Mini Mavic blow out over the ocean in Delaware, a mile out.

[TheXmanJDD]

deleting all my content

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Sorry for your loss TheXmanJDD . . . it does hurt more when you are an experienced pilot. 500' AGL is pretty high for one of those little gems . . . go fly the MP, you'll feel better.

 

[Matriculated01]

Sorry for your loss. I’ve read story after story of it being blown away, wind seems to have an undefeated record against it. FYI my understanding is you should stay under 400’ with the mini too - it’s exempt from the registration requirement but all other regs still apply.

 

[InspectorGadget]

Sorry for your loss.
About the Mavic pro, isn't it possible to run registration software?

 

[Justinswidebody]

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[old man mavic]

i wonder why you would think you can fly higher that the 400ft rule with your MM, in the UK you still have to abide by the drone code ,no matter how light your drone is ,and i think that applies to the US as well

 

[Mikey's]

@TheXmanJDD Sorry for your loss and many thanks for your honest and instructive story.

 

[Thomas B]

Sorry to hear about your lost drone and footage. Hope you get a new one and are back in the air soon.
For new owners I feel compelled to list the following:
In the U.S., the MM is subject to ALL FAA regulations, including the 400’ altitude limit, but exempt from registration with FAA IF nothing weighing more than 1 gram is attached to it.

 

[old man mavic]

Sorry to hear about your lost drone and footage. Hope you get a new one and are back in the air soon.
For new owners I feel compelled to list the following:
In the U.S., the MM is subject to ALL FAA regulations, including the 400’ altitude limit, but exempt from registration with FAA IF nothing weighing more than 1 gram is attached to it.

@Thomas B thank you for clarifying what i thought was correct

 

[paulatkin73]

it is beyond me why DJI did not put an indicator on the app screen to show the direction and strength of the wind. in situations like that it would be priceless - to find an altitude where you cold do some lateral movement to get back to the point with less wind, it is pretty much exactly same as to swim against the rip current.... sorry for your loss, and, once again - MM is just not good for such long solo flights.... at least not until somebody will figure out how to alter its parameters to boost the max angle and speed limits.

 

[Sully888]

@Thomas B thank you for clarifying what i thought was correct

will the FAA know if i fly over 400Ft?

I know the regulations...but sometimes i like to fly over 400ft. Does DJI reports our flights to the FAA?

mavicpilots.com

 

[TheXmanJDD]

deleting all my content

 

[TheXmanJDD]

deleting all my content

 

[TheXmanJDD]

Sorry for your loss. I’ve read story after story of it being blown away, wind seems to have an undefeated record against it. FYI my understanding is you should stay under 400’ with the mini too - it’s exempt from the registration requirement but all other regs still apply.

Thank you all that responded with this.

Apparently information I read convinced me that the mini was allowed to go over 400 feet.

What's clever about making it 249 grams then? Just so you don't have to pay $5.00 and/or write an FAA number on it? That's STUPID.

I'm not likely going to buy another one then. What a waste. Seems like the non-registering is just for people that want to break the rules then.

Anyone want to buy 2 new batteries, charger, case and controller? I seriously am bummed out right now and might get rid of them.

And go into making racing drones instead.

I'll be honest, I've taken it up to 1,640 feet several times on calm evenings and it's amazing how far I was able to see. Yeah, I guess I just admitted to breaking the law. It was truly unknowingly and if the FAA is going to come after me for this, then they got way too many employees and time on their hand.

Sharing it, just to show, there are people like me that don't know.

Seems wrong that I can shoot model rockets high and I think my brother can fly himself in his powered paraglider to 1000 feet.

 

[Thomas B]

Thomas, thank you ! Before I ever bought the mavic mini, I read conflicting information on toys below the 0.55 lb weight limit and I was wondering/hoping someone might speak up if over 400 feet was illegal.

Model rockets are allowed to go higher than 400 feet. I read that the FAA picked OVER 249.5 grams as the number because things that weight or under are not heavy enough to cause any significant damage to an airplane.

So if they don't cause damage, why would they be limited to 400 feet.

After a couple evenings of mild research, I bought the mavic mini simply because I thought I could go OVER the 400 feet finally. IF it can't cause damage, then what's the point? The chance of hitting the tiny thing in the giant wide open sky is probably like the odds in a lottery; then it shouldn't cause damage even if one did hit it. Probably the same as hitting a giant cecropia moth, bat or wren.

But if that's really the rule, I'm glad I know it now. I might not buy another mavic mini then. What's the point of having one? I simply bought it so I could go over 400 feet and fly at night. Plus ….... not have an FAA number on it if I crashed while documenting what I think is illegal activity.

Understand completely. Note that within 400’ of the side of a hill, etc., you can go higher. Example pics illustrating this are below... first one is TO point pic, second is aerial of the area where I am standing in pic #3, third is me standing in the middle of the area shown in pic #2... point is you can still get some altitude pics in the right location and still be at legal altitude.

 

[Ian in London]

So, my new mini mavic is gone. ?. And I'm posting this to help others.

I'm a mavic pro pilot and have been flying it for around 3 years now in many conditions.

So, I think that actually "hurt" me, cause I was use to the heavier UAV. And also a past experience with my Pro where the military took over control in the past, also messed up my judgement. (but that's another story).

The mini was new to me, only 25 flights, 4.21 hours total and 150,000 feet of distance. In that time, I've seen high wind warning come up often, but never had a problem changing elevation and continuing to fly and get back home.

Well we went to Ocean City, MD for new years and had a great time filming the waves and my family, sunsets, etc. It is winter and the off season, so no one to bother and it worked out great.

I was eager to get back home and see the good footage on our big screen.

Driving home we stopped at Indian River inlet in Delaware, a public beach area with huge parking lots and basically deserted, maybe 4 cars.

The ground air was calm and the bridge there is beautiful. So i thought, cool ! Let me get some more footage.

I took off from the beach, quickly rose to about 500 ft in sport mode so i didn't irritate the few people walking on the beach. Flew towards the ocean, still over the beach, turned around, flew towards the West and got a high wind warning (which happens a lot with this mini) and did notice it was slow going West.

I wanted the footage of the bridge too much too.

Flew to get a far view of the bridge and noticed it wasn't acting normal and wondered if there was some weird jamming or controlling frequency going on.

Descended coming back and flew around a rock jetty at low elevation. Then ascended again to get one more view of bridge. It would not fly west toward the bridge, so I flew South to try and get back to home and while doing so I did not pay attention to the Distance in feet away. I was looking across water mostly and high elevation and did not notice i was blown far out over the ocean.

I tried to fly back, but was loosing ground and it was creeping away. I checked several times that it was in sport mode, and it was. I thought some frequency was taking over the drone and flying it out to sea to destroy it. I then figured there might be some no fly zone due to the bridge that I didn't know about.

So, I would hit the return-to-home at times and it would loose significant distance (get further away) when I did.

I did think then, maybe it was wind and descended as I flew south west just to maybe get back to anywhere on the beach, finally I was getting slightly closer to home as I did this, but only creeping and I was now below 50% battery and worried about making it back.

I was making it back as long as I descended and full throttle forward. I stopped descending at around 20 feet off the water and once again was going farther out to sea.

I tried descending some more, but now was getting blown out to sea REALLY HARD. Tried to fly South, losing ground, tried North losing ground, 31% battery. Feeling the panic inside. Really felt someone was controlling it. Started ascending again, losing ground.

Sucked ! Tried flying south west again and descending fast like before where I gained distance back home, not working this time.

Pushed over a MILE OUT over the ocean.

Battery got low. It had to land in the water. Like 5,300 feet out at sea. This is how I remembered it, I could be slightly off here and there. I looked at my flight log a bit to write this too.

What I learned:
1. Mavic Mini can be blown off course quickly. Don't underestimate what the wind might be above you, even though the ground wind is near nothing. Pay attention to the wind warnings on the screen, don't shrug them off.
I should have landed when I was still over the beach when I got the first wind warning when I tried to fly West into the wind.
2 . Don't think everything is a conspiracy. ?
3. Pay CLOSE ATTENTION TO the distance numbers on the screen, especially if you get a wind warning. Even though you might not be flying pointed away, you might be getting blown away quickly and it's hard to notice when over water and not looking at land.
4. If over water and you are getting blown away. Try to come back at an angle to the wind like it did, while dropping in elevation; if you can. I think I stopped at around 20 feet elevation. When I was losing distance once I leveled out at 20 feet, I should have gone to a 2 feet over the water if I had too, to maybe get away from the wind. Your going to lose it anyway, go ahead and risk skimming the waves.

Hopefully this helps someone.

Oh ! and I have a question. Does anyone know if I can buy a mini; just the mini that matches my controller that I already have? Because I had bought the "fly more" kit, I should therefor get another mini if possible, to go with these extra batteries, etc.

I like the mini cause it's less noticeable. I don't have to have the FAA number on it or stay below 400 feet like I do with my mavic pro. Plus I've flown at night, etc, due to it's light weight not being a danger to aircraft.

Also my mavic pro might become illegal soon if the new FAA law goes into effect that says my pro needs an identification emitting software. I got an email from FAA a few weeks ago. (going to see if there is forum talk on this subject next).

Well XMan, really sorry to hear about your loss. Previous Mavic Pro / Air flyers are being caught out by the Mini as it simply can't handle winds anything like the other Mavics. And of course we've all got used to ignoring the wind warnings on the Air and Pros but you can't ignore them on the Mini.
I've done a fair few wind tests on various models on my YouTube channel but STILL got caught out on New Year's Eve and my Mini blew away, even tho it was just a week since my blowaway wind test on the Mini itself (got vids on both those situations on my channel if you want a laugh)

All I can say is learn, and move on! Get yourself another Mini, or maybe a used Air if you're going to be in windy conditions.
Cheers and all the best

Ian

 

[bumper]

As to drone weight vs potential for aircraft damage. Consider that the FAA limits speed or aircraft to 250 knots (288 miles per hour) below 10,000 feet. 288 mph is 422 feet per second, or about double the speed of an arrow and about 1/2 the speed of 45 ACP bullet. A drone weighing 249 grams is still over 1/2 pound. Even though we are concerned with light aircraft that will only be flying at 1/3 to 2/3 that speed (my Mooney has a top speed of 190 mph in level flight), that drone would be like hitting a brick. The 3/16" to 1/4" plexiglas would hardly slow it down as it went through the windshield.

 

[Ping^Spike]

And also a past experience with my Pro where the military took over control in the past

Mate, we need to hear more about this part.

 

[TheXmanJDD]

deleting all my content

 

[TheXmanJDD]

deleting all my content