Please help - Lost Mavic

[GreggC]

Yep,
Still dark here in ABQ!!

 

[sar104]

At least you have some fairly steady conditions during the flight from which to estimate the wind and drift, as suggested above. Looking at the pitch and speed data shows the following:



Towards the end of the flight, at around 100 m altitude, the aircraft is applying full 25° pitch to resist the wind, but still drifting south at a mean speed of just over 4 m/s. Note that the pitch and speed are entirely independent of elevator input since it is applying maximum pitch and cannot even hold position.

Looking at distance travelled and battery % as a function of time:



Extrapolating battery power down to 15% and home distance based on drift at 100 m gets a predicted home distance at autoland (if it was set to 15%) of 4000 m. It will also take around 30 s to descend to the ground, adding another 120 m.

Extending the flight track to that distance gives the following result:



That's a little short of @msinger's estimate, but in the same general area.

 

[msinger]

Extrapolating battery power down to 15% and home distance based on drift at 100 m gets a predicted home distance at autoland (if it was set to 15%)

How exactly do you set the Mavic to auto land at 15% battery power?

 

[sar104]

How exactly do you set the Mavic to auto land at 15% battery power?

Critical battery warning level in the Go app, which triggers autolanding, takes values between 10% and 25%. I selected 15% because in most of the logs that I've looked at, autoland appeared to trigger at 15%. If that's not the correct value then the distance will be different, of course. What value did you use to estimate?

 

[msinger]

Critical battery warning level in the Go app, which triggers autolanding

That setting just displays a warning in DJI GO when the battery reaches the set level. It's not used to determine when the battery has actually reached the critically low level.

 

[sar104]

That setting just displays a warning in DJI GO when the battery reaches the set level. It's not used to determine when the battery has actually reached the critically low level.

Interesting. I was going by page 15 of the manual that states that autoland is triggered at the point of critical low battery warning, but perhaps that is incorrect. So what value did you use for your estimate?

 

[Xtreme Drone Pilot]

Xtreme Drone Pilot decided to put up the lecture maybe he could have also put up the page where it shows you how to find your drone before the lecture

Pilots who don't RTFM, usually need/have superior skills in finding lost drones; us RTFMers, we suck at this as we never need those superior skills. It's also rich ($1K per flight) vs. poor (pennies per flight). As a poor RTFMer, I have no advice to offer. Sorry.

 

[Xtreme Drone Pilot]

Yep, thanks, I've learned Sport Mode would've saved me.

The key to learning is not to learn after the crash.

 

[Mavic19963]

If your using Mode 2 on the Remote the right stick down is reverse !!
The drone will fly backward if you moved the right stick down.

Exactly! And if the orientation of the MP was nose pointing towards him, right stick down would've sent the bird in the opposite direction, correct?

 

[BD0G]

With persistence I hope you find your bird. I know that it can make ones stomach sink when thier Mavic drifts away and is not recovered immediately. I have had mine drift and immediately switched over to "Sport Mode". Then the speed and forward pitch was increased so I was able to slice through the wind and descend. Reading the manual and learning from this forum I had already prepared for such a scenario in my mind.

You have a good chance of finding it as there is not a whole hell of a lot around that area and the Mavic is small and undetectable by a passer by unless they were in the area when the Mavic went into critical landing mode. I would not wait and search as soon as possible.

Hope to see pictures of the condition of your recovered Mavic.

 

[Porto]

RTH in "P Mode" is 22mph, obviously if the wind is above 22mph she aint coming home.
In the future if you find yourself in a high wind situation, and it has happened to me,
What I did was, put it in "Sport Mode" and then initiate RTH, "Sport Mode" will give
you 40mph+, then push the right stick forward and she'll come home.

A little bit of correction here. Even if you are in Sport mode, when you hit RTH it will default to P mode parameters (while it will also turn off OA). However, as Sar104 mentioned, the OP's Mavic had already applied the full P mode 25 deg pitch. The best thing the OP should have done was to switch to Sport mode and brought it home manually. He should've have tried to fly as low as possible in Sport mode while still maintaining LOS to avoid getting disconnected.

Hopefully the OP can find this Mavic back.

 

[GreggC]

A little bit of correction here. Even if you are in Sport mode, when you hit RTH it will default to P mode parameters (while it will also turn off OA). However, as Sar104 mentioned, the OP's Mavic had already applied the full P mode 25 deg pitch. The best thing the OP should have done was to switch to Sport mode and brought it home manually. He should've have tried to fly as low as possible in Sport mode while still maintaining LOS to avoid getting disconnected.

Hopefully the OP can find this Mavic back.

Hmm,
When Im in Sport Mode and hit RTH I still have Sport Mode speed available to me,
often times I use RTH in Sport Mode and fly home in excess of 30mph.
Not sure if your statement is correct, although I am on firmware v01.03.1000,
Maybe its changed ??
Or am I getting confused with my P4 ??
Too cold to fly today for a test.

 

[Porto]

Hmm,
When Im in Sport Mode and hit RTH I still have Sport Mode speed available to me,
often times I use RTH in Sport Mode and fly home in excess of 30mph.
Not sure if your statement is correct, although I am on firmware v01.03.1000,
Maybe its changed ??
Or am I getting confused with my P4 ??
Too cold to fly today for a test.

Not sure if it's changed in the later FW, but RTH will default to P mode in FW .700 and below.

P mode OA off with tailwind can reach 31mph. Even during RTH where the default speed is 10m/s (22mph), if you push the right stick forward you can reach 31mph if you are having tailwind.

 

[GreggC]

Not sure if it's changed in the later FW, but RTH will default to P mode in FW .700 and below.

P mode OA off with tailwind can reach 31mph. Even during RTH where the default speed is 10m/s (22mph), if you push the right stick forward you can reach 31mph if you are having tailwind.

Understood,
Im probably mistaken.
Thanks for the info,
Ill play with it when it warms up.

 

[Porto]

Understood,
Im probably mistaken.
Thanks for the info,
Ill play with it when it warms up.

No problem, just wanted to straighten up the info.

I really doubt if DJI has changed the default parameter for the RTH in the later FW. I think what happen is that as you switch to Sport mode, OA is deactivated. Then when you press RTH, you are in P mode with OA off. Top speed is about 31mph.

Well, it's getting a bit off topic here . Let's hope the OP can find his Mavic back.

 

[Dabrain]

Hope you find MP. Plenty of posts about you register with the FAA not the drone. So if someone picks up your MP they probably won't be doing anything but flying recklessly. Drone crashes no loss and walk away.

 

[Turn11]

Sorry I meant left stick down. It's odd because during manual, it maintained fairly steady horizontal speed and altitude. It's like stick control didn't work at work.

Did you have good antenna position. Antenna position the flat of the antenna (not the ends) should be facing the drone for maximum radiation pattern.

 

[Duse]

Still dark here in California

these guys gave u some great search starting points,,,did you do a SAR