Mavic Air Drifting Away???

51 Drones · Mar 3, 2018

Hey guys,

So the last 2 times I launched my Mavic Air, it just starts drifting away on it's own. It won't respond to the controls at all. IMU is calibrated, compass is calibrated, 13 or more GPS locked on. Everything looks to be just fine. It finally responds after a very stressful 30 seconds or so, and then I bring it back down, restart it, and then launch again and there is no problem. Any clues as to why this is happening? The first time it happened at night, so I almost resolved to accept that it was gone, but it did finally work.

msinger · Mar 3, 2018

51 Drones said:
Any clues as to why this is happening?

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.

Mcook929 · Mar 3, 2018

I have had a similar issue. I will launch in and out it about 100 feet up and just let it hover and it will slowly start to yam on its own. I don’t lose control like the OP but it does have its own movement. If I switch it to sport mode and let it hover on the bottom left of the screen it shows you an input percentage and that it constantly moving even though I am doing nothing with the controls. All calibrations have been done.

Frallan · Apr 17, 2018

Mine does the same... This happened yesterday. Did a stop to just watch the area and noticed a slight drift to the right... No inputs.

zwt100 · Apr 17, 2018

I’ve had the same issue for a while now. It stopped right after the last firmware update but started drifting again after my last two or three flights.

Frallan · Apr 17, 2018

I did a IMU calibration today but haven't tested it yet, will do a compass calibration as well before next flight. Anything else that can cause this issue?

swooshdave · Apr 17, 2018

Wind.

Frallan · Apr 18, 2018

No wind...

swooshdave · Apr 18, 2018

Hmmm, keep in mind the drone is in the air and the earth is spinning beneath it...

Frallan · Apr 18, 2018

swooshdave said:
Hmmm, keep in mind the drone is in the air and the earth is spinning beneath it...

[emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23]

Frallan · Apr 18, 2018

That must be it!! Although, I've never seen this " phenomenon" with my helicopter's. [emoji23]

Volffas · Apr 19, 2018

I tried to fly tonight right before dark. The Air took off and almost immediately started drifting backwards. I went full forward on the stick but nothing happened, and then when I realized the quad was going to hit our house, I went full down, but it still hit the house. Total time from takeoff to landing was 11 seconds. Luckily all that seems to be damaged are the propellers. Here is the fight log on Google Docs Flight record for DJI Mavic Air . Can anyone make any sense of this? I took the longitude column out because that never changed, but you can see on the latitude line that the craft was going backwards almost immediately. Also, there was no wind at all, the air was perfectly still, and if you notice on the log, the quad had a "maximum flight altitude reached" warning, even though it was only 13 ft off the ground. Any help or suggestions are appreciated, thanks in advance.

stgermaniac · Apr 19, 2018

Same. I just took mine up an hour or so ago and mine is drifting a bit as well. Most of my long exposures were blurry which is unusual. Also the max height was about the same at 12-13 ft. The app appears to have been updated 4/15... underscoring the need to do a full flight checklist before every takeoff I suppose.

InvisibleName · Apr 20, 2018

Volffas said:
I tried to fly tonight right before dark. The Air took off and almost immediately started drifting backwards. I went full forward on the stick but nothing happened, and then when I realized the quad was going to hit our house, I went full down, but it still hit the house. Total time from takeoff to landing was 11 seconds. Luckily all that seems to be damaged are the propellers. Here is the fight log on Google Docs Flight record for DJI Mavic Air . Can anyone make any sense of this? I took the longitude column out because that never changed, but you can see on the latitude line that the craft was going backwards almost immediately. Also, there was no wind at all, the air was perfectly still, and if you notice on the log, the quad had a "maximum flight altitude reached" warning, even though it was only 13 ft off the ground. Any help or suggestions are appreciated, thanks in advance.

Did you check that the MA was pointing in the same direction as the indicator on the RC? Sounds to me like you're compass was misaligned!!

mryeje · Jun 7, 2018

I had the same issue today. I was flying a few feet over a water fall and the mavic kept drifting toward tree branches. I wasnt able to control it very well, it felt like I was flying too close to obsticles and it wouldnt let me back away as it drifted dangerously close. I got lucky and was able to regain control and land. Here's the flight record DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com if anyone is interested. Here is a link to the video while it happend *I had re-calibrated the compass just prior.

genesimmons · Jun 7, 2018

swooshdave said:
Hmmm, keep in mind the drone is in the air and the earth is spinning beneath it...

the earth cant spin, its totally "flat" hahahah

genesimmons · Jun 7, 2018

my mav did this 2x. once was 100ft in the air and she drifted a lot, but that time i got a interfiernce error, the second time i was landing close to my truck about 3ft from back of truck and she started drifting towards the truck, i yawed the other way and nothing, ,,,,,, she clipped the tailgate and fellto the ground, restarted and alll was well again but weird she wouldnt respond,,,,

IM35461 · Jun 8, 2018

I have only had my MA for just over a week and on at least three of my test flights it has drifted in every direction (I think).
On my flight 12 it was so bad I did a return home rather than it drift away.
I thought it may have been the wind but after checking various YouTube videos the conditions were nowhere near as bad.
I have recalibrated all the sensors but no joy.
This morning I took it to the same place and again just after take off it headed sort of left and forward out to sea but it was still sort of under control (like driving a car down a hill with no brakes).
I flew it down the beach and at the point where I decided to turn back again it started to drift dramatically (so much worse than my Karma drone ever did).
Anyway, after that it seemed okay again with it actually being able to stay in the same place.

Playing back the log of flight 12 shows nothing to me, not even any wind warnings (except when it shoots up to return home).

No indication of joystick being operated and I also tried calibrating them.
.
Is it a firmware issue effecting some MA's or have some of us got duff drones?

Next time I will set my phone to record the flight video and audio and perhaps a second camera to better document the erratic behaviour...

IM35461 · Jun 8, 2018

I see there is a thread on the latest firmware and this problem perhaps relates to that.

Mavic AIR firmware update 01.00.0400 (May 03, 2018)

Looking at one of my other videos where I was just using the up joystick I notice the drone just cork screwed its way up into the sky.

Hopefully they are working on a fix...

brantel · Jun 8, 2018

There are hundreds of reports of a yaw glitch/tick or slow turning while in hover or flight. Everyone with issues, please contact support and open a case.