Mavic Air fly-away with no luck to find it. SOLVED

[bogdi1988]

I had a similar issue with mine the other day. It started flying away on its own - it appears as it was interference from too many wireless networks in the area. I was luckily able to take control of the drone fast enough that it did not hit a house or a tree.

 

[sar104]

Would that have shown up in the sensor status display or elsewhere? Or was this something that you were able to deduce from flight data?

Btw I really appreciate the effort that you, and other similarly talented members, put into forum. It is very generous!

If I recall correctly the OP in that case mentioned that the status showed an error of some kind. However, it was the raw sensor data from the DAT files that clearly showed the problem.

 

[sar104]

I had a similar issue with mine the other day. It started flying away on its own - it appears as it was interference from too many wireless networks in the area. I was luckily able to take control of the drone fast enough that it did not hit a house or a tree.

It's very unlikely that wireless interference is going to affect flight control in that way - at most it's going to cause interference issues with the controller.

 

[bogdi1988]

It's very unlikely that wireless interference is going to affect flight control in that way - at most it's going to cause interference issues with the controller.

IDK. But it seemed that when my drone was at the level of my 2nd floor by my house, in the area where my home router was, the connection was going all over the place, losing video, app disconnecting etc, and that's where the drone started just going in a random direction on its own... As soon as I moved away from that spot, I had zero issues.

 

[sar104]

IDK. But it seemed that when my drone was at the level of my 2nd floor by my house, in the area where my home router was, the connection was going all over the place, losing video, app disconnecting etc, and that's where the drone started just going in a random direction on its own... As soon as I moved away from that spot, I had zero issues.

The connection issues sound very credible, but that won't interfere with flight control. If the interference is so bad that it loses connection then it will attempt to RTH - could that be the movement that you saw?

 

[bogdi1988]

The connection issues sound very credible, but that won't interfere with flight control. If the interference is so bad that it loses connection then it will attempt to RTH - could that be the movement that you saw?

No, because it went almost the opposite direction than the RTH point.

 

[sar104]

No, because it went almost the opposite direction than the RTH point.

I seem to recall that the Mavic Air will retrace its path rather than RTH direct to the HP. Any chance that explains it? If not then it suggests possibly a compass error due to the take off location, which would be a separate problem from the signal issues - unless anyone else can think of an alternative single explanation for that behavior...

If you really want to pin down what happened then I suggest getting the mobile device log for the flight in question and posting it (or a link) here.

 

[Timbo~SYD]

There was nothing to pause. Pausing stops automated flight, such as RTH and intelligent flight mode. But even if RTH was triggered pausing does not stop position hold, and hovering in place is impossible in this situation. While hovering it is still making corrections to counteract drift. In this incident's case it had no ability to hold position without snowballing small incorrect corrections into major AC movement.

What could save an AC in this type of situation is switching to ATTI mode (no position hold). The issue as I see it is that the FC is not switching to ATTI, at least not in time to prevent an incident like this. Presumably if GPS health is good it could be used to let the FC know, "Hey, we are nowhere near where we should be, your corrections are making things much worse, so engage ATTI, pronto!"

On another note, while I absolutely think we should all check that heading is correct before take-off, I don't think the lack of doing so, when it is not something DJI tells us to do, is really pilot error. By that I mean you have Go4 telling you "Ready to Go!" Then the FC fails to realize it's moving the AC far from where, barring an F5 tornado, it should be when it should stop and switch to ATTI. Yet it doesn't. This is exacerbated by no means to (officially) manually switch to ATTI.



Mike

Hi Mike

Thanks for your posts / so informative.

How do you switch from P-GPS to ATTI mode? Quickly (or quick enough).

Seems bizarre that the DJI Go4 app will tell you to be aware of uncontrollable behaviour but not offer a option on the spot to change mode.

 

[bogdi1988]

I seem to recall that the Mavic Air will retrace its path rather than RTH direct to the HP. Any chance that explains it? If not then it suggests possibly a compass error due to the take off location, which would be a separate problem from the signal issues - unless anyone else can think of an alternative single explanation for that behavior...

If you really want to pin down what happened then I suggest getting the mobile device log for the flight in question and posting it (or a link) here.

I can't remember exactly which flight it was out of 8 pilot logs. I can share all 8 if you are bored and want to sift through all of them haha. It did not retrace its flight to the HP. It was an erratic flight.

 

[InvisibleName]

Hi Mike

Thanks for your posts / so informative.

How do you switch from P-GPS to ATTI mode? Quickly (or quick enough).

Seems bizarre that the DJI Go4 app will tell you to be aware of uncontrollable behaviour but not offer a option on the spot to change mode.

I’m not aware of an option in Go4 to select ATTI for the Air

 

[MrRobville]

By default there's no option to manually switch to Atti mode for the Mavic Air. However, you can reprogram the Sports mode switch to toggle Atti mode instead. I made a topic about it here which includes the steps on how to do that:
Sports mode to Atti mode?

 

[De5afinad0]

Is anyone able to view the fight log? The link doesn't work.

 

[De5afinad0]

I have never thought that something like this will happen to me but it did.
All began with my idea to try out youtube streaming capabilities of my Mavic Air. This was not my first flight. So...
It all began when I went out and tried to find a good spot for take off.
First place was near one of the local schools but there I was getting a lot of magnetic interference and I've tried to calibrate compass few times with no luck.
I moved about 100 meters from the position but still there was something that was making interference, I moved 100 more. Its needed to mention that I have had a flight at this position already before with no problems.
So I found a good spot, calibrated the compass,good GPS signal was also present(13-18 satelites) the home point was updated also, I took off and slowly went up and aprox after 25 second of my flight my drone became uncontrolled and started to speed up even though I was not planning to fly away to shoot something.
During the present connection I've tried "pause" button few times and than "go home" button. No luck.
I have tried to search the drone with last position in menu "Find my drone", after 1 hour of searching I've ended with no luck.
I hope nobody gets hurt. Since there is my name and phone number I also have not received any calls.
I would appreciate if experience pilots could give me approximate conclusion why did it happened.
Here is a flight log. DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Do you still have the flight to got this?