Mavic air near flyaway - help!

[luisfandre]

Hello everyone, I’ve almost had a fly away with my Air yesterday, and after the scary moment, I am trying to understand What happened and would appreciate very much your help.

I’ve put my drone up in the air, and as Soon as it reached aprox 30meters high, it suddenly stopped answering my commands and simply Went away at high speed, even so I tryed to move it at the opposite way. The drama only ended when I controled my nerves and hit the RTH button, and very slowly it returned to me with no major issues. Luckily nothing happened, but now I Won’t fly him until I can understand what went wrong.

It is true that it was pretty windy, wind speed at 10 meters as high as 35kmph and gusts of 42kmph as checked in UAV Forecast, however I saw someone’s M2P 100% stable in high altitudes at the very same weather conditions little after what happened to me.

The other Point is that I had 8 sattelites and was not at ATTI mode when I took off, but maybe I should had wait the minimun of 12?

Also I dont know how can I post the flight log in here, can you teach me how?

Thank you very much!

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Glad you your MA made it back to you. As for the cause, kinda difficult to speculate with out seeing the logs. See here on how to retrieve the TXT log file
DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Once you have located the relevant .txt file, you can upload it the FLight Log Viewer on the above linked site and share the link here. Alternatively, you can just upload the log file here as an attachment.

 

[DanMan32]

I'm suspecting the MA was overcome by wind. Usually you'll get a wind warning though.

 

[Mossiback]

@sar104 should be able to decipher the logs to show what happened, but on the surface it is a puzzle.

• Although winds can push a drone backwards, it would have to be a very strong wind to send it "away at high speed". This is possible considering the winds at 30 meters may be much stronger than the strong winds you mention at 10 meters. The problem is RTH would not be able to fight a head wind any better than your stick input.
• You should launch with more than 8 satellites because of reduced accuracy and if you lose one it will probably switch to Atti mode (based on my MP), but at 30 meters it should detect many more unless you were flying in an area with an obstructed sky.

Regardless of what the logs show, it looks to me that you did four things wrong:

1. Flew when the wind was too strong.
2. Did not change elevation to find calmer winds.
3. Did not switch to Sport mode to fight the wind you were in.
4. Launched with only 8 satellites.

 

[luisfandre]

Thank you all for the response

here is the flight log

 

[luisfandre]

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

I'm glad you got it back !!
You are fortunate form the flight description.

Looks like you took off from a fairly sheltered place, so it could have been wind just above, hard to say.
As Mossi said, then RTH should have really not been able to cope. You did say it came back 'very slowly' though.

I wonder if it 'took off' due to compass error ?
(Edit, where the compass arrow on the map doesn't align with how the drone is actually facing.)
Then realigned itself luckily before our of signal range.

Again, it did the RTH very slowly, so I personally think it sounds liek a wind problem, maybe it was gusting very badly at relatively long intervals.

It does sound like you were very lucky, and it will be interesting to see the flight analysis.

 

[sar104]

It struggled because the wind speed aloft was over 30 mph, and approaching 40 mph at times.

 

[luisfandre]

is the M2P much better to Handle This wind? Because There was One at same conditions flying flawlessly

 

[sar104]

is the M2P much better to Handle This wind? Because There was One at same conditions flying flawlessly

It's better, although those wind speeds are going to be a challenge for any of the Mavics. I would not even consider flying in those conditions.

 

[luisfandre]

Thank you very much!!
just One more question, shouldnt it had Gone full speed when the wind blew 40mph, as the top speed of the drone, and it should had Hovered at the same place?

 

[DanMan32]

In sport mode, yes. The limitation is actually the attack/pitch angle. P has a more limited angle than sport.

 

[sar104]

Thank you very much!!
just One more question, shouldnt it had Gone full speed when the wind blew 40mph, as the top speed of the drone, and it should had Hovered at the same place?

The Mavic Air has a very large difference in performance between P (15° maximum tilt / 29 km/hr) and S mode (35° maximum tilt / 68 km/hr). You started in P mode, then switched to sport, which allowed the aircraft to use much larger tilt angles against the wind.

 

[luisfandre]

Amazing answers, I learned a lot!
Thank you all!!

 

[crlmjohnson]

is the M2P much better to Handle This wind? Because There was One at same conditions flying flawlessly

Yes

 

[crlmjohnson]

is the M2P much better to Handle This wind? Because There was One at same conditions flying flawlessly

When I fly in high winds I use p mode and do go fast that way your angle of attack will increase

 

[crlmjohnson]

I own a mavic air and and a mp2 I fly my drones in high winds all the time. Just do not fly fast on the controls, try to keep the angle of attack down on the particular drone you are flying , and you will be fine.

 

[crlmjohnson]

Also depends on the wind speed.

 

[luisfandre]

But the problem is that it couldnt overcome the wind speed, as it was taken away by it
Maybe in S mode it may hold Its position in high wind?

 

[sar104]

But the problem is that it couldnt overcome the wind speed, as it was taken away by it
Maybe in S mode it may hold Its position in high wind?

As I mentioned above, S mode allows the aircraft to tilt up to 35°, rather than just 15° in P mode. That's why it can hold or make progress into higher wind speeds in sport mode.