I took my Mavic Air out this morning to do some sunrise photography. I flew out about 2500 feet over a neighbor's farm. I wanted to get some good shots of his place. I took off at our cabin, about 200 feet above the farm. So I flew out, then dropped down to about 90 feet and snapped some photos. I was getting ready to do a spherical pano, when I lost connection with the drone. Oh boy. I thought, "good thing this has Return to Home!". I was expecting that as it rose to the return to home altitude, that it would once again pick up the connection. It didn't. I started to get worried and started thinking about what a drag it will be to have to go hunting for it. I thought that maybe it sustained a failure and dropped out of the sky. I didn't hear any gunshots, so I didn't think it got shot out of the sky. I just waited. I started to think I heard the props singing their song, but dismissed that as hopeful sentiment. Then it was for sure - I could really hear it coming back to papa. Yet, the controller still didn't reconnect. It settled in over the home point and came back down exactly where it took off from. It stopped about 4 feet from the ground and just hovered. I expected that it would land, but it just sat there. So I power cycled the controller. It reconnected and then I took over to set it down onto the ground.
I can safely say that this was probably my most memorable flight. I haven't had the courage to test a real return-to-home situation, but can happily commend DJI for a perfect recovery.
This leads to a few questions:
1. I thought that when the controller lost connection, then once it begins returning, it would reconnect.
2. Does return to home land or just hover over the ground until the battery gets weak?
3. This could perhaps be due to my fault. It had reported a "firmware inconsistency", followed by a complaint that the no-fly database needed to be updated. I don't need the no-fly database updated, and I had flown before with this configuration with no issues, so I dismissed the firmware inconsistency message as possibly being connected to the no-fly database message. Probably not a good thing to do.
All in all, I can say that I am so impressed and pleased that the auto return to home function saved my drone!!!
Maybe I should post the log of the flight so you experts can see if there are any clues about what happened. I'm so happy that I'm not having to cry for help trying to locate it!!!!!
I can safely say that this was probably my most memorable flight. I haven't had the courage to test a real return-to-home situation, but can happily commend DJI for a perfect recovery.
This leads to a few questions:
1. I thought that when the controller lost connection, then once it begins returning, it would reconnect.
2. Does return to home land or just hover over the ground until the battery gets weak?
3. This could perhaps be due to my fault. It had reported a "firmware inconsistency", followed by a complaint that the no-fly database needed to be updated. I don't need the no-fly database updated, and I had flown before with this configuration with no issues, so I dismissed the firmware inconsistency message as possibly being connected to the no-fly database message. Probably not a good thing to do.
All in all, I can say that I am so impressed and pleased that the auto return to home function saved my drone!!!
Maybe I should post the log of the flight so you experts can see if there are any clues about what happened. I'm so happy that I'm not having to cry for help trying to locate it!!!!!
