Loved my mini, it lost control - now I am gun-shy

[F00Man]

Welcome from Ohio!

Ohio guy here too!

 

[wjkrysak]

Welcome to the forum. We look forward to your participation and your view of the world.

 

[MS Coast]

No, this seems to happen quite a bit. Look at 51 Drones' latest video from a couple days ago and note the VPS altitude vs IMU altitude in the flight logs right before it crashed into the water. It is definitely a big contributing factor into some Mavics taking a swim when flying just a few feet above water.
You're more than welcome to take one of yours and fly it at under 10ft above a body of water for a while to test this.

I've often flown my Air 2S four to five feet above the water for long periods of time, up to 10 or 15 minutes. I'm collecting photos and video clips of alligators for a video project. And I've done a lot of low-angle shots of marsh birds looking from the water toward the shore. I've never had a hint of any instability or odd behavior by the drone.

 

[tlswift58]

Hola from Mexico.

THE STORY
I was the owner of a Mavic mini for the past 8 months - 13 total flight hours..... I loved my mini up to the point where it decided to flip itself upside down just after takeoff (no stick input) and crash.
I lovingly cleaned every aspect of the drone and it flew again smoothly as usual.... until 1 week later it pulled the same stunt hovering about 10 feet above the ocean. This time I recorded...
I was able to retrieve it....

RETURN
DJI customer service advised to upload the flight data and the video for them and then they’d decide if it was pilot error or malfunction. With the later they would send me a new drone....
In the meantime my wife returned the unit to the local Costco who took it back and refunded the full amount.

GUN SHY
I wanted to purchase a new Mavic BUT after browsing through all sorts of forums, reviews and reports online I am seriously gun shy to drop that kind of money again only to find out later that these guys are susceptible to these failures and (in some cases) DJI refuses to honour their warranty agreements.

I have to mention that we live by the Gulf of Mexico and the salt content in the air is very high...

WHATS YOUR EXPERIENCES
now I joined this forum in the hopes of learning from all of you if you are willing to share your thoughts and experiences.

THANK YOU
Nicolas

Lemons in everything made by mankind. It happens. The Mini is fun and relatively inexpensive - it's why many buy it. Yet, it has many shortcomings or not all the bells and whistles the higher priced drone y DJI do.

I'd suggest an Air2 / Air2S as they are very stable, have many of the needed bells and whistles like Obstacle Avoidance, etc. Air2 is now cheaper for a FlyMore kit due to the Air2S. Yes, the Air2S has been upgraded, but only YOU can decide if those upgrades are worth the extra cost.

You got your money back for a defective product, so that is a plus. Go with a larger drone like the Air2 / Air2S and I think you will be amazed and glad you bought it. I've flown mine for a year+ now, crashed it on a couple of occasions, nearly crashed it as it flew into some tree branches, and guess what - it still flies great today. I fly in close quarter very often and I think it does great - with and without GPS lock.

Sure, you could wait for the newest DJI drone from DJI, but I'd wait a bit on anything new so the bugs are more worked out.

Get a drone and get to flying and ENJOY IT.

 

[GFields]

Greetings welcome to the forum!

 

[Pawpaw Woody]

Same happened with my Mavic Mini 2. At approx. 30ft it just bolted forward with no stick input. Luckily it hit my neighbors trees and fell directly into their trampoline below. No breaks bends or damage but now worried as to why and how it happened.
This was the first time in over a year of flying

 

[Meta4]

Same happened with my Mavic Mini 2.

Same as what?

At approx. 30ft it just bolted forward with no stick input. ... No breaks bends or damage but now worried as to why and how it happened.

Your brief description suggests a yaw error incident.
If you post your flight data and a bit more of a description including the place you launched from, and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident. the incident.

Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report on the flight data.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides.

 

[Kendallfordguy]

Welcome from Wisconsin!

 

[D_The_Producer]

Bienvenido al foro, amigo! Glad to see another Spanish speaking fellow.

Greetings from Spain

 

[Steel63]

Greetings from ? Florida ? and welcome to the forum ?

 

[MS Coast]

No, this seems to happen quite a bit. Look at 51 Drones' latest video from a couple days ago and note the VPS altitude vs IMU altitude in the flight logs right before it crashed into the water. It is definitely a big contributing factor into some Mavics taking a swim when flying just a few feet above water.
You're more than welcome to take one of yours and fly it at under 10ft above a body of water for a while to test this.

Flying too low and losing sight of the aircraft will also cause problems.

 

[Prismatic]

dang I got mine specifically for sailing and rowing videos. Is this the Air 2S as well? Can the VPS be disabled?

See reply #16, above.

 

[oldfartflyer]

I'm retired and do a lot of freshwater fishing from my boat. I had a spark I would take with me all the time. It would hover 12ih from water surface as long as I wanted it to No problems over water from boat. Recently I purchased a Mavic-air-2. Ordered floats for this one. Welcome to the forum !

 

[AliasFlyer]

The constant repetition of this myth is what happens quite a bit.
People with very little understanding of how drones work hear others say it and they repeat it like you are doing.

Look at his video?
The one that he put out a week or so back, where he lost a drone and had no idea why?
I did look at it and it was pretty obvious that he had no idea about what caused the loss of his drone.
It was obvious that it was none the things he guessed at were responsible.
That video is just more junk misinformation.

When he finally provided his flight data, the cause of the incident was quite clearly that he had flown his drone into the lake.
No mystery, no confused sensors mysteriously taking the drone downwards.
It was him holding the left stick down hard when he was flying close to the water.

You can see my analysis of his data here:

Air 2S Crashed in the Lake. Why?

Curious if switching to maven at disconnect would work?

mavicpilots.com

I've been doing incident analysis for several years, I've heard all the myth and misinformation like you've taken in.
But I still haven't seen any flight data to support it.

I'm way ahead of you on that.
I've flown several thousand miles, almost all over water, some of it low down and understand what's involved.

With the experience that you have, do you take any special precaution flying low over water versus flying low over land?

In other words, what should someone do to make sure the water doesn't confuse the drone's downard sensor (if that's something you have even seen happen)?

 

[Meta4]

In other words, what should someone do to make sure the water doesn't confuse the drone's downard sensor (if that's something you have even seen happen)?

The same precautions as for flying over land.
If you are flying low, take care that you don't accidentally fly lower.
Be aware that the water's surface is closer than it looks through the wideangle lens of the camera.

Any confusion of sensors is only going to affect horizontal position holding.
It won't have any effect in the vertical.

 

[eaglesurfing]

Welcome to the forum and enjoy.

 

[Dozerb]

Welcome to the forum and am sorry for your loos. I have flown my mini almost a mile across water lake and ocean no problems even got a full throttle sport mode run going up river about 2 feet of the deck.

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

Hola from Mexico.

THE STORY
I was the owner of a Mavic mini for the past 8 months - 13 total flight hours..... I loved my mini up to the point where it decided to flip itself upside down just after takeoff (no stick input) and crash.
I lovingly cleaned every aspect of the drone and it flew again smoothly as usual.... until 1 week later it pulled the same stunt hovering about 10 feet above the ocean. This time I recorded...
I was able to retrieve it....

RETURN
DJI customer service advised to upload the flight data and the video for them and then they’d decide if it was pilot error or malfunction. With the later they would send me a new drone....
In the meantime my wife returned the unit to the local Costco who took it back and refunded the full amount.

GUN SHY
I wanted to purchase a new Mavic BUT after browsing through all sorts of forums, reviews and reports online I am seriously gun shy to drop that kind of money again only to find out later that these guys are susceptible to these failures and (in some cases) DJI refuses to honour their warranty agreements.

I have to mention that we live by the Gulf of Mexico and the salt content in the air is very high...

WHATS YOUR EXPERIENCES
now I joined this forum in the hopes of learning from all of you if you are willing to share your thoughts and experiences.

THANK YOU
Nicolas

Welcome to Mavic Pilots from Dayton Ohio USA! Fly safe and have fun!