which I did.
Everything went good and I had no trouble taking off like I had tought off might happen. I tought I might be grounded by geo inside the red circle of NFZ.
When I was going back to homepoint, where I was standing I hit a wall. I was completely locked out of the circle by invisible wall, even rth didn't work.
I was careless and flew more on the battery than I should have, but at the time I tought, I'll just need 3 minutes more to finish, it would be nonsense to return as soon as the 30% beep started......
....Think again
I ended up running at the end of the circle and just in time I managed to control the forced emergency landing to a save spot. I landed at 4%. Hardly able to breath after the long sprint to get there....

This was a close call, but knowing where I was wrong, what I should have done differently. Should this happen? Shouldn't I always be able to return home, If I was able to make that a homepoint in the first place?

If dji is going to babysit me, I would prefer them to do it properly.
 
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Correct me if im wrong, i think turning off Geo System could've took care of this.

I did think so afterwards. But I've since done experiments on trying to fly into the NFZ both with geo on and of and I hit that wall either way. It's not until I get tho that 5km radius red zone.
 
Not sure yet but I believe a warning comes up stating that RTH is through a NZF so you where fortunate to fly out but couldn't get back in.

No it does not. I'm told I'm in a NFZ and I'm asked to agree on that i know what I'm doing but I don't recall a word about not getting home...

But to be sure I'll find out, layer today I'll look at the log file from the flight and simply go on location to lift my drone to see what happens.
 
Not fully understanding this, did you contact DJI and get the unlock to fly in a NFZ? If not, then didn't it do exactly what it is supposed to do (other than actually allowing you to take off in a NFZ)? These are designed so that people aren't flying in NFZ for a reason, such as flying a drone in an airport!
If you did get the unlock, then this shouldn't happen. If you didn't, then it did what it supposed to do and not let you into a NFZ. Although maybe some warnings about RTH in a NFZ, as mentioned above, would've been helpful.
 
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