Lost Mavic Air

[Thomas Crown]

Went on a flight a week ago . Lost contact . Previousl used RTH function with no problem . Not this time . In my investigation all the menus I don’t remember turning RTH off but nothing else makes sense . So ... contact suddenly lost , I was quite high so no collisions . Only hope, use Find my drone function as per last ping and have searched over 10 acres of stinging nettles and other undesirable stuff . No luck . I guess I’m looking for a little guidance on what the drone does after contact lost , to try and tilt chances of recovery in my favour . If signal lost , will the drone continue forward motion for a while before landing ? I located the exact spot of loss of contact but two of us searched for hours without success . I really liked flying the drone but I’m starting to think my pilot career has been short lived . Any suggestions ?

 

[Fly Dawg]

I located the exact spot of loss of contact

Try uploading your flight log at this link: Log Viewer
A location can most likely be calculated to an approximate area of decent. It is not likely that the aircraft will be located at the exact last co-ordinance, depending upon altitude, wind etc.... If you upload the log file, share a link back here and there are many who can assist you in locating it.

 

[Meta4]

If signal lost , will the drone continue forward motion for a while before landing ?

On loss of signal, RTH will initiate and the drone return unless prevented by obstacles on the RTH path or strong winds.
But if the reason you lose signal is because the drone has lost power, it's not coming back.

 

[Air_Joe]

After your drone lost signal,
It could
1) hover at position
2) return to home.
It is in your settings. So it is not default fu ction for it to come back.
You might wanna post your logs for experienced guys here to shed some light for u.

 

[Moose1967]

If you were up quite high it's very unlikely you lost connection with the controller - in my opinion - as that's what I do once the signal and screen gets pixalated - ie. I get better signal back - how far out were you and about how high - did you remember hearing "home point recorded please check it on the map" at takeoff - did you have plenty of satellites at takeoff - once you look at the log file it will tell you a lot - sounds to me at first glance you had a collision with something, the battery came lose, the quad may have fallen down with some drift - what do you remember from the FPV ??

 

[sar104]

Went on a flight a week ago . Lost contact . Previousl used RTH function with no problem . Not this time . In my investigation all the menus I don’t remember turning RTH off but nothing else makes sense . So ... contact suddenly lost , I was quite high so no collisions . Only hope, use Find my drone function as per last ping and have searched over 10 acres of stinging nettles and other undesirable stuff . No luck . I guess I’m looking for a little guidance on what the drone does after contact lost , to try and tilt chances of recovery in my favour . If signal lost , will the drone continue forward motion for a while before landing ? I located the exact spot of loss of contact but two of us searched for hours without success . I really liked flying the drone but I’m starting to think my pilot career has been short lived . Any suggestions ?

It may be possible to narrow down the location to a small area, but I'd need to see the txt log to do that.

 

[Thomas Crown]

After your drone lost signal,
It could
1) hover at position
2) return to home.
It is in your settings. So it is not default fu ction for it to come back.
You might wanna post your logs for experienced guys here to shed some light for u.

I’m new to this so how would I post the flight log ?

 

[Thomas Crown]

Ho

It may be possible to narrow down the location to a small area, but I'd need to see the txt log to do that.

How do I post the log ?

 

[sar104]

Ho

How do I post the log ?

Instructions are in this link. You can either upload the file to the PhantomHelp website and post a link to the result, or just upload the txt log here.

TXT log: DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

 

[Thomas Crown]

Took me a while to figure this out but here it is . Any suggestions with finding my drone would be greatly appreciated . I have searched an area of about 5-6 acres surrounding the last ping without success . The drone clearly didn't stop on that spot and I expanded my search area .I have been climbing through the nastiest thistles and stinging nettles I have ever seen but am willing to do it again if someone thinks they can direct me to an approximate location based on this file . Thanks so much for trying to help a newbie . I love(d) my drone and would love to have it back .

 

[Drone Or Boat]

Would like to see the results on this myself. I hope it has a good ending..

 

[sar104]

The aircraft didn't enter RTH mode because you had set the failsafe action to "Landing".



The connection was lost because the aircraft descended. There was still progress back towards the home point since you were applying forward elevator, but that stopped when the uplink was lost. After the final loss of signal the aircraft the aircraft was approximately 34 meters above the ground, and should have descended vertically and landed. How accurately do you think you located the last known position? That is where it should be.

 

[Thomas Crown]

Ive been flattening the foliage all around this spot. This picture must be a couple of years old as this whole area is now chest high and higher weeds etc . . It was an early morning flight with no wind . I feel like a dipstick ...I have been familiarizing myself with all of the menus on the app etc. and must have unwittingly turned off the rth feature . Oh boy …
So as I was looking at the flight log , from the time it went into Auto Landing , the drone closed the distance approximately 350 feet towards home . How does this fit with your guess that the drone should be close to the last known spot ?

 

[John MacAulay]

It is probably right in that location, don't give up hope. It's entirely likely that Sar104 is right on in his prediction of the location.

 

[Fly Dawg]

@sar104....I calculated similarly...It should be there within a very small margin....?

 

[Thomas Crown]

Thanks for all the input . I did edit my previous comment when Iprobably should have just posted a new one .

 

[sar104]

Ive been flattening the foliage all around this spot. This picture must be a couple of years old as this whole area is now chest high and higher weeds etc . . It was an early morning flight with no wind . I feel like a dipstick ...I have been familiarizing myself with all of the menus on the app etc. and must have unwittingly turned off the rth feature . Oh boy …
So as I was looking at the flight log , from the time it went into Auto Landing , the drone closed the distance approximately 350 feet towards home . How does this fit with your guess that the drone should be close to the last known spot ?

The aircraft continued to make progress towards home because you kept applying forward elevator. If you look at the earlier period of signal loss, starting at 286 seconds, when you continued to apply elevator, the aircraft didn't stop immediately - it ended up another 20 m towards home when the signal was regained 9 seconds laterI'm not sure if that's because the uplink lasted longer than the downlink or whether that was just the effective stopping distance.



Either way, that suggests looking from the last recorded point along the red line in the image below. The circle is 30 m radius, and I'd be surprised if it went further than that.

 

[Air_Joe]

Ive been flattening the foliage all around this spot. This picture must be a couple of years old as this whole area is now chest high and higher weeds etc . . It was an early morning flight with no wind . I feel like a dipstick ...I have been familiarizing myself with all of the menus on the app etc. and must have unwittingly turned off the rth feature . Oh boy …
So as I was looking at the flight log , from the time it went into Auto Landing , the drone closed the distance approximately 350 feet towards home . How does this fit with your guess that the drone should be close to the last known spot ?

Sar104 is the expert here, he helped quite a few members here locate their birds. Im quite confident he is right, ur birds should be somewhere near.

Since u mention that now the weeds are chest high, 1 suggestion i see members done it before with success is,
use another drone to find your drone. ‘Comb’ through the area, never know how things look like from up there.

Good luck in your searching . Cheers!

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Good luck Thomas! I hope you get your bird back

 

[pmshop]

In my experience searching, expect a crazy orientation.
When I crashed into Frenchman's Mountain, I walked right by the drone the first time.
White & black blends in well with the rocks