Question for some of the more experienced pilots

[LowFlyingMavic]

So I was flying in the woods near my home today, and the mavic air was just a few feet from me and the controller disconnected. It was low enough that after about 30 seconds of panic I just grabbed it and turned it upside down. I was afraid it would RTH , thereby climbing into the trees and crashing . Luckily for me that didn't happen. If it was just a few inches higher I wouldn't have been able to reach it.

What could I have done in that situation to reestablish connection? Would a restart of the remote or of the app been the right thing to do?

 

[lisadoc]

The most important thing to do is not something that you would do during that sort of scenario - it's something you should have done long before that type of event. If you're going to fly under a canopy of trees (and near you), then change the "loss of signal" response to "hover". You won't have the RTH fear of climbing up into the trees.

If the RC disconnects (not the app), then normally without input, the drone will hover for a few seconds before concluding that it has lost signal. There may be enough time to restart your controller. (But probably not). If you're under the trees and have it set to "hover", you have plenty of time to re-establish the connection. If you're in the open air, it should be set to RTH, but you still should try to restart the RC. If/when you reestablish a connection, you can take over again and cancel RTH.

 

[tcope]

I don't think the Air will RTH when it's that close to the RTH point.

But are you sure that the controller disconnected and not just the display device?

 

[lisadoc]

I don't think the Air will RTH when it's that close to the RTH point.

That's correct. Neither the Air nor Mavic will RTH if less than 50 feet away from the home point (or something like that) and lose signal. They will instead, auto-land. But the OP didn't mention that it was close to the home point, instead they said it was close to them. I assumed the OP took off in the open and followed the MA into the woods (in which case it would RTH if set to that), but maybe that's an incorrect assumption.

 

[LowFlyingMavic]

Thanks for the input. After taking off I followed the A.C. for 50 to 100 yards from the take off point. After it happened I set the RTH mode to hover in case it occurred again, but it didnt.

I'm fairly certain it was the controller that disconnected but could be wrong. I know I tried some stick input to lower the AC and was unsuccessful but could be that I panicked a bit... Is there a better way to tell if it's the app or the RC that disconnected. Is there an order in which it's recommended to restart them if something like this occurs ?

 

[lisadoc]

I'm fairly certain it was the controller that disconnected but could be wrong. I know I tried some stick input to lower the AC and was unsuccessful but could be that I panicked a bit... Is there a better way to tell if it's the app or the RC that disconnected. Is there an order in which it's recommended to restart them if something like this occurs ?

For the Air, there's a little tiny status LED light (just above the pause button) on the RC. If it's blinking red, the RC has lost the connection. If it's solid green, your RC is connected still. Of course you can always look on the app and see the status but if it has crashed or is frozen, this would be the easiest way to tell.

If both crash/lose connection, restart the RC (to re-establish the connection), then restart the app. Even if you can't get the app to come up, you'll at least have control with the RC once it is connected.