Mavic Disappeared. Fly Away Unit!!! Input needed

[ElGuapo]

It is extremely important to not engage flying in a hasty and careless manner but actually to ponder for a while a "geometric picture" of what we are about to be doing.

MK

I fly both of my drones (Mavic & P4) for the Photography / Videography pleasure, these are fine flying aircraft. If the intent is to fly in a hasty and careless manner the individual should save money and buy a cheaper drone.
It is almost like buying a car and start driving it as fast as it can go all the time, no matter what brand the car is, it is not going to last.

Do not get me wrong now and then I will fly in sports mode but I do it in a responsible manner where, if I were to crash, I am not going endanger somebody's safety or cause property damage, I would only be causing damage to the drone itself.

 

[shredzoo7]

That's some risky flight paths. I'm sure you heard enough don't do this and that comments. I usually have a spotter calling out objects or if there's people around, but if you're solo, I just look up every 5 seconds to do position checks.

If I can't see where I am by VLOS (which is rare), I just throttle punch and hit my map to full screen and head towards the home position and look in the general direction until I see it. I literally sat at home on my couch practicing the button pushes for this exact situation. The screen to me is crowded and can get confusing in frantic situations so muscle memory is key for me. Anyway, I hope you find it!

 

[msinger]

If I can't see where I am by VLOS (which is rare), I just throttle punch and hit my map to full screen and head towards the home position and look in the general direction until I see it.

Unfortunately, throttle punching and practicing would not help here since the remote controller signal was lost.

 

[damaltor]

Thanks guys for the input. Yeah the obstacle avoidance feature definitely isn't fool proof as I can see. Im going to go check out that building on my lunch break and see if I can find it on the roof. I will keep you guys updated. If I can't find it I will most likely take the discount since I need the drone for work.

So did you find the drone on the roof?

 

[Death from Above]

So did you find the drone on the roof?

Nope drone is gone checked all the roof tops. Something is going on with these drones that they are loosing signal. The last known position also has no sign of it either. Dji also noted to check out the rooftop as well. Super weird.


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[msinger]

Something is going on with these drones that they are loosing signal.

In your case, you lost the signal because you were not flying LOS. That building blocked the signal. Perhaps someone found it and picked it up.

 

[J-Dub]

No sympathy. Worst possible place to fly.

 

[Death from Above]

In your case, you lost the signal because you were not flying LOS. That building blocked the signal. Perhaps someone found it and picked it up.

Yeah I guess so. Well I hope to get a replacement soon but we will see what happens with this current backorder of the Mavics. Thanks again for all your help.


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[Death from Above]

No sympathy. Worst possible place to fly.

That's fine I didn't ask for sympathy only for advice. Thanks for your input. Lesson learned.


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[Kilrah]

Something is going on with these drones that they are loosing signal. [...] Super weird.

What the???
No, the only thing going wrong is people completely ignoring the basic technical capabilities of their stuff, assuming they will jsut always magically work, and doing extremely stupid things.

You were at 90ft high 5500ft away. It would already be pushing it to expect a high bandwidth radio transmission to work properly in such conditions even out in the wild and direct LOS at this height, but you were in an urban environment with all the associated interference sources, AND not in LOS. It simply cannot work, is 100% to be expected and preventable, DJI should not even be offering you a discount. The only thing that is "weird" is that it actually did work that far away. The least you could to if you DO want to attempt something like that is to make sure the plan B is set up right, but of course you didn't do that.
You have no idea how it works, and you obviously didn't even try to learn, just "enable a lot of stuff you don't know what it does, take off and hope".

Yeah it's ridiculous. We ended up bringing a pilot on staff to make things easier.

Well that's a very good thing it seems becasue you've pretty much done everything you shouldn't... but if I was him and saw what you did I'd run away from your business very fast.

 

[Anthony]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing to someone new to any activity .... sorry you lost the drone but it does look like it crashed on its RTH. I would take the offer and just ensure you always set the correct RTH height for the location you are flying this way the drone should climb and RTH without any issues.

I have tested my RTH by turning off my RC ( after every patch ) when the Mavic was a good distance away and it has worked as expected each time so these systems do work when presented with the right conditions.

Also not the best location to fly your drone really.

Merry Christmas.

 

[StainedJ]

Unfortunately I lost my Mavic within less than 5 hours of owning it. Im currently still under going discussion with DJI in regards of replacing the drone. The incident happened during a live FB stream and luckily I have video proof and all flight data which I will provide as well. Any insight into these case would be greatly appreciated.

Flight Data
HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

The Story
The flight started out with no problems and ran just as well as it's madden flight. Being Mavics second flight I decided to try out its new feature Facebook live stream. Flight was normal and I decided to test out its speed and go to a destination and back. When I got to 1600 meters the Mavic suddenly ended the live stream and video screen went black. Controller attempted to reconnect over and over. I waited for it to return home due to the lost of signal but it continued to be disconnected. I then went to the last know position to see if I could find the drone. During the commute over to its location I continued to attempt to reconnect, still nothing. I checked the field and surrounding area with no sign of the drone. Went back to home base and the Mavic was still not seen. Flight data shows that it had plenty of signal in the area the drone stayed within 13-15 satellites at all times with 4-5 bars of connection. Luckily i was at the time video streaming and therefore I have complete footage of the flight drone saved. At the time the Mavic lost signal it had 13 satellites, normal flight mode, and 67% battery left. I have no idea what happened and Mavic continues to be missing.

At this point all DJI techs have concluded is that the flight was normal and had no abnormalities but they believe it crashed into the larger building it passed by. Below is my response to that statement.

My Response
To whom it may concern,
I’m lost and baffled how your results are inconclusive and yet I'm still been held liable for the loss of your product. Agreeing with what was stated yet offering a discount for the loss of drone doesn't justify the safe fails your product carries to prevent such incidents.
1 & 2) As your technician stated the flight record ended suddenly without any justification of loss of signal “without any sign of abnormality”. Please clarify how thats not an issue with a defect or a malfunction that causes a loss of sudden signal, clearly something went wrong.
3)Let me remind you what's stated on your site in more information about the Mavic. Attached below is a copy of the statement in Bumps and Scrapes section.
As the Mavic flies, dual forward and downward vision sensors measure the distance between itself and obstacles by taking photos from all four cameras and using the information to create a 3D map that tells it exactly where obstacles are. The dual forward and downward vision sensors require visible light to function, and in bright light can see as far as 49ft (15m) out in front.This obstacle avoidance system is activated in every Intelligent Flight Mode including all ActiveTrack modes, TapFly and Terrain Follow. It is also available during automatic Return to Home, so that the Mavic can easily make its way back without bumping into anything in its path.

Stating that the drone possibly crashed into a building on its return home flight therefore can’t be justified based on its obstacle avoidance features.
Assuming that it hit the building therefore can’t be justified for its capable features. Even if the drone came across the obstacle it could have gone around the building with still plenty of battery life left.
The live stream video further illustrates further how nothing came across the drone to cause it to crash nor did it act in any other abnormal mid flight up to the point it suddenly lost connection.
Please have a technical or a representative call me before the end of the day to further discuss this matter.

DJI once again claims without any further data everything is normal and anything could have happened to the drone. So I guess losing perfect signal is completely normal and not returning home as it should is completely okay. I have constantly gone back to search for the drone, but still no luck of finding it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I had this happen to me the other day. 3rd time I flew it. I was only 160 meters away and I was flying the drone back toward me when it started to drift further away. I thought maybe the wind was strong so I flew harder toward me and it continued to drift further away. I pressed the go home button (by this time I was 210 meters away) and then it continued to distance itself another 20 meters and then my screen showed the black and white lost signal screenshot. I got worried that I had lost it forever as I would have no way of locating it and then my screen came back into colour with the beeping that my drone was returning to the home location. I worry what might have happened if I had not pressed the home button only seconds before it cut out. I don't think it is acceptable that we should be at fault when we have done nothing wrong. Had I lost my drone I would fight teeth and nails that the fault lies with DJI

 

[msinger]

I had this happen to me the other day.

FWIW, your scenario doesn't sound anything like this one. The OP flew his Mavic behind a tall building.

 

[Loz]

FWIW, your scenario doesn't sound anything like this one. The OP flew his Mavic behind a tall building.

Also if you didn't press RTH before it cut out then it would automatically RTH anyway as RC signal would be lost or low battery level would enable it to auto land.

 

[Loz]

Unfortunate for the OP here and all the responses have their points, however going on my close call of almost losing my MP or anyone else's I really think that clearer larger instructions should be in the box that say in large red letters "BEFORE YOU FLY" then simple check points like - set your RTH point,
Calibrate compass, check surroundings and make note of highest objects in area and so on...
For the price of a piece of paper in the box (I'm aware there is a small leaflet) I think this could stop some of these initial new pilot errors.

Or even a check list built into the app? So you need to go through each step before you fly (disable it at your own risk) kind of thing?

 

[stealle]

Yeah I guess so. Well I hope to get a replacement soon but we will see what happens with this current backorder of the Mavics. Thanks again for all your help.


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Sucks dude. Have a Merry Christmas anyway! There are more important things/people in your life you could lose. BTW, I'm curious if you had your contact info anywhere on the Mavic. I have my name and cell phone number on mine (label maker: black tape with gold print). I figure it's worth putting on there in case someone finds it. They might call.

 

[Gareth Chan]

Even if the sensors were all enabled (the log does not contain that info), they aren't perfect. Always set the RTH altitude to the proper altitude before taking off.

Wanted to ask whats a good RTH altitude to set?

 

[Wacker2611]

Wanted to ask whats a good RTH altitude to set?

Depends on your surroundings really. Personally, mines set at 50metres 99% of the time which is more than enough for most situations. Having said that, in 100's of flights I can probably count the amount of times I've used rth on one hand. It's good to know it's there though!


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[Gareth Chan]

Depends on your surroundings really. Personally, mines set at 50metres 99% of the time which is more than enough for most situations. Having said that, in 100's of flights I can probably count the amount of times I've used rth on one hand. It's good to know it's there though!


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I'm a new pilot I got my Mavic 2 weeks ago and I've flown it 3 times so far. Been practicing on tripod mode for awhile but now i finally turned off beginners mode. Was just wondering coz I see this setting but not exactly sure what to set. is 50 meters high enough? Like wouldn't the higher the better? i'm not sure myself too. This RTH altitude basically means when RTH is used it starts flying back maintaining that level of altitude set right? What happens after it reaches the home point? Does it just hover there or automatically land? . I've never used this feature before as I usually just fly back by myself. Kinda curious and wanna learn more about this and set it properly in case **** hits the fan

 

[Wacker2611]

50 metres is much higher than it sounds (if that makes sense). To be honest, I started off with an rth of 70 metres but found it to be too high in the vast majority of situations. You are right though, if you're just starting out, set it at 70m + for added peace of mind. I've just found my sweet spot based on the usual geography that I fly in.
As you probably know, if your rth is lower than your current height it won't descend to the rth height - it will maintain its height and come home. Conversely, if your current height is lower than your rth height, it will ascend to the rth height and fly home. It will then land unless you cancel it.



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