No crash or flyaway, but suspect I was touched by EMP weapon

[Saigondroner]

Hi folks,

I experienced a very unusual, but lucky experience. NYE, I was doing a flight test, hoping to film the fireworks in Saigon. I had some unusual problems, as I fly the route often. I cancelled doing the fireworks flight plan. However I did fly straight up, filmed for 8-10 min with no trouble, hovering. Then I dropped into ATTI mode for 2 very short periods of time. I posted over in mavic help group. Should I post here? VN newpapers are awash with videos of the police shooting down drones with EMP guns during the fireworks display. I was almost a mile away, thankfully.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Couple of things @saigondroner . . .
I'll assume you are flying a MP or M2P with Ocusync (so we can eliminate WIFI interference). If I am correct the the other thing that can initiate ATTI mode is the significant loss of satellites. I think an EMP would do a hell of a lot more than drop you into ATTI mode.

 

[Saigondroner]

Couple of things @saigondroner . . .
I'll assume you are flying a MP or M2P with Ocusync (so we can eliminate WIFI interference). If I am correct the the other thing that can initiate ATTI mode is the significant loss of satellites. I think an EMP would do a hell of a lot more than drop you into ATTI mode.

Yes, M2P, Occusync. Thanks for you perspective. Agreed, if I had been in their crosshairs, I would have sunk like a rock. Cops can't knock out the entire city, for a civilian drone using a shoulder fired device. Police were 1 mile away, using a VN version of the Chinese CA-18....it has a 400m range, nowhere near the power needed to fry all the circuitry from such a distance...the previous test flight showed 19 satellites, and several equally spaced comms connection failures. My experience with ATTI mode is that when you get it, it is due to some very strong interference/blockage when moving around, not just hovering, and does not come and go when flying stationary. Best...

 

[Prismatic]

I don’t think an “EMP gun”, if such a thing exists, would—or could—be highly directional. It would indiscriminately take out any nearby non-hardened electronic devices (phones, cars, computers, TVs, radios, camcorders, stereos, you name it) along with the “target” drone. Not a very good tool for the job.

 

[Saigondroner]

I don’t think an “EMP gun”, if such a thing exists, would—or could—be highly directional. It would indiscriminately take out any nearby non-hardened electronic devices (phones, cars, computers, TVs, radios, camcorders, stereos, you name it) along with the “target” drone. Not a very good tool for the job.

Agreed 100% EMP is cheap, easy and crude. Govt tried to use EMP to stop getaway cars, and knock out the entire block Firing up at a drone, with a tight pattern, is OK, I guess. The guns have big back scatter shields, so the police don't fry their mobiles. I won't repost, as it's elsewhere...read the news article, with several drone owners saying their drones fell out of the sky, and the video of the VN MoD shooting up at something, during the fireworks. VN is a communist country, and govt. can pretty much do what they want...

 

[Prismatic]

I won't repost, as it's elsewhere...read the news article, with several drone owners saying their drones fell out of the sky, and the video of the VN MoD shooting up at something, during the fireworks. VN is a communist country, and govt. can pretty much do what they want...

The laws of physics aren’t amenable to political whims, not even for Communists.

 

[Saigondroner]

The laws of physics aren’t amenable to political whims, not even for Communists.

Doesn't stop them from trying

The laws of physics aren’t amenable to political whims, not even for Communists.

 

[Saigondroner]

Agreed 100% EMP is cheap, easy and crude. Govt tried to use EMP to stop getaway cars, and knock out the entire block Firing up at a drone, with a tight pattern, is OK, I guess. The guns have big back scatter shields, so the police don't fry their mobiles. I won't repost, as it's elsewhere...read the news article, with several drone owners saying their drones fell out of the sky, and the video of the VN MoD shooting up at something, during the fireworks. VN is a communist country, and govt. can pretty much do what they want...

I don’t think an “EMP gun”, if such a thing exists, would—or could—be highly directional. It would indiscriminately take out any nearby non-hardened electronic devices (phones, cars, computers, TVs, radios, camcorders, stereos, you name it) along with the “target” drone. Not a very good tool for the job.

Check out Dedrone website...my favorite anti drone device is the Skywall. Kinetic Anti-drone gear

 

[sar104]

The log files - especially the mobile device DAT file - would almost certainly obviate the need for speculation about what happened.

 

[BigAl07]

The log files - especially the mobile device DAT file - would almost certainly obviate the need for speculation about what happened.

^^^^^ This

That's the only way to "see" what was happening at the time.

 

[Saigondroner]

The log files - especially the mobile device DAT file - would almost certainly obviate the need for speculation about what happened.

Yes, well noted. My normal workflow is to review flight logs via Airdata, good or bad, and do a basic correlation of events. I have been having a heck of a time retrieving the 1st 2020 log via my method.
I will collect and send the logs properly; ppl like you are really amazing at log analysis. I believe I did not lose the drone based on a lucky "hunch"... no way to fly safely. Thanks for your reply, will post ASAP.

 

[Saigondroner]

^^^^^ This

That's the only way to "see" what was happening at the time.

Yes, the AC's log does not correlate to what I thought had happened. I have verified my timeline with a few spectators, and they agree, FWIW. I'll get the logs properly.

 

[SnipeUout]

Police are not using electronic attack weapons to take drone down on public property. Those types of devices were build for private property. A good example would be a prison.

 

[Saigondroner]

Police are not using electronic attack weapons to take drone down on public property. Those types of devices were build for private property. A good example would be a prison.

Beg to differ...I live Vietnam, and is still quite communist from many perspectives. There is no private land. It is owned by the Govt. and administer to the people. Search around the forum, I posted the original articles, and someone was kind enough to translate. All hearsay, but the VN message boards claim they fell like a rock. Thanks for your post! Best....

 

[Saigondroner]

Police are not using electronic attack weapons to take drone down on public property. Those types of devices were build for private property. A good example would be a prison.

Saigon police shot down drone operators using EM Pulse rifles.

Article

mavicpilots.com

 

[DanMan32]

I doubt you're viewing the AC logs. Those are encrypted. They would be useful to see AC's perspective when you had connection loss if we could read them though.
You're probably referring to the TXT log recorded on the mobile device.

 

[Dave Maine]

Ocusync is not immune to WiFi interference. It just fights harder before giving up.

 

[maverickRKJ]

Hi folks,

I experienced a very unusual, but lucky experience. NYE, I was doing a flight test, hoping to film the fireworks in Saigon. I had some unusual problems, as I fly the route often. I cancelled doing the fireworks flight plan. However I did fly straight up, filmed for 8-10 min with no trouble, hovering. Then I dropped into ATTI mode for 2 very short periods of time. I posted over in mavic help group. Should I post here? VN newpapers are awash with videos of the police shooting down drones with EMP guns during the fireworks display. I was almost a mile away, thankfully.

pretty sure if you were hit or even got a bit of EMP you would have had a broken drone with fried circuits

 

[Saigondroner]

The log files - especially the mobile device DAT file - would almost certainly obviate the need for speculation about what happened.

Still working on the 2nd flight's logs. DJI extract has created 5-6 dat files, Datcon is parsing them, no data inside. To be clear, the 1st flight ran as expected, albiet a bit longer. I routinely lose signal on that route. I'm wondering what happened during the 2nd flight, during the fireworks.