Mavic Crash

E92Vancouver · Oct 27, 2016

BD0G said:
Cough up 60 dollars a year for State Farm insurance on just the Mavic Pro. DJI Care Refresh does not cover water damage so if you crash into water your hosed. Also its 99 dollar to sign up for Care Refresh , but 79 dollars for the first replacement and 129 for the second. So its actually 99 dollars PLUS 79 dollars.

State Farm insures everything including water damage and more importantly theft. Call DJI about your Mavic being stolen and see what they tell you.

The Pilot in the video did not indicate if he did the latest firmware flash or if it was done by DJI before he reeived it. The firmware was put in place to help solve a GPS issue as well as taking off from an inside location and the flying outside. He also does not indicate if he calibrated the IMU when the Mavic was cold and also the compass before flight. Lots of factors that could have negatively effected his flight.

Firmware update is easy. The controller flashes you a message that an update is available before you fly.

The Editor · Oct 27, 2016

peros550 said:
I was also thinking about manual mode which you currently can't activate it by yourself.

Do you think that in situations like bad compass calibration, if an ATTI (manual) mode was available could be enough to control it and bring it safely back?

PS: I have read somewhere that request for manual mode has been requested to DJI
Mavic ATTI mode confusion

Yes because P-Atti mode does not utilise the compass and effectively switches it out of use with aircraft attitude, altitude and bearing being controlled by the accelerometers, gyros and barometer only.
However, the operator would need to be proficient in flying in Atti (which the YT poster didn't appear to be) since the aircraft will drift with the wind.

Not having user switchable Atti mode on the Mavic is a huge mistake by DJI IMO.

peros550 · Oct 27, 2016

I agree with you! manual switchable ATTI mode is a must have. It just shouldn't be there by default so that somebody could accidentally enable it and mess up with it.

ovyyus · Oct 27, 2016

He said he had previous issues with stick control, at 6:08 on his video. Doesn't sound like a compass calibration issue.

The Editor · Oct 27, 2016

ovyyus said:
He said he had previous issues with stick control, at 6:08 on his video. Doesn't sound like a compass calibration issue.

A inexperienced pilot who suffered TBE would construe this as 'stick control issues' since the aircraft would exhibit flying in circles and input would not correspond to aircraft response.

trog100 · Oct 27, 2016

the guy quite clearly said the control sticks did nothing.. he had to land it using the phone screen..

when the RTH failed it did come home but flew in circles.. when it got low enough it hit a tree.. when the guy took it out of RTH mode nothing changed.. he had no control input and the device kept doing its own thing.. until it met the tree..

it seems to me that too many folks are trying a little too hard to put the blame on pilot error.. sad to say it looked more like mavic "error" to me..

trog

Dirty Bird · Oct 27, 2016

The comments in this thread are mind-boggling...

The aircraft is totally unresponsive to control input. Must be pilot error!

Mad_Angler1 · Oct 27, 2016

It's too early to say what it was but the lack of control comment is worrying, if anyone has anything like this please post the aircraft logs so and forward to DJI, in the meantime make sure your on the latest fw and you have calibrated the RC sticks.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

The Editor · Oct 27, 2016

Dirty Bird said:
The comments in this thread are mind-boggling...

The aircraft is totally unresponsive to control input. Must be pilot error!

He says this after the crash. He describes uncontrolled/weird circling motion - if that isn't TBE I don't know what is. Whilst an aircraft is suffering bad TBE the sticks will appear unresponsive because they have no correlation to changing the aircrafts attitude as expected. With regard to no stick control AFTER the crash - who knows what damage has been caused during the collision.
Additionally, he then decides to take the aircraft for a night flight over a heavily populated area with part of a prop missing and presumably without any thought to doing an IMU calibration after the aircraft has suffered physical shock.
Yeah, this guy REALLY knows what he's doing

trog100 · Oct 27, 2016

the lack of control input happened before the crash.. plus technical expertise isnt related to risk taking.. he he

trog

Dirty Bird · Oct 27, 2016

I believe he reported the circling & lack of control occurred before the crash. That's why he engaged RTH. I also believe he replaced two props after the crash & mentioned another one had a small chip. How do you know if he did an IMU calibration after the crash? Regardless, this coupled with several other reported issues isn't exactly a reassuring sign for those awaiting their Mavics to arrive.

The Editor said:
He says this after the crash. He describes uncontrolled/weird circling motion - if that isn't TBE I don't know what is. Whilst an aircraft is suffering bad TBE the sticks will appear unresponsive because they have no correlation to changing the aircrafts attitude as expected. With regard to no stick control AFTER the crash - who knows what damage has been caused during the collision.
Additionally, he then decides to take the aircraft for a night flight over a heavily populated area with part of a prop missing and presumably without any thought to doing an IMU calibration after the aircraft has suffered physical shock.
Yeah, this guy REALLY knows what he's doing

dinglehead · Oct 27, 2016

The video has been deleted.... someone at DJI must have offered the dude a couple of free batteries to get that video off the internets.

4wd · Oct 27, 2016

To summarise he initiated RTH after noting odd behaviour - little or no response to control movements - and it came home but instead of descending vertically it circled in a large spiral some 20m/60ft diameter.
Eventually it hit a tree and tumbling to the ground with prop damage and bent gimbal which he was able to straighten enough to fly again later - after dark(!)

Most concerning seems to be that during this it ignored all stick inputs as if the controller was locked out.

trog100 · Oct 27, 2016

he also said that prior to the crash flight he took it off and there was no control stick response.. the sticks did nothing.. he landed it with the phone.. tried again and it had stick control.. the stick control seems have failed again when it was taken out of the circling RTH mode..

trog