Return to home altitude issue

[Jan Smith]

I decided to contact DJI support to ask about this problem, and sadly the response from "Fred" was a canned answer that had nothing to do with this problem. When I politely asked them to please answer the questions I asked, "Fred" sent another irrelevant response having nothing to do with the altitude issue. I am very disappointed in DJI's support.

 

[Jan Smith]

"Fred" sent an e-mail asking why I had not communicated with him for 2 days, and I reiterated the problem, asking him to please address it. He sent some suggestions:

1. Operating Temperature Range for Mavic Air 2: -10° to 40°C (14° to 104°F), but it is suggested that you fly the drone in a slightly warmer temperature.

2. Please kindly try to reset the RTH height to a lower level such as 130 feet to have a try.

3. It is suggested that you refresh the firmware of the drone by DJI Assistant 2 For Mavic on a computer with Windows operation system.

To download it, please kindly visit https://www.dji.com/mavic-air-2/downloads

4. May I confirm what is the current height you are prepare to fly?

I decided to take them in order, and since the ambient temperature today was in the low 40s F, I decided to launch the MA2. It performed flawlessly, holding the set RTH altitude almost exactly, deviating a foot or two at most. So my conclusion is that the altitude problem with RTH is caused by cold temperatures. I plan to fly at temperatures between 25 and 42 to see where the dividing line might be between predictable and unpredictable behavior.

 

[Meta4]

So my conclusion is that the altitude problem with RTH is caused by cold temperatures. I plan to fly at temperatures between 25 and 42 to see where the dividing line might be between predictable and unpredictable behavior.

If you fly well below the min temp shown in the specs, all bets are off with regard to altitude.
The sensors are affected and will give readings that can be quite wrong and cause unpredictable altitudinal behaviour.

 

[Jan Smith]

If you fly well below the min temp shown in the specs, all bets are off with regard to altitude.
The sensors are affected and will give readings that can be quite wrong and cause unpredictable altitudinal behaviour.

Meta4 - Quite true. The minimum operating temp for the MA2 is 14 degrees F; I had these problems at 25 F. I have recommended to DJI that they warn MA2 owners of this RTH anomaly. It is still unclear why the altitude problems only happen during RTH and never when flying manually.

 

[Meta4]

I am having the same problem with my MA2, which is less than 1 1/2 years old.

Before assuming a cause for the issue, it's probably a good idea to see if it can be identified from the flight data.
Can you post flight data from a filght where this was a problem?
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report on the flight data.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides .

 

[Jan Smith]

Before assuming a cause for the issue, it's probably a good idea to see if it can be identified from the flight data.
Can you post flight data from a filght where this was a problem?
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report on the flight data.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides .

I have studied the attached record which shows the erratic behavior. Yesterday's flight at 42 degrees and the one I just completed at 32 degrees show that there were no altitude anomalies. I think it is safe to speculate that the problem is temperature-related but oddly only happens in RTH. I will try flying when we have another day below 30 degrees to try to determine if there is a temperature below which this problem occurs.

 

[Jan Smith]

It was 30 degrees F out this morning, so I decided to add one more data point to this collection. While RTH worked perfectly at 32 degrees, the anomaly happened again on this flight (see attached log file). My conclusion, at least for my MA2, is that RTH will only work properly at 32 degrees F or above. Manual flight at this temperature was fine, no altitude issues at all.