Mavic Pro takes off (and got lost) after iphone shuts down

[Tim Crabtree]

Marco Polo is a tracker that has been mentioned, you need to be aware of some others that require cell towers and a subscription, if there is no cell coverage where you fly they won't help. If the MP is managed properly, there really is no need, in my opinion.

If you did have Marco Polo on your MP (is that confusing?) you probably would have had your drone back within 15 minutes to an hour, and that would have been a much more enjoyable day than the one you had.

I hear the argument all the time that it shouldn't really be necessary to have a tracker if you do everything right - except the times when you do everything right and something still goes wrong or the times when you tried to do everything right and you still made a mistake.

A tracking system is an investment and many look at it in relation to the cost of their setup, the probability of needing it, the chances it will really allow them to recover their drone when needed (you aren't going to find it on the bottom of the ocean!) and so forth. Those are all valid considerations but I think it is easy to limit your thinking to the drone you own now, where you are currently flying, etc. If you try to project out over the next 3-5 years, ALL the different drones you may own, ALL the places you may wish to fly, and ALL the situations, failures and oversights that may occur over that time - then maybe making the investment in a tracking system doesn't seem like such a bad deal.

 

[Capt Drone]

I added a Marco Polo to my Mavic last week. Hope I never have to use it. I have noticed that flying the Mavic is more enjoyable now. Most of the stress has just gone away just knowing that I have a good chance of recovering it, if something happens. I learned the hard way. Was lost in a tree for 3 days at one point. Not fun.

 

[Tim Crabtree]

I added a Marco Polo to my Mavic last week. Hope I never have to use it. I have noticed that flying the Mavic is more enjoyable now. Most of the stress has just gone away just knowing that I have a good chance of recovering it, if something happens. I learned the hard way. Was lost in a tree for 3 days at one point. Not fun.

Speaking of trees - here is a little known fact for you about your Marco Polo system:

The handheld locator is a pseudo-Doppler direction finder than is normally held with the antenna array normal to the ground (or the display panel parallel to the ground, depending on how you want to look at it). With the locator held in this orientation it measures the angle of arrival of the return signal from the tracking tag as an angle about the horizon (azimuth) - like a compass. If your drone was in a tree the locator would lead you to a spot that is close to being under the drone and then you would lose the directional indication because now the signal is coming from above you. So now, if you hold the locator up so that you are looking into the display, like you were looking into a hand mirror, it is now measuring the elevation of the arriving signal. So if you face north and move east and west until the arrow points straight up and then turn west and move north and south until the arrow points straight up again - you are directly under the drone!

Tuck that one away until you need it someday.

 

[ScubaBob]

Were you in visual sight of the MP or were you using FPV?
The phone/tablet should have no bearing on the RC's control of the MP.
You can fly the MP without a phone/tablet as long as you continue to be within visual sight of it.
I hope you find it.

Question: I have been told that the range of flying without a phone or pad is limited to something like 100 meters and the height is also restricted to something like 50 meters. So what do you think would happen if your drone was 300 meters away and your phone died? Would it get contradictory internal signals of "Do not go past 100 Meters" and "I am past 100 meters" and freak out? Is the limit for non-phone flights like an electric fence for your dog: If you break through and get on the other side you will not be able to get back to home without getting zapped!

 

[sar104]

Question: I have been told that the range of flying without a phone or pad is limited to something like 100 meters and the height is also restricted to something like 50 meters. So what do you think would happen if your drone was 300 meters away and your phone died? Would it get contradictory internal signals of "Do not go past 100 Meters" and "I am past 100 meters" and freak out? Is the limit for non-phone flights like an electric fence for your dog: If you break through and get on the other side you will not be able to get back to home without getting zapped!

Told by whom? Anyway - the aircraft will behave just fine without the mobile device, other than that you lose the advanced functions that it provides.

 

[BHPilot]

My app shutdown on my phone and the drone shot up to 200 feet or so and did the return to home procedure immediately. Luckily mine came back close to where I took off and I was able to reconnect and land it properly.


Idk why it's so strange! I'd almost prefer it to hover in place using a GPS bearing built into the drone than go mad and attempt to fly itself home.



I'm using a Google Pixel XL not an iPhone and the app doesn't like it at all. Often shutting off for no reason whatsoever.

You can set this to hover in the DJI GO app settings.

 

[ROKIESINCLAIR]

Very sad situation for me on 12/27/17 3:34PM EST. 3rd flight with my Xmas present, my iphone shut down after 6 minutes, due to cold, (?) even though battery was at 100%. At that point, drone just took off away from me at a high speed. Panicking, I immediately warmed up and charged phone, connected it with controller, but it showed no contact with drone. Before first flight, I watched numerous tutorials. Not one mentioned what the drone would do if phone battery shut down. Drone was charged 100%. Only flying for 6 minutes. Last known position was when it lost contact with my phone, very near me. (see photo below) But it seemed to immediately fly so fast away from me it probably kept going, floated, crashed??? I searched everywhere around it's last know area with contact with the controller. (which is this photo) Uploaded flight data and video cache to DJI (after 2 hours on phone with Apple Support to retrieve it) and haven't heard back. They are checking for user error or drone malfunction. It sounds like others have had similar issues with drones just taking off for no reason. Isn't it supposed to fly home at any distress? We calibrated it's GPS. I tried to upload it's last video here, but even a smaller MP4 version is too large to upload here. (62 MB) I attached it's flight records. Here is a screenshot from it's last video, and the last contact I had with it. The photo is roughly 150 yards down the street from where drone took off, then went on it's own. The drone most likely moved far beyond this location. I can post this address, but don't know if that's cool to do here. @msingerView attachment 28223

Deeply sorry to hear your lost, i also experiencing the same problem. I almost lost it since NO rTH, NO map, and GPS suddenly gone... fortunately i see the camera view and fighting the wind to go home (see my thread) this is almost like your story. Keep up my Friend