I was flying my relatively-new Mavic (~30 flights) down along a winding canyon while riding in a car next to it. I had successfully executed this same flight once before in sport mode, and was attempting the same flight in normal (non-sport) mode.
I was using the Litchi app for about the fourth time since I had been having a lot of crashes and one false disconnect with the DJI Go app.
After about nine or ten minutes of flight, my thumb was getting a little tired on the right (forward) stick. I briefly took it off (let the stick center itself) to reposition my thumb and pushed forward again. Immediately afterward the screen briefly went blank then came back with a new white balance (everything more yellow). Very shortly after this, things started going haywire. The screen would go black intermittently and when I did get a visual, the Mavic was in an unexpected position or orientation (sometimes with a pitch or roll!). The connection strength on the remote never dipped, but at one point while trying to regain control it initiated a RTH. I interrupted this after it started, and tried to get it to the road through the flickering camera. At one point the video came back and I saw that I was in the branches of a tree. Through all the camera flickering I was somehow barely/luckily able to get it down to the road and land it. During the loss of control the car had passed under the drone and around a corner, and connection was lost (after landing). After turning the car around and locating the drone, connection was automatically restored. Surprisingly, there was no apparent damage to the props or the Mavic.
Throughout the loss of control I couldn't figure out what was going on. The Mavic seemed to only occasionally respond to input, as if it was repeatedly being struck or pushed around by a bird. During a previous flight I had seen a bird (a hawk?) buzz the drone a few times in the same area, so that's the only thing I can think of that might have caused this.
The frustrating thing is that none of this was recorded. The Mavic recorded the first 9 minutes of video as usual, but a second file (the rest of the flight) was not found on the card when I looked at it later.
I've uploaded the flight log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
A few questions:
1. Does Litchi record or buffer any video of its own in a temporary file? I haven't flown the drone since this flight, so if there's any cached video I could get at that I could review that would be helpful.
2. Any reason that the Mavic wouldn't have recorded the additional video after the first file was written? Is this a setting in Litchi that I might have misconfigured?
3. Are bird attacks common? I have another video of a flight in the north Cascades where the Mavic suddenly and briefly pitches backwards, as if struck by something. I didn't notice this during the flight, but only afterwards on the video. It was slightly windy, but nothing extreme. The only explanation I can think of is a bird striking the drone.
Thanks for any tips/advice! If I can recover any video from the incident I'll upload it.
I was using the Litchi app for about the fourth time since I had been having a lot of crashes and one false disconnect with the DJI Go app.
After about nine or ten minutes of flight, my thumb was getting a little tired on the right (forward) stick. I briefly took it off (let the stick center itself) to reposition my thumb and pushed forward again. Immediately afterward the screen briefly went blank then came back with a new white balance (everything more yellow). Very shortly after this, things started going haywire. The screen would go black intermittently and when I did get a visual, the Mavic was in an unexpected position or orientation (sometimes with a pitch or roll!). The connection strength on the remote never dipped, but at one point while trying to regain control it initiated a RTH. I interrupted this after it started, and tried to get it to the road through the flickering camera. At one point the video came back and I saw that I was in the branches of a tree. Through all the camera flickering I was somehow barely/luckily able to get it down to the road and land it. During the loss of control the car had passed under the drone and around a corner, and connection was lost (after landing). After turning the car around and locating the drone, connection was automatically restored. Surprisingly, there was no apparent damage to the props or the Mavic.
Throughout the loss of control I couldn't figure out what was going on. The Mavic seemed to only occasionally respond to input, as if it was repeatedly being struck or pushed around by a bird. During a previous flight I had seen a bird (a hawk?) buzz the drone a few times in the same area, so that's the only thing I can think of that might have caused this.
The frustrating thing is that none of this was recorded. The Mavic recorded the first 9 minutes of video as usual, but a second file (the rest of the flight) was not found on the card when I looked at it later.
I've uploaded the flight log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
A few questions:
1. Does Litchi record or buffer any video of its own in a temporary file? I haven't flown the drone since this flight, so if there's any cached video I could get at that I could review that would be helpful.
2. Any reason that the Mavic wouldn't have recorded the additional video after the first file was written? Is this a setting in Litchi that I might have misconfigured?
3. Are bird attacks common? I have another video of a flight in the north Cascades where the Mavic suddenly and briefly pitches backwards, as if struck by something. I didn't notice this during the flight, but only afterwards on the video. It was slightly windy, but nothing extreme. The only explanation I can think of is a bird striking the drone.
Thanks for any tips/advice! If I can recover any video from the incident I'll upload it.
