Mavics incredible safety record.

Former Member · Sep 16, 2018

We have had over 300 members reply to the poll about whether or not Mavics have fallen from the sky. The poll showed that of all the responses, 99.3% did not have their Mavic fall from the sky due to manufacturing defects or problems. Out of 100% who replies, 4% fell because of improperly mounted props that spun off or batteries not latched in properly.

In summary, 2 out of 300 members had their Mavics inexplicably fall from the sky, and they could not provide flight logs, or pictures. Thats an excellent safety record for the drone, considering so many are being flown by new pilots, and others in extreme conditions.

Poll: Has your Mavic fallen from the sky for unknown reasons?

southshore · Sep 16, 2018

Thanks for putting this together!

Is the takeaway here that you believe that the 2/300 failures were caused by external factors or do you believe that they had manufacturing or software defects? That is very high if you convert to a PPM basis, which is fairly standard in measuring defect rate in consumer electronics, automotive, etc.

I’d be curious to understand what reliability targets the DJI engineering and quality teams are shooting for.

Former Member · Sep 16, 2018

southshore said:
Thanks for putting this together!

Is the takeaway here that you believe that the 2/300 failures were caused by external factors or do you believe that they had manufacturing or software defects? That is very high if you convert to a PPM basis, which is fairly standard in measuring defect rate in consumer electronics, automotive, etc.

I’d be curious to understand what reliability targets the DJI engineering and quality teams are shooting for.

Good point. What also needs to be taken into account is the number of flights the non-failures have had, same as PPM. The failures occurred in new pilots, less than 10 flights each. The non-failures have had tens of thousands of fights, so it's not easy to calculate a statistic from the results unless I added a "# of flights with no failures" choice.

Still, all in all, Im impressed with the reliability and crashworthiness of the Mavic.

Former Member · Sep 16, 2018

southshore said:
I’d be curious to understand what reliability targets the DJI engineering and quality teams are shooting for.

I think they probably shoot for 100% but are satisfied with whatever the industry standard is, which DJI is currently establishing.

GringoLoco · Sep 16, 2018

There's also some sample bias if either of those two reporting failures came to the forum after crashing and looking for answers. And even if they didn't, if two positives make for a high PPM failure rate the sample size is too small. Either way, it doesn't take stats to see it's a highly reliable drone.

dronerdave · Sep 16, 2018

I answered no fly-aways in the poll because I got control back and was able to recover my MP. However It was a bit of luck that it didn't land in the water during one incident or hit a tree in another issue. This all happened in the same day with several good flights in between. Both problems seemed to involve the Mavic jumping into ATTI mode so I can't say that would be considered falling out of the sky. During the water flight I noticed the MP was quickly loosing altitude with the stick in the hover position. The monitor covers the controller screen which said LANDING. I caught it in time and saw the prop wash on the water as I was yelling up, up, up. Later that day I noticed it seemed to be climbing on its own and made it to about 800 feet before I was able to force it to land. This took several minutes with full down on the stick. Thankfully I had enough battery to get it down close to the LZ. I still don't know why it slipped into ATTI, but after updating the software it hasn't happened since. I've also had the app crash but simply rebooted and return to home. Mavic held steady in place until the crystal sky regained communication with the AC. I was flying with 3 other quad fliers who were about 20 feet away from me. I was the only one who had issues that day.

Former Member · Sep 16, 2018

dronerdave said:
I caught it in time and saw the prop wash on the water as I was yelling up, up, up.

I think that's an old Jedi mind trick. Heck, it worked for you. Strong with you, The Force must be.

dronerdave · Sep 16, 2018

Thunderdrones said:
I think that's an old Jedi mind trick. Heck, it worked for you. Strong with you, The Force must be.

Ha, so it was the force! Makes sense cause this fat guy suddenly had the power to stand up and run like a Lombardi trophy winner toward the Mavic thinking if I got closer I'd get control. I'm still amazed how well these Mavic's fly w/o problems time and time again. I also fly a lot of fixed wing RC planes and often it's just the opposite... usually at least one person looses their aircraft at each outing.

southshore · Sep 17, 2018

Thunderdrones said:
Good point. What also needs to be taken into account is the number of flights the non-failures have had, same as PPM. The failures occurred in new pilots, less than 10 flights each. The non-failures have had tens of thousands of fights, so it's not easy to calculate a statistic from the results unless I added a "# of flights with no failures" choice.

Still, all in all, Im impressed with the reliability and crashworthiness of the Mavic.

Great point. If the failures occurred that early then that suggests either operator error or early life failures of the hardware.

I’m sure with the massive dataset that DJI is compiling these stats and analyzing to drive continuous improvement. They seem like a top notch organization. Overall, I’ve been extremely impressed with the build quality and design of my MA and have yet to have an issue.

Out of curiosity, are you keeping track of the failures that you see in the aircraft that you work on? Any failure modes jump to the top of your list?

Former Member · Sep 17, 2018

southshore said:
Out of curiosity, are you keeping track of the failures that you see in the aircraft that you work on? Any failure modes jump to the top of your list?

Most of the drones that I have repaired have arrived with the controllers in sport mode. It's like driving without an airbag.

Lon Denard · Sep 17, 2018

As someone that has owned SEVERAL drones before the Mavic Pro, I can tell you with 100% certainty that this is by far the most reliable drone I've ever owned. Well over 200 flights with zero problems with flight control. I could not say that with Parrot, Yuneec, 3DR, GoPro, Syma or even Autel. Autel was the next best but with GoPro and 3DR you EXPECTED problems. It was elevated heart rates and white knuckles the entire time! With the Mavic and now Mavic 2 Pro, I'm still amazed at how relaxed I am and confident that nothing will go wrong. I literally had my first signal warning yesterday with the M2P. I moved the ant and everything was good again. This was the shot, so it should be obvious why I got a warning...