Idiot lost mavic

[Rj123]

Another idiot post I'm afraid. Complete noob to drone flying but long time ignorer of manuals. The more I read these forums the more I'm ashamed of not having properly researched basic things and having just set off with my mavic believing it would all be fine. Hopefully someone else reads this and learns from my mistake.
So I took the mavic out over some fields from my house, it's all farm land so I thought no worries and let it go out of sight. Biggest mistake I made was not reading the rules on height and flying up to 500m which I now realise is both illegal and completely stupid. Please be warned. A fair distance away the mavic complained of low battery and I initiated return to home. My guess is the almost non existent wind down low was a hurricane 500m up and the mavic struggled to get home before saying it needed to land. It started doing this but the lower it got the worse the signal got as it was so far away and now must have had trees blocking it. Eventually I see it landing next to a path in a field of wheat but aircraft is non responsive and picture like an 8 bit snes flight simulator, but it complained about ground not being suitable for landing, find alternative. Oddly enough I don't see this flash up on flight log. It then completely lost connection never to be seen again. I've been back to the GPS coordinates but cannot see any sign of it or destroyed wheat that I'd imagine it would have caused. It may be there but it is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. If anyone can shed some light on if the drone would have landed there or would have initiated return to home again after losing connection that would really help my search effort and sore feet.
Hopefully someone reads this and decides to respect drone flying as a hobby and keep their drone at legal limits and in eye sight.

 

[Rj123]

Logs I think

 

[Lake_Flyer]

Another idiot post I'm afraid. Complete noob to drone flying but long time ignorer of manuals. The more I read these forums the more I'm ashamed of not having properly researched basic things and having just set off with my mavic believing it would all be fine. Hopefully someone else reads this and learns from my mistake.
So I took the mavic out over some fields from my house, it's all farm land so I thought no worries and let it go out of sight. Biggest mistake I made was not reading the rules on height and flying up to 500m which I now realise is both illegal and completely stupid. Please be warned. A fair distance away the mavic complained of low battery and I initiated return to home. My guess is the almost non existent wind down low was a hurricane 500m up and the mavic struggled to get home before saying it needed to land. It started doing this but the lower it got the worse the signal got as it was so far away and now must have had trees blocking it. Eventually I see it landing next to a path in a field of wheat but aircraft is non responsive and picture like an 8 bit snes flight simulator, but it complained about ground not being suitable for landing, find alternative. Oddly enough I don't see this flash up on flight log. It then completely lost connection never to be seen again. I've been back to the GPS coordinates but cannot see any sign of it or destroyed wheat that I'd imagine it would have caused. It may be there but it is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. If anyone can shed some light on if the drone would have landed there or would have initiated return to home again after losing connection that would really help my search effort and sore feet.
Hopefully someone reads this and decides to respect drone flying as a hobby and keep their drone at legal limits and in eye sight.

First of all, welcome and sorry for your misfortune. You said it all. So no reason to say how stupid etc.

My guess is that when it's preparing to land and doesn't find a suitable landing spot it hovers until you take control. If it started to look for itself it couldn't be too far away from the spot it initially was trying to land. It was on low battery so it wouldn't have more than a few minutes left. On ground level there wasn't much wind you say, but I would certainly check down wind from that spot. Maybe you could get someone else with a drone to look. From up there you would probably spot it in the wheat. Searching from ground level is difficult with tall wheat. If it found a clear spot without wheat it will have landed there. You will not find any damaged wheats then.

I assume you checked the flight path in GO already, but that's the starting point.

I wish you all the luck in finding it. You deserve a second chance! You will probably become the most educated drone enthousiast ever, once you have it back.

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

On Go app before you get to the control screen up at top right there are 3 bars. Click on those and you get a drop down, on there there is Find My Drone.
Go back out and click on that and it will show the last known location.
Much like find my phone with Iphones.

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

 

[Keule]

I had a quick look at your logs (Only those with time 15:xx:xx). With help of Google earth, i made up a possible landing location. I did not take care of any wind influences.

Have a look:

 

[Rnl]

Cutting wheat here in Ohio, get back out there and find that bird.

 

[Rj123]

Thankyou everyone for your advice. i have been back to the exact last coordinates but the drone cannot be seen. Not sure if this is because its nestled in the wheat....or because it flew off after it lost connection.

Can anyone let me know.....if the drone was on a return to home, tried to land, said the landing site was unsuitable.....then lost connection. Would it carry on back home in search of a more suitable place and eventually land OR would it hover above that last spot until it ran out of battery and then land?

Thanks!!

 

[Rj123]

I had a quick look at your logs (Only those with time 15:xx:xx). With help of Google earth, i made up a possible landing location. I did not take care of any wind influences.

Have a look:
View attachment 14911

Thankyou so much for this. The yellow pin is where i have been looking......are you saying i should try the path after this up to 79%?

 

[Rj123]

Thankyou so much for this. The yellow pin is where i have been looking......are you saying i should try the path after this up to 79%?

Ah no sorry i get it, thats the battery, the yellow pin is where ive been looking so all good

 

[Keule]

Yep, the last log entry shown "Auto landing" due to low battery (16%) at approx. 17min in flight. The aircraft decended more or less vertical to that point i marked with the yellow pin. Here another view from the final phase:



So u are sayin' you had been at the location and did not find the aircraft?
Is that a wheat field? maybe u have to look again. Maybe you can take a buddy with you helping finding it.

Good luck,
K.

 

[Rj123]

Yep, the last log entry shown "Auto landing" due to low battery (16%) at approx. 17min in flight. The aircraft decended more or less vertical to that point i marked with the yellow pin. Here another view from the final phase:

View attachment 14968

So u are sayin' you had been at the location and did not find the aircraft?
Is that a wheat field? maybe u have to look again. Maybe you can take a buddy with you helping finding it.

Good luck,
K.

Thanks! I'll try again in that area, maybe i need a metal detector. I flew another drone over the area but its really heavy with wheat and it could be anywhere. Also feel bad on the farmer trampling all over the what so have have kept my searches to a minimum.

Can i just ask, are the last coordinates you have from the log exactly....52.517681,-1.401380? Just wanna double check im not doing something stupid and spending days looking in the wrong section of the field.

Thanks,

Rhys

 

[Keule]

Yep, expect a few meters deviation. So my findings were around 52.517517°, -1.401474°. So you'll be fine when searching within 10-30m radius from given coordinates.

 

[SeaComms]

If it went down vertically and did eventually land the find my drone part of DJIGO4 app should be able to pinpoint you to the pretty much exact location. It will be a live map so you can simply walk straight up to it.

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

That's what I suggested earlier. Should pretty much lead to the last signal.

 

[timesnaps]

any friend with another drone? maybe can search with the other drone, sparing the farmer more trampled wheat!

 

[Rj123]

Yep friend with another drone has been out and we videod the whole area, no sign of it. Pretty certain gonna have to write this one off as a painful lesson.

 

[MacIak]

So sorry for your loss and thanks for the honest comments!

 

[PalmettoAerial]

Yep friend with another drone has been out and we videod the whole area, no sign of it. Pretty certain gonna have to write this one off as a painful lesson.

Is it a populated area where someone could have spotted it and swiped it?

I hope you find it.

I'm still learning all the features and abilities of my drone and curious how it wouldn't be easily spotted if you are searching a remote field like on the pic above

 

[Infidel90]

Your Mavic will RTH, and hover if the landing isn't suitable to its sensors. If you do nothing, it will eventually land on its own when battery is around 6%. As far as the wheat being a visual by being knocked all over from the mavic, hardly. The unit is tiny, and damage to the wheat will be little if any from the blades. Once it begins to lower and the blades start to hit the shafts or the wheat, it'll just fall. Chances are the unit is just laying on top of the wheat as much as it is laying on the ground.