Mavic Air fly-away - what gives?

[FL1H1]

What would you add to a pre-flight check, to minimise your chance of a 'flyaway'???

As someone completely new to this I'm trying to find out what causes them but a lot suggests most are down to user errors, not resetting things to the new location so home might just be the last place you flew, here luckily, that was real home. Location free of interference, from power lines, phone masts. Satellites linked seems to be a big one.

 

[Simmo]

This is where I thought you were at.
As per what I said above, setting a homepoint. That only occurs when 'GPS Health' is sufficient. GPS Health is differant to the amount of sats you have in sight, its more of a 'Quality' of the GPS coverage you have. If you cannot confirm a 'Homepoint set' then you are not ready for takeoff unless you are an experienced pilot.

Second point was 'Orientation', Whilst in the 'Home point has been recorded, please check it on the map' phase..... check the orientation of the AC compared to the app. Yet again, 'fly away's' have been attributed to compass errors, that possibly could have been noted at this stage.

Many failures to adhere to these 'preflight checks' have resulted in Attitude flights, and the newbies you refer to, not being comfortable in that flight mode, with such a normally docile AC. Crash.

The other things such as battery and prop security, physical AC condition, weather and environment are the simple checks that should be second nature.

After the above, nothing can be done, apart from having the experience to deal with an in-flight 'emergency'. Stick time, skill, luck all will play a part, you were prepared to take off, so now prepare for the landing in such an event.

 

[laurenholloway]

As someone completely new to this I'm trying to find out what causes them but a lot suggests most are down to user errors, not resetting things to the new location so home might just be the last place you flew, here luckily, that was real home. Location free of interference, from power lines, phone masts. Satellites linked seems to be a big one.

I second

 

[RayOZ]

I still think impatience is the root cause of most ‘fly-away’. Newbies take their drone out, turn it on and just want to take off. If you patiently fit the props and batteries, they will sit in place quite securely. If they waited a few more seconds after powering up, it might get GPS lock. If they take a few seconds to look at the screen to see the GPS status, and aircraft orientation, they might see if they might have compass issue. I wonder if they even look to read “Ready to Fly”. Do they see green text, and think it’s ok to take off (regardless if it was OPTI or ATTI)? Maybe DJI should just inhibit the motors from turning for the first minute after power up. That might give users some free time to read the status of their aircraft.
And then there’s the impatient to get up high, or fly over water. What happened to going to an open field, fly around a bit to get used to the controls, test the RTH when their drone not too far away, over water or above a bush or forest, possibly out of sight?

 

[Jameslavis]

I second this. They could do a little more like a splash screen to present info that may interfere with flight or lead to fly aways

 

[Simmo]

Are you serious??

 

[Jameslavis]

Training in general is primary for f-ups. Look at the prevalence of fly aways. Now DJI could have a noob mode where it shows a splash with the most common culprits. Otherwise, they don’t do those hidden checks and show up in this forum.

 

[Simmo]

They do James. Beginner mode.
Its when the new found experts that select the option to turn beginner mode off.....and we get these issues..
We need a splash screen that says...
'You are no longer in beginner mode, you now have to engage your brain..'

 

[FL1H1]

What would you add to a pre-flight check, to minimise your chance of a 'flyaway'???

Patience but knowledge too. Researching things making sure all is reset to the new location, no good pressing the home button sending it back to where you last flew.

I still think impatience is the root cause of most ‘fly-away’. Newbies take their drone out, turn it on and just want to take off. If you patiently fit the props and batteries, they will sit in place quite securely. If they waited a few more seconds after powering up, it might get GPS lock. If they take a few seconds to look at the screen to see the GPS status, and aircraft orientation, they might see if they might have compass issue. I wonder if they even look to read “Ready to Fly”. Do they see green text, and think it’s ok to take off (regardless if it was OPTI or ATTI)? Maybe DJI should just inhibit the motors from turning for the first minute after power up. That might give users some free time to read the status of their aircraft.
And then there’s the impatient to get up high, or fly over water. What happened to going to an open field, fly around a bit to get used to the controls, test the RTH when their drone not too far away, over water or above a bush or forest, possibly out of sight?

What they should be able to do is limit it to beginner mode for at least the first hour of flight, maybe some users registered for 6 months or something able to get a code or something to over ride that. I mean I've just flown a whole hour in beginner mode, and OK I'll look at camera settings next because a lot is very over exposed and I do not feel ready to fly beyond beginner mode yet. It is limiting but for me it's great. Be going early morning too as the skies were crystal clear finally but the wind got up a lot.

 

[Simmo]

Simmo said: ↑
What would you add to a pre-flight check, to minimise your chance of a 'flyaway'???
Patience but knowledge too. Researching things making sure all is reset to the new location, no good pressing the home button sending it back to where you last flew.

As per what I said above, setting a homepoint. That only occurs when 'GPS Health' is sufficient. GPS Health is differant to the amount of sats you have in sight, its more of a 'Quality' of the GPS coverage you have. If you cannot confirm a 'Homepoint set' then you are not ready for takeoff unless you are an experienced pilot.

Second point was 'Orientation', Whilst in the 'Home point has been recorded, please check it on the map' phase..... check the orientation of the AC compared to the app. Yet again, 'fly away's' have been attributed to compass errors, that possibly could have been noted at this stage.

Many failures to adhere to these 'preflight checks' have resulted in Attitude flights, and the newbies you refer to, not being comfortable in that flight mode, with such a normally docile AC. Crash.

The other things such as battery and prop security, physical AC condition, weather and environment are the simple checks that should be second nature.

After the above, nothing can be done, apart from having the experience to deal with an in-flight 'emergency'. Stick time, skill, luck all will play a part, you were prepared to take off, so now prepare for the landing in such an event.

 

[FL1H1]

Simmo said: ↑
What would you add to a pre-flight check, to minimise your chance of a 'flyaway'???
Patience but knowledge too. Researching things making sure all is reset to the new location, no good pressing the home button sending it back to where you last flew.

As per what I said above, setting a homepoint. That only occurs when 'GPS Health' is sufficient. GPS Health is differant to the amount of sats you have in sight, its more of a 'Quality' of the GPS coverage you have. If you cannot confirm a 'Homepoint set' then you are not ready for takeoff unless you are an experienced pilot.

Second point was 'Orientation', Whilst in the 'Home point has been recorded, please check it on the map' phase..... check the orientation of the AC compared to the app. Yet again, 'fly away's' have been attributed to compass errors, that possibly could have been noted at this stage.

Many failures to adhere to these 'preflight checks' have resulted in Attitude flights, and the newbies you refer to, not being comfortable in that flight mode, with such a normally docile AC. Crash.

The other things such as battery and prop security, physical AC condition, weather and environment are the simple checks that should be second nature.

After the above, nothing can be done, apart from having the experience to deal with an in-flight 'emergency'. Stick time, skill, luck all will play a part, you were prepared to take off, so now prepare for the landing in such an event.

Yeah, I'm just saying newbies need a really thorough pre flight checklist for all GPS , number of satellites etc. You know why so many newbies just plonk it on the ground and take off? It's because in part, there aren't many around, not really good, really thorough ones. Consequently many are likely to look at all these pretty basic check lists and think, oh, OK, plonk it on the ground, check battery is secure, gimbal free and off they go. None of these check lists said anything about GPS, 7 plus satellites, home points and who knows what else and then we're all here wondering why people are having fly aways! Crashes and one day somebody will create an accident.

 

[FL1H1]

Yeah, I'm just saying newbies need a really thorough pre flight checklist for all GPS , number of satellites etc. You know why so many newbies just plonk it on the ground and take off? It's because in part, there aren't many around, not really good, really thorough ones. Consequently many are likely to look at all these pretty basic check lists and think, oh, OK, plonk it on the ground, check battery is secure, gimbal free and off they go. None of these check lists said anything about GPS, 7 plus satellites, home points and who knows what else and then we're all here wondering why people are having fly aways! Crashes and one day somebody will create an accident.

I will add to this, today, flying for the second time ever, first thing I noticed was beginner mode had switched off. Now, having set it to beginner mode the first time, I expected it to remain in beginner mode but it wasn't, so for newbies, there's one for the pre flight check sheet!

 

[Mossiback]

I also turn on the RC and Mavic before I even take my tablet out of it's case. By the time I get the tablet in its holder, turn it on, plug in the USB cable, and wait for Go 4 to start, the Mavic has several satellites detected and a solid GPS lock.

 

[swooshdave]

DJI has a beginner mode. It's actually quite useful especially since it requires GPS lock. If people who don't know what they are doing take it off that mode and crash, well, let's just say the sympathy is lacking from this end.

 

[ryanolivas]

Patience. Don't be too eager to get your drone in the air.

Eagerness = Best way to lose a drone. lol

 

[PavleAU]

Regardless of beginner mode or not, a compass error is a compass error and you can be certain that if the aircraft takes off in any mode with a situation where the compass thinks it’s facing a different direction there will be consequences. It wouldn’t be hard to add a prompt to the screen (that can be disabled for experienced pilots) that tells the pilot what to check BEFORE taking off. This would then be conclusive that DJI have made an attempt to save the user from such faults and then blame is solely on the pilot without question.

The fact that a compass error has a high possibility is a very real reason that preventative measures need to be implemented into the software that prompts all pilots to check this.

 

[Jameslavis]

It’s a balance. As time goes you realize it’s better to let things sit and let the gps optimize. But I think it would benefit to have the channel strength present on that splash screen. Also that compass direction check is a dirty little secret I didn’t know about until I read these forums.

 

[BudWalker]

Simmo said: ↑
.......
As per what I said above, setting a homepoint. That only occurs when 'GPS Health' is sufficient. GPS Health is differant to the amount of sats you have in sight, its more of a 'Quality' of the GPS coverage you have........

It’s a balance. As time goes you realize it’s better to let things sit and let the gps optimize. But I think it would benefit to have the channel strength present on that splash screen. Also that compass direction check is a dirty little secret I didn’t know about until I read these forums.

By "channel strength" are you referring to the gpsHealth (sometimes referred to as gpsLevel) value which has a range of 0 to 5? That's not a measure of GPS signal strength or the dilution of precision values. The coords that are used are actually computed from the GPS coords fused with the IMU data. That's why the coords seen in the log files have better time and space resolution than can be obtained from GPS alone. GpsHealth is a measure of the confidence in the computed coords and can drop for reasons other than poor satellite coverage. E.g., low confidence in the Yaw value will cause a low gpsHealth value. This is because when IMU data indicates a sideways movement a correct Yaw value is required to compute new coords.

The gpsHealth value does exist on the Go App splash screen as a bar graph

It also is shown on the RC

 

[Tinmania]

Compass
Homepoint
Orientation
Props



Mike

 

[Jameslavis]

I check gps signal but also the channels. Even with good gps a bad area can start to
Get inference 100m out