Mysterious Tic-Tacs (Might Have) Downed Mavic Platinum Pro

[MS Coast]

Here's a 'Tic-Tac' object I filmed flying under my M2Z last week

That's a dandelion seed, or some other plant seed with a fluffy structure that allows it to be scattered by drifting with the wind.

 

[DougMcC]

Never did tell me what a Tic-Tac is...

Tic-Tac is a recently popular term used to describe several revealed UFO aerial sightings by Navy pilots ( and others ) with images recorded on long range optical/IR devices. They appear much like the white cylindrical Tic Tac candies. These observers are experienced aviators flying along the Atlantic training areas. The flight physics they have recorded are NOT compatible with known aircraft AND human tolerances. Synonym for UFO.

 

[restyler]

That's a dandelion seed, or some other plant seed with a fluffy structure that allows it to be scattered by drifting with the wind.

Could be, but it flies in a very straight line for a fluffy seed

 

[MS Coast]

Could be, but it flies in a very straight line for a fluffy seed

Yes, straight downwind. The wind away from obstructions at that altitude would be laminar.

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

Here's a 'Tic-Tac' object I filmed flying under my M2Z last week

My eyesight isn't very good, but that did look like a white-colored quadcopter zipping along like a bat out of hell. But for that insane speed I'd have been certain it was a quadcopter

 

[MS Coast]

My eyesight isn't very good, but that did look like a white-colored quadcopter zipping along like a bat out of hell. But for that insane speed I'd have been certain it was a quadcopter

A small nearby object moving slowly can give the same perception of speed as a larger object at a greater distance moving at a higher speed.

 

[Capt KO]

It's a bird. Appears to be flapping

 

[restyler]

It's a bird. Appears to be flapping

Ive been buzzed by a few birds & tbh they all look like birds - albeit slightly blurred.
As for being it another drone, anything of that size & with a speed under 60mph would still appear quite sharp and distinctive in the video.
I'm more inclined to think this may have been something like a dandelion seed as MS Coast said, although its flight path would seem rather undisturbed by my downthrust, and it does seem to have an eerie whiteish glow about it.

 

[MS Coast]

Ive been buzzed by a few birds & tbh they all look like birds - albeit slightly blurred.
As for being it another drone, anything of that size & with a speed under 60mph would still appear quite sharp and distinctive in the video.
I'm more inclined to think this may have been something like a dandelion seed as MS Coast said, although its flight path would seem rather undisturbed by my downthrust, and it does seem to have an eerie whiteish glow about it.

It appears that it left the camera frame before encountering the propwash field, and probably passed to one side. I'll have a look when I fly later this evening, but it seems to me that the camera would have to be pointed near -90 degrees to photograph something being affected by the prop wash.

Eerie whitish glow?

 

[WanderLost]

Here's a 'Tic-Tac' object I filmed flying under my M2Z last week

Haha - a phantom pro. Friends of yours?

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

The cause of this crash turned out to be as bizarre as it was avoidable. By unfortunate coincidence, the signal link between my RC controller and the Mavic Platinum Pro glitched at the precise moment when I deselected smart (low-battery) RTH while the drone was cruising at 28mph well over 3 miles out and still en route to the turnaround point where it was to fly two concentric circles over a ground structure of interest, before heading back home.

Unsure of whether my cancel RTH command was transmitted due to the ill-timed RC signal glitch, I decided to re-establish RC contact with the drone by scurrying up the ladder of a nearby 60-foot water-tank tower, with my RC controller foolishly left switched on and connected to my iPad that was nestled on the floor of the shoulder-bag slung around my neck, as I did my best primate impression scaling the tall tower. This hurried and somewhat risky expedient had proved effective as a last-ditch gambit several times in the past without anything untoward happening, but things were to wind up going depressingly awry this time around.

As fate would have it, and Lady Luck nowhere in sight, the RC controller did re-establish its signal link with the errant drone at the worst possible moment during my clambering ascent up that water tower ladder, which was regrettably before I reached my usual vantage point and while I still had both hands fully occupied climbing the ladder. The debacle that unfolded next became painfully evident after I finally retrieved the crashed drone and played back the footage documenting its final moments before it flew backward into power lines.

It just so happened that the RC controller which I had hurriedly stuffed in a side pocket of my shoulder bag for that ladder climb, wound up with both left and right joysticks in the fully aft position, meaning the throttle was cut to flight idle, and the Mavic Pro Platinum was in a fully nose-up position, which launched it into backward flight. Those two fully-aft joystick positions were received by the drone for just a few seconds while the RC controller was still crammed inside my shoulder bag as I completed my ladder ascent, but that brief moment was all it took for the drone, whose collision sensors I had thoughtfully de-selected to maximize airspeed, to unceremoniously embark on a rapid decent while flying backward, directly towards the looming high tension power lines as the camera rolled.

By the time I completed my ladder ascent moments later and retrieved by RC controller from the shoulder bag, the crash had already occurred and the drone was lying in deep grass directly beneath the high-tension power lines 3 miles away as the drone flew but a 7-mile drive away, with its strobe luckily flashing and still affixed to its rear-panel attachment location that was scant millimeters below the power line's point of impact when the drone backed into it. Litchi's final position map put me within 50 yards of the drone's crash site after I arrived in my Jeep to hunt for it in an overgrown cornfield, and that flashing Firehouse strobe light enabled a fellow searcher to find the remarkably undamaged Mavic Pro Platinum nestled in tall grass where it evidently made a soft landing, against all rational odds.

The most significant lesson I derived from this unfortunate adventure, is that for anyone who resides as I do in the Third World boondocks beyond the jurisdiction of the FAA and CAA, and who has purchased one of those extra capacity batteries that can allow a Mavic 1 Pro or Mavic Pro Platinum to cruise aloft for 35 minutes as opposed to 23 minutes of a stock M1P battery, it is VITAL that BOTH obstacle avoidance AND low-battery RTH should be disabled BEFORE takeoff, so that intermittent RC signal connectivity does not lead to unexpected outcomes of the sort I described here. Also, it is best to power OFF the RC controller shortly after takeoff and to leave the RC controller off until 5 minutes before its expected time of arrival, which is usually a nominal 5 minutes EARLIER than would be deduced from Litchi's on-screen flight duration estimate.

Provided that winds are calm, programming fully autonomous beyond-RC signal Litchi waypoint missions only requires that the estimated flight time shown on the Litchi Mission Hub flight planning map is LESS THAN 35 minutes when the drone is fitted with an extra range battery. Since autonomous Litchi waypoint flights generally arrive at the home launch point 5 minutes BEFORE the estimated flight duration shown on the Litchi Mission Hub screen elapses, a Litchi waypoint flight estimated to last 35 minutes will complete its programmed sequence of waypoints and arrive at the launch point precisely 30 minutes after the flight was launched, assuming of course that winds aloft are moderate to calm for the duration of that waypoint mission.

 

[Kywon McCain]

Here's a 'Tic-Tac' object I filmed flying under my M2Z last week

That's a Phantom 4.

 

[restyler]

That's a Phantom 4.

I'm willing to believe almost anything, but if it was another drone then I'd have expected to get a clearer image of it - at least in one of the frames

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

As an uplifting footnote to my crash report, I sent the Mavic Po Platinum on another waypoint mission following the same flight path as the last ill-fated mission that ended in a crash, but at 246 feet altitude all the way. To my utter amazement, the ONLY post-crash anomaly that I previously observed, namely that the camera would not stay tilted down to my preferred -20-degree position, mysteriously resolved itself.

Not only that, but the annoying video footage issue that I observed in the past with this drone, in which the footage filmed was badly out of focus, ALSO righted itself completely after that crash, such that this drone now flies and films absolutely flawlessly, DESPITE a massive rear fuselage crack right where the delicate GPS unit is housed. This Mavic Pro Platinum is a rampaging beast that simply refuses to die, despite losing a skirmish with a high-tension, high-voltage electricity cable.

I am absolutely sure that this Mavic Pro Platinum, fitted with the after-market longer-range hunch-back battery I snagged on Ali Express, WILL prove capable of covering a whopping 14 miles round trip flying fully autonomous Litchi waypoint missions while I relax indoors with the controller switched off. When I complete my first record-shattering long-distance waypoint flight, I will probably open a new discussion thread just to boast about that feat. Over and out for now fellow brethren of the Mavic1 Pro.