Lost Mavic Pro

[rickwarne]

A few weeks ago I launched my Mavic Pro on a short flight, battery fully charged, controller fully charged, compass calibrated firmware up to date.

The flight was about 300 feet, I had vlos with winds at about 12 miles per hour, the flight was perfect flying at about 100 feet, I asked for rth on returning the controller said connecting connecting and everything between me and drone went dead, I had a flyaway.

dJI were pretty unhelpful and after sending them the data they said they did not know the reason for the error and offered me 30% off a new drone.

This had made me pretty anxious on some flights now

 

[sar104]

Post the flight log if you want a second opinion. DJI sometimes don't do a very thorough job looking at logs related to lost aircraft, rather than damaged and returned aircraft.

 

[Volrath]

I'm pretty new to this forum but what this sounds like to me is interference from something else that got between the controller and the drone.

 

[ChipDjipro]

This is why you get insurance from State Farm.

 

[rickwarne]

I'm pretty new to this forum but what this sounds like to me is interference from something else that got between the controller and the drone.

That is possible as I'm sure the apartment building has some wifi that might of blocked the reception from the controller to drone.

What concerned me was it started to return, then all video and connection lost.

I appreciate your input, thanks again.

 

[rickwarne]

This is why you get insurance from State Farm.

Great advice, just called my local State Farm, $60 a year with $100 deductible.

Thanks I appreciate the advice.

 

[ChipDjipro]

I pay $60 a year zero deductible. I don’t know why more people just don’t get insurance it’s a no-brainer.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

This is why you get insurance from State Farm.

That's great if you can get it, none of my local agents offer it unless you are already a customer, and many are no longer offering it at all, due to fraud. If it was a good idea to offer Personal Article Policies to non-customers for $60 on drones then every insurance company out there would offer it.

 

[motopokep]

I avoid flying in winds over 10 mph, which get stronger up there. I fly cautiously in in the 7-10 mph wind. Like most pilots, I try to avoid using RTH and return home manually. If you had it VLOS, why in the world would you use RTH? I've flown out over a mile and brought it back by the green GPS path line and by telemetrics on the RC. If you're going to use RTH, make sure you do a compass calibration before the flight and stay away 10 feet from metal objects, and try to not have keys or a cell phone on you when you calibrate. It's just so much more fun flying it back manually. I've used RTH only a couple times when I lost signal and could not regain it for at least 10-20 seconds. I know in the ideal world, that function is supposed to work flawlessly, but if planes that have been around for 100 years still go down due to mechanical failures, we can't expect drones to fly perfectly. Sorry about your loss.

 

[Grizzo]

A few weeks ago I launched my Mavic Pro on a short flight, battery fully charged, controller fully charged, compass calibrated firmware up to date.

The flight was about 300 feet, I had vlos with winds at about 12 miles per hour, the flight was perfect flying at about 100 feet, I asked for rth on returning the controller said connecting connecting and everything between me and drone went dead, I had a flyaway.

dJI were pretty unhelpful and after sending them the data they said they did not know the reason for the error and offered me 30% off a new drone.

This had made me pretty anxious on some flights now

One possiblilty I can think of is the battery went totally dead for some reason.

 

[RayOZ]

Did it actually 'flyaway' or just 'drop out of the sky'? Big difference. Post flight log so some of the experts here can find out what exactly happen. Most of us would be curious if it was a real flyaway.

 

[Hpacura]

Post the logs.

 

[Turn11]

The flight was about 300 feet, I had vlos with winds at about 12 miles per hour

If the winds were about 12 mph at ground level it would be significantly faster at 300'. There are a couple of apps I use for flying, these are the ones I use, other will have other apps they use. My personal favorites are Weather Bug, UAV Forecast and Ventusky

If you look at Weather Bug you will see the wind speed is 13 MPH, look at UAV Forecast - 1 the wind speed is 11 MPH. Not a deal breaker as I don't know where the reporting station is or when it was captured. There is a LOT of good information on the UAV app. NOW look at the UAV Forecast - 2. the wind at 250' is in the do not fly range. Your winds may have been different at elevations.

Check out your TXT flight log to see if it explains what happened. You can upload and view it online here. If you'd like other people to review and comment on your flight log, then please post a link back here after you upload it.

I hope he doesn't mind me using his directions, it was the first one I could find.

Larry

 

[dbyantis]

I pay $60 a year zero deductible. I don’t know why more people just don’t get insurance it’s a no-brainer.

Not available everywhere.

 

[dbyantis]

Did it actually 'flyaway' or just 'drop out of the sky'? Big difference. Post flight log so some of the experts here can find out what exactly happen. Most of us would be curious if it was a real flyaway.

Especially since I have never seen an actual "fly-away" post in these forums, mostly blew away and landed.

 

[Rnl]

What was rth alt. Set at

 

[Rnl]

Controller lost signal or just go 4

 

[Skymax]

I avoid flying in winds over 10 mph, which get stronger up there. I fly cautiously in in the 7-10 mph wind. Like most pilots, I try to avoid using RTH and return home manually. If you had it VLOS, why in the world would you use RTH? I've flown out over a mile and brought it back by the green GPS path line and by telemetrics on the RC. If you're going to use RTH, make sure you do a compass calibration before the flight and stay away 10 feet from metal objects, and try to not have keys or a cell phone on you when you calibrate. It's just so much more fun flying it back manually. I've used RTH only a couple times when I lost signal and could not regain it for at least 10-20 seconds. I know in the ideal world, that function is supposed to work flawlessly, but if planes that have been around for 100 years still go down due to mechanical failures, we can't expect drones to fly perfectly. Sorry about your loss.

If you have a controlled airport nearby you can Phone the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) for a loop Recording of the local wind speeds and directions, temps, cloud levels etc at Alt.
This is the Radio Info that all pilots listen to before approaching an airport to land but can be accessed by phone.
IMO many Fly-Aways are really "Blow-Aways", in severe Wind Gradient due to various fails, the most common a disconnect or inadvertent ATTI mode.
Not sayin' that is the case here.

 

[Robert Droner]

A few weeks ago I launched my Mavic Pro on a short flight, battery fully charged, controller fully charged, compass calibrated firmware up to date.

The flight was about 300 feet, I had vlos with winds at about 12 miles per hour, the flight was perfect flying at about 100 feet, I asked for rth on returning the controller said connecting connecting and everything between me and drone went dead, I had a flyaway.

dJI were pretty unhelpful and after sending them the data they said they did not know the reason for the error and offered me 30% off a new drone.

This had made me pretty anxious on some flights now

Did your app disconnect and the video screen go dark or what? You saw the Mavic fly away? Did you restart the app or even try to find the downed bird? Just curious as to what happened here...

 

[MavicCF]

Did your app disconnect and the video screen go dark or what? You saw the Mavic fly away? Did you restart the app or even try to find the downed bird? Just curious as to what happened here...

Yeah it would be great to have some logs...