Hey all.
I had a flyaway on my Mini Christmas Eve that I had thought was simply my inexperience in putting it up with too much wind.
Luckily I was able to recover the drone to fly another day, but after I had some prop issues recently that was expertly diagnosed in this forum, I though that I would post my logs of the fly away event to see if anyone has any ideas other than wind as the cause of the issue that I had.
It was Christmas Eve and we were in the middle of a major fire event here in the Blue Mountains of Sydney Australia.
There was a hot spot of fire activity appearing on a satellite based heat source map that a LOT of people were using to get the real picture of the state of the fires, and there was a spot showing that was very close to my house and in an area untouched by fire.
If there was fire in this area, a lot of people would have to be evacuated immediately.
I checked OpenSky and determined that we were not in any no fly zones at that time and headed out with a neighbour to check out the location in dense bushland.
It was a very quick look and see and there was nothing there at all, a data error in the reporting, so I started to bring the drone straight back.
It was blown to the north west, and wouldnt go where I told it, then began to lose altitude.
I was on the top of a ridge and the Mini kept losing altitude and heading away from me.
I changed to sport and it made no difference.
To make matters worse we have rather large cliffs here and the mini was losing altitude over the edge of the cliff and as it did so I started to lose signal.
It engaged RTH on loss of signal and started to make some headway, then I stupidly decided to interrupt RTH to fly myself, and it started losing ground again.
This happened a few times.
Battery was getting very low, so I picked a spot that I might be able to retrieve it from and let it auto land on lack of battery and no signal.
Very luckily I was able to retrieve it not too long after after a very brisk hike
and it was EXACTLY where the map and find my drone said it would be.
I managed to get it about 10m from the walking track and luckily 1-2m from the cliff edge.
Anyway, that is the background, attached are the logs.
Any analysis of this event is appreciated, and if it is, "stupid you, that was all wind" then that is all good too. :-D
I had a flyaway on my Mini Christmas Eve that I had thought was simply my inexperience in putting it up with too much wind.
Luckily I was able to recover the drone to fly another day, but after I had some prop issues recently that was expertly diagnosed in this forum, I though that I would post my logs of the fly away event to see if anyone has any ideas other than wind as the cause of the issue that I had.
It was Christmas Eve and we were in the middle of a major fire event here in the Blue Mountains of Sydney Australia.
There was a hot spot of fire activity appearing on a satellite based heat source map that a LOT of people were using to get the real picture of the state of the fires, and there was a spot showing that was very close to my house and in an area untouched by fire.
If there was fire in this area, a lot of people would have to be evacuated immediately.
I checked OpenSky and determined that we were not in any no fly zones at that time and headed out with a neighbour to check out the location in dense bushland.
It was a very quick look and see and there was nothing there at all, a data error in the reporting, so I started to bring the drone straight back.
It was blown to the north west, and wouldnt go where I told it, then began to lose altitude.
I was on the top of a ridge and the Mini kept losing altitude and heading away from me.
I changed to sport and it made no difference.
To make matters worse we have rather large cliffs here and the mini was losing altitude over the edge of the cliff and as it did so I started to lose signal.
It engaged RTH on loss of signal and started to make some headway, then I stupidly decided to interrupt RTH to fly myself, and it started losing ground again.
This happened a few times.
Battery was getting very low, so I picked a spot that I might be able to retrieve it from and let it auto land on lack of battery and no signal.
Very luckily I was able to retrieve it not too long after after a very brisk hike

I managed to get it about 10m from the walking track and luckily 1-2m from the cliff edge.
Anyway, that is the background, attached are the logs.
Any analysis of this event is appreciated, and if it is, "stupid you, that was all wind" then that is all good too. :-D