Mini 3 Pro "flyaway" crash help needed

[slup]

...I am curious, do you have the wind map for the entire flight including the wind at each height level?

This was the calculated wind speeds all over the complete flight...


And it was gusty... which is somewhat confirmed by the very fluctuating heading speed during the auto landing even though the OP constantly commanded full elevator together with a high degree of aileron.

Dashed graphs = stick inputs & green graph = heading speed

...do you think the motors would have still been running when it reached the ground?
If so, would it have been able to maintain a vertical descent or would it gradually have become more susceptible to the wind and been blown down wind?

Maybe... but it's hard to say as we can't calculate a battery consumption for a clean descent without a forward flight.

A drone during descent usually have less to fight horizontal forces (wind drift)... this as it's a balance between the descent & the tilt angle needed to counter the drift. A drone descend fastest with a tilt angle on zero... if it have to keep a steep angle to hold against winds the descent will be slower. If you look at the relation between the green (heading speed) & the blue (vertical speed) in above chart, you can see the effects of this... when the heading speed goes down (wind gusts the drone needs to fight with a steeper tilt angle) also the vertical speed goes down.

 

[MS Coast]

Please re-read the first sentence in the initial post.
TBH, I was actually pleased there wasn't anyone like you responding for no reason other than just to concur with my own admission of it being a dumb mistake.

If you had provided useful information I would not have responded to you at all.

That is all. Move along

(Comment removed by moderator)

Having participated in this forum for a while now, I have to say that you got off pretty easy with respect to comments on your numerous egregious mistakes and poor judgement in that flight.

I do hope that you didn't fly our taxpayer-financed drone assets that way while serving in the USAF.

As Senator Harry S. Truman said in 1942, "If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen." But I hope you do stick around and learn a bit and share some good information. As a former Air Force drone operator, you undoubtedly have some good insights that might benefit the group.

 

[mobilehomer]

(I know i was stupid, I know its my fault. If you cant assist and are here to make some stupid comment just keep on scrolling. Please only post opinions based on the flight data and possible outcome)

I was flying at night, extremely far away. While the aircraft was in RTH, I was in a golf cart and started to drive closer to the drone as it was auto landing which caused me to lose signal completely. I lost signal almost exactly at 10% battery and forced landing. I was at 1181 feet elevation and last recorder speed was 8.4mph. Find my drome had its signal lost directly over a river that is currently flooding. When the battery hit 10% the forward speed dropped from around 20mph to 8.4mph. Does the drone continue moving towards the RTH location or stop and land where it is. All signal was lost at this point.

I had accidentally inserted the standard flight pack or battery instead of the extended range version by mistake. Also, the drone was 1 day old and I don't think flyaway coverage was set up. I do have care refresh though.

I went to the location where it was last in contact but there was no trace. I could get lucky and snag it fishing in the coming years.

Yes, I am an idiot.

One large mistake. Sport mode. Yes, it's faster but eats up a ton of charge. In Normal mode you would have made the whole intended flight.
Another - pay attention to the warnings! When it says RTH, let it! The computer knows more than you do.
DJI will NOT consider this a flyaway, it is operator error. They will replace it under Care Refresh, but at the higher price.
Once you get the replacement, one time for personal reference, fly it close, like at an empty ball field, until you get the low battery auto landing warning. Then keep flying(you will need to give it ascend command to maintain altitude) until it gives you the forced landing warning. This will give you an idea of what can happen when the battery runs down. It's not the best for the battery, but once shouldn't hurt anything.

 

[slup]

One large mistake. Sport mode. Yes, it's faster but eats up a ton of charge. In Normal mode you would have made the whole intended flight...

He only used Sport a very short period... between 2min 54sec & 3min 06sec. The battery went there from 86% down to 85%... so this didn't made any difference in this flight.

 

[Ty Pilot]

. . . .If you (slup) had provided useful information I would not have responded to you at all.

If you look past him agreeing with your own comments, Slup's post provided a lot of very useful information. Crashes like this are almost never single point failures as many like to imagine. Rather they are usually a series of errors that cumulate into loss of an aircraft.

He laid out the series of errors and even took the time to crunch your data and give very specific times of key events which differ from your account of things - this happens a lot in these situations as pilots begin to focus solely on their aircraft and don't notice how things are unfolding in real time. He showed you the location of landing and even was able to bring up the wind speed and direction during that flight to help explain why the battery was draining perhaps faster than you expected.

You fail to understand one crucial thing with this forum & especially with this section... it provides a free service to help & educate (educate as in not only the OP but also all others that read this thread)

So your flight is a good one to show all others here what happens when all common sense is set aside & what specific decisions you made in order to end up with a lost drone.

This too is valuable - as he explains. It would behoove those reading these threads to at least reckon with the facts of these crashes and perhaps take away a better understanding of just why and how; one can loose their drone.

 

[Bones13RS]

I have made more than a few mistakes in my life. Responding to the comment the way I did was another one. I was in a pretty awful mood and responded like an idiot.

So I apologize for doing it.

 

[New England Droning]

As a fellow AF retiree but not recent (B707s) I want to say welcome to the ranks of retired living and now you just need to get a real job...
As someone said above your story is not just about you. It serves as a warning to all on what not to do. Treat this as any loadmaster process. Get your T.O's out and you can read that as FAA rules. They do not say should, could, or other optional phrases. The terms are will not fly out of sight (VLOS).
Just like in the AF. we have safety regs for a reason.
Message me if you want to talk about transitioning to Civ life, Good luck and I hope the DJI refresh takes care of it