Mini 3 Pro vanished this morning

[WilliamDaugherty]

If your happy with that, that’s all that matters.
It looks like you have been flying for about 5 years so it still seems like a lot of crashing to me

It is indeed healthy to question one's life choices from time to time. Rest assured, I have no regrets about my sUAS record. We all have to understand and abide by our own acceptable levels of risk. Given the nature of much of my flying, I have made those choices that work for me and I live and work with the results.

FYI, I've never had a crash or failure that wasn't covered by Care Refresh or warranty. I typically have a half dozen aircraft in service at any given moment so I fully expect to have some failures.

And I've never missed a job.

 

[WilliamDaugherty]

Hope you get your new drone soon.
Just wanted to say hello from down the road a bit, live in Dublin NH. Yes, I think it hard for flat landers to understand how steep our terrain is and how tall and thick our forest canopy is.

Hello! I'm in the Upper Valley (1 mile from Vermont) so yes, it's interesting terrain here. Are you a member of the FB group "NH Drone Enthusiasts"? If so, say hi via that channel if you like.

 

[WilliamDaugherty]

UPDATE: this just in from the customer rep with whom I've been communicating since this incident began.

"I have forwarded the video to the engineer and have got feedback from them. We truly appreciate your support for DJI, considering the situation, we would like to cover this under warranty. We will arrange a refund for the 235 USD but this procedure could take some time (5-7 working days), thanks so much for your patience. But the shipment will proceed, after it was shipped out, we will send the tracking number to you via email so that you could track the parcel."

So, DJI comes through yet again. I think this was the right thing for them to do obviously. Now let's hope this was a rare anomaly.

 

[sar104]

UPDATE: this just in from the customer rep with whom I've been communicating since this incident began.

"I have forwarded the video to the engineer and have got feedback from them. We truly appreciate your support for DJI, considering the situation, we would like to cover this under warranty. We will arrange a refund for the 235 USD but this procedure could take some time (5-7 working days), thanks so much for your patience. But the shipment will proceed, after it was shipped out, we will send the tracking number to you via email so that you could track the parcel."

So, DJI comes through yet again. I think this was the right thing for them to do obviously. Now let's hope this was a rare anomaly.

Hopefully it was a rare event. It's just unfortunate that you were unwilling to share the full flight data that might have shed far more light on the event, and could probably have predicted with reasonable accuracy where the aircraft ended up.

 

[lookout]

Sorry about your losing your drone, I hope that DJI replaces it. I have a Mini 3 Pro and I don't trust it because of the constant loss of signal especially when it gets behind some trees or object. I installed the latest firmware when it was release but it made very little difference. We all paid a lot of money for the Mini 3 Pro with the R controller and are faced with a drone that is unreliable and does not meet the advertised specs that DJI has used in their advertising.

It seems like the mini series doesn't have quite the quality of signal the MPP.

 

[WilliamDaugherty]

Hopefully it was a rare event. It's just unfortunate that you were unwilling to share the full flight data that might have shed far more light on the event, and could probably have predicted with reasonable accuracy where the aircraft ended up.

We will have to disagree. The flight data was absolutely boring. Motors, batteries, IMU, compass, all very dull stuff. DJI engineering said as much. As for geolocation and AGL, it would be meaningless without additional details, i.e., synced video from the original or a replica flight. This was the missing ingredient that tipped the scales toward warranty replacement. Your curiosity aside, there's simply no point in sharing the log.

As for finding the aircraft, that is simply unrealistic. The area in question is dense forest with occasional small openings. Even those open areas have thick ground cover. Still, I looked very closely in a 50m radius from the last known position, then I went 100m downrange, which is frankly much further than it would have travelled given the velocity and trajectory at last known position, but there wasn't a trace anywhere. If a hunter finds the aircraft and I get it back, I will happily send it along to DJI, but I'm not holding my breath. As someone who has participated in Wilderness SAR, both on the ground and in the air, finding something as small as this bird in such a location is just not feasible without a great deal of resources.

 

[lookout]

We will have to disagree. The flight data was absolutely boring. Motors, batteries, IMU, compass, all very dull stuff. DJI engineering said as much. As for geolocation and AGL, it would be meaningless without additional details, i.e., synced video from the original or a replica flight. This was the missing ingredient that tipped the scales toward warranty replacement. Your curiosity aside, there's simply no point in sharing the log.

As for finding the aircraft, that is simply unrealistic. The area in question is dense forest with occasional small openings. Even those open areas have thick ground cover. Still, I looked very closely in a 50m radius from the last known position, then I went 100m downrange, which is frankly much further than it would have travelled given the velocity and trajectory at last known position, but there wasn't a trace anywhere. If a hunter finds the aircraft and I get it back, I will happily send it along to DJI, but I'm not holding my breath. As someone who has participated in Wilderness SAR, both on the ground and in the air, finding something as small as this bird in such a location is just not feasible without a great deal of resources.

That's assuming it is still in one piece.

 

[sar104]

We will have to disagree. The flight data was absolutely boring. Motors, batteries, IMU, compass, all very dull stuff. DJI engineering said as much. As for geolocation and AGL, it would be meaningless without additional details, i.e., synced video from the original or a replica flight. This was the missing ingredient that tipped the scales toward warranty replacement. Your curiosity aside, there's simply no point in sharing the log.

As for finding the aircraft, that is simply unrealistic. The area in question is dense forest with occasional small openings. Even those open areas have thick ground cover. Still, I looked very closely in a 50m radius from the last known position, then I went 100m downrange, which is frankly much further than it would have travelled given the velocity and trajectory at last known position, but there wasn't a trace anywhere. If a hunter finds the aircraft and I get it back, I will happily send it along to DJI, but I'm not holding my breath. As someone who has participated in Wilderness SAR, both on the ground and in the air, finding something as small as this bird in such a location is just not feasible without a great deal of resources.

You may think that the flight data were boring, but it's pretty clear that you have little or no experience analyzing them. DJI engineering only do a very cursory analysis, I suspect mostly automated, enough to determine whether there were clear signs of aircraft failure or external events. For example, their inability here to figure out whether the flight path included obstacles is simply a reflection of failing to apply available DEMs and terrain information.

Your unfocussed search was unnecessary, since with the final telemetry and a simple FD model it is generally possible to predict the crash site to within a few meters. I hope that your work in Wilderness SAR is less random.

I'm not particularly curious about this event, since there are a limited number of possible explanations, none of which are very interesting. I was really commenting on your achievement in generating four pages of pointless speculation. What was your goal in starting this thread?

 

[WilliamDaugherty]

You may think that the flight data were boring, but it's pretty clear that you have little or no experience analyzing them. DJI engineering only do a very cursory analysis, I suspect mostly automated, enough to determine whether there were clear signs of aircraft failure or external events. For example, their inability here to figure out whether the flight path included obstacles is simply a reflection of failing to apply available DEMs and terrain information.

Your unfocussed search was unnecessary, since with the final telemetry and a simple FD model it is generally possible to predict the crash site to within a few meters. I hope that your work in Wilderness SAR is less random.

I'm not particularly curious about this event, since there are a limited number of possible explanations, none of which are very interesting. I was really commenting on your achievement in generating four pages of pointless speculation. What was your goal in starting this thread?

This is unfortunate. I had hoped for better.

 

[sar104]

This is unfortunate. I had hoped for better.

Better what? Better uninformed speculation? I still can't figure out what you were hoping for, and nor, apparently, could most of the people responding to this thread.

 

[Camino Ken]

This is unfortunate. I had hoped for better.

You should know that SAR104 has a long and storied history of analyzing flight logs and has an incredibly accurate success rate in predicting the final location of downed UAVs that were ultimately found.

 

[dirkclod]

You should know that SAR104 has a long and storied history of analyzing flight logs and has an incredibly accurate success rate in predicting the final location of downed UAVs that were ultimately found.

100% agree and why he didn’t supply the logs makes me suspicious of why he didn’t post them.
@WilliamDaugherty if you don’t I will consider this a waste of
space and close it.
SAR104 and others could help you but if you don’t post what they
ask for this isn’t going to continue.
dc

 

[retiredNH]

For those of you who have never been to the more rugged parts of New Hampshire, understand that we have extensive forests with dense stands of 100 foot tall fir trees interspersed with lots of smaller deciduous understory trees and shrubs and downed trees and tree limbs. The chances of a drone making it to the ground is very small given the density of branches etc, even if one could walk through such terrain. Add to that relatively steep hillsides....these are not parklands.

 

[dirkclod]

For those of you who have never been to the more rugged parts of New Hampshire, understand that we have extensive forests with dense stands of 100 foot tall fir trees interspersed with lots of smaller deciduous understory trees and shrubs and downed trees and tree limbs. The chances of a drone making it to the ground is very small given the density of branches etc, even if one could walk through such terrain. Add to that relatively steep hillsides....these are not parklands.

No matter. He needs to supply what was asked of him. So like I posted above you , no logs no more thread. !
Any thing else is off topic.

 

[TheRock]

I sent it to DJI this week as I have Fly Away insurance. Will let you know what they say. On the updates, I don't know what to say. But I have been flying all over the Indo-Pacific with either a Mini 2 or and Air 2S and this sort of thing has just cropped up recently. Not sure what to make of it. Is the SC technology getting old? It has been around for a while. Anyway, thanks for the response.

OK, here's what I have. You're right, DJI didn't tell me anything useful. But it did finally approve the replacement. This drone (Air 2S) was sitting at 130 feet or so and All I did was hit the record button for video and it went beserk. Not sticks were touched. A guy was standing right next to me watching the whole thing. If you see anything odd, let me know.

 

[Meta4]

OK, here's what I have. You're right, DJI didn't tell me anything useful.

That's not a surprise

All I did was hit the record button for video and it went beserk.

Berserk ??
If you mean that the drone stopped flying and fell to earth, you'll be i the same position as the OP with no data to show what happened or caused a loss of power.

If it was something else, post a link to your Airdata report, but make sure to tick the share box to make teh actual dta available for analysis.

 

[AnzacJack]

I got confused for a min. This is a different event.

 

[kennethc]

After almost four weeks of daily flights, my Mini 3 Pro disappeared 3 minutes into a flight this morning. Just after dawn I launched from my driveway, took one photo from, then flew across the road and up a hillside to the east so I could capture the sunrise. I do this virtually every day. I had been flying for 3 minutes. Aircraft was going 25mph at 420' above takeoff point (100' AGL) and was about 1500' away from me. Nothing unusual had happened then the display froze. I thought it was just a transmission glitch so I stopped giving any control inputs and waited. I looked for the aircraft but could no longer see the strobe. After a moment I pushed forward on the left stick, thinking perhaps that would help with the data link. Nothing. I waited several minutes but the bird never reconnected, nor did it RTH, which it was set to do. I restarted the RC. No connection. After about 15 minutes I gave up hope that the bird was still functional and/or would RTH. I reviewed the flight data and screen captured a satellite image with the bird's final reported location indicated. I was able to hike up the hill to that exact spot, then spent an hour scouring the ground. No sign of it. The last known location was easy to find, given some unusual landmarks. Even so, I widened the circle and still found no trace, including looking up into the surrounding trees.

I considered that a hawk might have taken the bird but I saw no indication on the display. In past bird strikes, there was violent disruption of the video feed. Not today. The fact that the drone was completely incommunicado makes me think this was a core power failure. There was no way to invoke "find my drone" obviously since it never reconnected.

I have started a flyaway case but I can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with this design that would allow this. I've had a lot of DJI drones. I've crashed a lot of them. I had one uncontrolled fly-away, but in every case, I still had some data flowing back to the controller during the final fatal moments. Not this time.

The same exact thing happened to me this morning. Rite down to the 3 minute mark. I was about 300ft up and only 300ft. From home. I had mine for 63days. Was flying a common rout I flown 100times.

 

[WilliamDaugherty]

The same exact thing happened to me this morning. Rite down to the 3 minute mark. I was about 300ft up and only 300ft. From home. I had mine for 63days. Was flying a common rout I flown 100times.

Sorry to hear it. If you read the rest of the thread you will have seen that after some convincing, DJI took responsibility for the loss and sent me a new aircraft. This after they initially claimed I must have flown into trees. Read the rest of my replies at least to get the full story.

Good luck!