Landing vs Decending

Guy · Dec 31, 2016

Confused. My mavic will go into landing mode when I am just trying to descend. Is there a distance away from the home point I need to be in order to descend normally - otherwise it assumes Im landing? Also when in landing mode it descends from 100 ft incredibly slowly. Not sure if this is "a feature" or operator error!

limbows · Jan 1, 2017

I have the same problem too. I think it is normal? This is my first drone so cant compare with phantom series.

From the flight records i seems to pull down 100% and then auto landing notification pop. No matter far or near home point it still does that when descending. Anyway you can pull up/ascend to abort landing mode. Hope anyone will chime in

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

JohnC · Jan 1, 2017

If you ask the Mavic to RTH and it captured a good image of the take off point and you flew it more than 10M from the home point, it will carry out a return to home, rotate so its facing the same way it took off, then carry out a precision landing, which isn't fast! When it gets to a couple of feet off the ground it then checks that the stored image of the take off point matches and then will adjust so it ends up a few inches from where it started.

It does this as GPS is not accurate enough to get it exactly on the point it took off from.

If you want to speed up the decent, then hand fly it home, or once its overhead, press the pause button, or cancel the auto land and hand fly it down. with full down LH stick it descends quickly, don't forget it takes time to arrest the decent, in sport mode it will descend at maximum until it hits the floor! In normal P Mode it will see the ground and do an automatic land from about 50cm up, once it starts that you get let go of the sticks and it will land itself. I wasn't a fan of this autonomous last bit but have since got used to it.

kiteboy · Jan 1, 2017

JohnC said:
If you ask the Mavic to RTH and it captured a good image of the take off point and you flew it more than 10M from the home point, it will carry out a return to home, rotate so its facing the same way it took off, then carry out a precision landing, which isn't fast! When it gets to a couple of feet off the ground it then checks that the stored image of the take off point matches and then will adjust so it ends up a few inches from where it started.

It does this as GPS is not accurate enough to get it exactly on the point it took off from.

If you want to speed up the decent, then hand fly it home, or once its overhead, press the pause button, or cancel the auto land and hand fly it down. with full down LH stick it descends quickly, don't forget it takes time to arrest the decent, in sport mode it will descend at maximum until it hits the floor! In normal P Mode it will see the ground and do an automatic land from about 50cm up, once it starts that you get let go of the sticks and it will land itself. I wasn't a fan of this autonomous last bit but have since got used to it.

Just a clarification you need to rise up to at least 10mt above during take off so it captures the floor images and then enables the precision landing otherwise it will land without this function (according to DJI Mavic pro manual)

Anthony · Jan 1, 2017

This is the latest version of the user giude

Mavic – Specs, FAQ, Tutorials and Downloads

Guy · Jan 1, 2017

Aha - that all makes perfect sense. Thank you and thanks for the latest manual link as well. Looking forward to some decent weather now to try it out.

usefulshrimp · Jan 26, 2017

Guy said:
Confused. My mavic will go into landing mode when I am just trying to descend. Is there a distance away from the home point I need to be in order to descend normally - otherwise it assumes Im landing? Also when in landing mode it descends from 100 ft incredibly slowly. Not sure if this is "a feature" or operator error!

I'm having the same issue as well. No matter how far away I am, it seems I can't descend without it going into landing mode. In fact, the only way I can land it near me is to press the RTH button when it's at max altitude, directly above me.

Any ideas what the issue could be? It's only started happening in the last couple of weeks.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

niclariv · Jan 27, 2017

Just to clarify on this: I have the latest firmware and I descend as fast as possible often in flight, never had it go in to landing mode not near the ground. So it's not a firmware issue affecting everyone. It's either a software glitch only affecting some drones, or hardware. One thing I wonder is if there's dirt in your downward sensors. Probably not but worth checking.

iPhone 6S

arcolog2 · Jan 27, 2017

Try cleaning the ultrasonic sensors on the bottom of your drone. its almost as if you are describing it thinks it is at 3ft when you try to decend and it decides to land.

limbows · Jan 27, 2017

I also have this problem. I have a question. When you descend is it okay to pull all the way Down? Like 100%?

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

msinger · Jan 27, 2017

limbows said:
When you descend is it okay to pull all the way Down? Like 100%?

Yes.

waverider969 · Jan 27, 2017

Just curious since I don' t use RTH often. Does it adjust its movement side to side once it starts descending to approximate home point?. Yesterday I tried to test RTH and it went to preset altitude came back toward the launch point but it started going down 10 + feet away from where it started I hit cancel so didn't give it a chance for any left right movements (if it would have) once it was coming straight down cause I was worried it was going to hit a tree.

Squamer · Jan 27, 2017

msinger said:
Yes.

I call that coming in hot. I had to do it the other day when the weather went from no rain to pouring in a matter of second. Drone was out a couple hundred feet and I needed to land, pack up shop and jet back 1/4 mile to the truck in a hurry. Good thing for my water tight Nanuk case!

msinger · Jan 27, 2017

waverider969 said:
it started going down 10 + feet away from where it started

It would be safest to ensure the home point is in a clear location. There is no guarantee that the Mavic will land in the exact spot where it took off from since it uses GPS/sensors to find the landing location. If you have a buffer of 30 feet or so around the home point, you should never run into issues if your Mavic does need to automatically return home for some reason.

limbows · Jan 27, 2017

msinger said:
Yes.

My mavic whenever i pull 100% more than 1 sec it start saying "landing" is this normal or possibly an software/hardware issue?

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

msinger · Jan 27, 2017

It's normal if the downward sensors think your Mavic is close to the ground. You can temporarily turn off the downward sensors in DJI GO to verify whether or not that is causing this issue.

JLane · Jan 27, 2017

Anybody whose Mavic is auto-landing from anything more than about 0.5m height should read the following thread. It's not normal, and DJI is aware of the issue. They say they have a fix, but they've yet to clarify if it's a hardware issue (in which case you need to return your Mavic) or if it'll be fixed in firmware.

The thread on the DJI forums: Mavic Pro will NOT descend unless VPS turned off.

JLane · Jan 27, 2017

waverider969 said:
Just curious since I don' t use RTH often. Does it adjust its movement side to side once it starts descending to approximate home point?. Yesterday I tried to test RTH and it went to preset altitude came back toward the launch point but it started going down 10 + feet away from where it started I hit cancel so didn't give it a chance for any left right movements (if it would have) once it was coming straight down cause I was worried it was going to hit a tree.

The Mavic will begin its decent using GPS positioning, but it can use Precision Landing to correct its decent when it's close enough to the ground (around 10m, I think). But you have to have Precision Landing enabled, and you have to have performed the takeoff correctly for Precision Landing to work. ie. Lift off and hover at about 10m with no other stick movements for a few seconds. This allows the Mavic to record a visual representation of the takeoff point. Note that there's no visual or audio cue to let you know when the Mavic has recorded enough visual data.

AlexSP · Jan 27, 2017

Just speculation of course, but to me it makes logical sense that they must be trying to fix it through FW. Which would be a whole lot better (less coslty) for DJI than to make a recall of any sort.

Another opinion: it´s probably FW-related. Hard to think of a HW fault that would cause this even if we have to turn VPS off to have it land such as the Phantom does. If the sensors work properly for VPS flying (and also for Precision Landing and RTH), then I´d believe it would (should?) also work for manual landing. Unless of course the FW driving this specific command is faulty.

JLane · Jan 27, 2017

AlexSP said:
Just speculation of course, but to me it makes logical sense that they must be trying to fix it through FW. Which would be a whole lot better (less coslty) for DJI than to make a recall of any sort.

Another opinion: it´s probably FW-related. Hard to think of a HW fault that would cause this even if we have to turn VPS off to have it land such as the Phantom does. If the sensors work properly for VPS flying (and also for Precision Landing and RTH), then I´d believe it would (should?) also work for manual landing. Unless of course the FW driving this specific command is faulty.

Well, the VPS consists of two separate types of equipment. There's the visual cameras, and the ultrasonic sensors. The ultrasonics are used for measuring distance and apparently for detecting "safe" ground for landing on (speculation I've read from others). The cameras are used for providing horizontal stability and for Precision Landing. So if it's just the ultrasonics that are faulty, you could still have perfectly good Precision Landing and precise horizontal positioning.