RTH Fail - experienced pilot, never thought it would happen to me :(

[DanMan32]

Throttle was mentioned but not in which direction. It was also mentioned he was at 400ft. By default that's altitude limit.

When OA kicks in, you're frequently required to let go of sticks to reset the emergency brake before you can continue.

 

[sar104]

Throttle was mentioned but not in which direction. It was also mentioned he was at 400ft. By default that's altitude limit.

When OA kicks in, you're frequently required to let go of sticks to reset the emergency brake before you can continue.

All the stick inputs are shown in post #18.

 

[Meta4]

Throttle was mentioned but not in which direction. It was also mentioned he was at 400ft. By default that's altitude limit.

When OA kicks in, you're frequently required to let go of sticks to reset the emergency brake before you can continue.

Most of the recorded flight data shows the sticks centred.
The flyer pulled the left stick down seven times and the drone never moved.

 

[sesd97]

Thanks again to everybody for your input.
My conclusion is that because the drone was in RTH mode, but stuck in 'purgatory' and couldn't clear the OA braking sequence, (which needs the sticks to be acknowledged as centered).....because the drone could never confirm that, it was therefore stuck in OA brake mode, and the RTH function could never trump the OA at that time......so stayed stationary till the end and auto-landed in the same spot.

My only alternative was to throw the 'sport mode' switch, which I never thought of.....that may have been the trick to this puzzle!

Will do lite tests on everything tomorrow (just in case)...it was a bigger problem than what I described above.
Thanks again to all for your time and thoughts.............

 

[Meta4]

My conclusion is that because the drone was in RTH mode, but stuck in 'purgatory' and couldn't clear the OA braking sequence, (which needs the sticks to be acknowledged as centered).....because the drone could never confirm that, it was therefore stuck in OA brake mode, and the RTH function could never trump the OA at that time......so stayed stationary till the end and auto-landed in the same spot.

There's something else at work here.
Your joysticks were centred for almost all of the flight.
It's very unusual that your joystick input did not change the altitude or yaw angle of the drone.

My only alternative was to throw the 'sport mode' switch, which I never thought of.....that may have been the trick to this puzzle!

A better option would have been to cancel RTH and fly a different direction.

 

[Twalker]

Friends, hope you're all flying safe!
Have 4 DJI drones, flow literally hundreds of flights....issue free (till now)!
Yesterday went on an incredible hike and threw out my MP1, flew for 17 minutes with no problems and being only 1,000 ft away from me at most, and at 400' above from home point, I thought time to come home......(thats when the not so fun part started) :

- Lost signal (wow I thought, bad cable maybe?)
- Unplugged and replugged in , with no success
- closed the dji4 go app on my phone, restarted and yes, reconnected! (wow, I was happy)
- pressed controller sticks to take control of drone...NOTHING!, zero effect....oh crap, now I'm in trouble!
- initiated RTH ....(tons of beeping and recognition that she'll RTH)
- ............ahhgggggg, nothing, won't RTH (wow, panicking now.....)
- 2 minutes later, battery low and auto lands....
- I immediately in DJI4 Go app, go to "find my drone" ..... even though it's not the 'exact' location, I find my drone 30 minutes later.... (phew, totally relieved)

....and now, post-mortum please from the experts. I've included all my .dat files, and AirData files...........

thanks in advance for your review

Reading your post closely this DIDN'T happen to you, but in times of panic things can get muddled....I'd had a nice evening flight around 20 minutes like yourself, I wasn't to far away but I'd stayed out to long and realised I was running late so I pressed the RTH button, m...y Mavic Pro turned itsef around to come home....but just stayed stationery, no response from my sticks....turned off RTH...still the same... what could it be... think think think!! (trying not to panic), then it dawned on me! I switched to sports-mode (which turns off obstacle avoidance), she immediatly responded! What had happened was when the Mavic turned round to come home the low evening sun had activated O.A. and she just wouldn't move forward, turning on sports-mode switches off O.A. and I was able to bring her home safely. phew!

 

[Donnie Frank]

- Lost signal (wow I thought, bad cable maybe?)

So the 5-bar progress indicator went from 5 bars to none? No warning whatsoever?

I find my progress bar almost always drops a bit at a time. I've yet to attempt flying out past 2 bars of reception.

D

 

[Flynz]

Worst horror story the way I fly. Drone would be lost. But ah sports mode. I’ve had to use it for strong winds too. Get back over land. Thanks for the post and all the comments.

 

[Sd80mac]

So it stop dead right there?? No "plan b" or next option programmed into it?

It cant turn around 90 or 180 degree and fly out 40-50. Or 100' then turn around and go on rth?

Or retract to cloest flight route to head back since there was no obstacleon that flight?

It should have something like that

The reason that the aircraft didn't actually return to the home point, even though it was in failsafe RTH mode, was that the OA system applied the emergency brake. It detected something in its path. That happened a few times previously during the flight too - always when facing approximately SSE.

View attachment 86840

 

[sar104]

So it stop dead right there?? No "plan b" or next option programmed into it?

It cant turn around 90 or 180 degree and fly out 40-50. Or 100' then turn around and go on rth?

Or retract to cloest flight route to head back since there was no obstacleon that flight?

It should have something like that

The RTH schema doesn't have a plan B.

 

[DDS]

Friends, hope you're all flying safe!
Have 4 DJI drones, flow literally hundreds of flights....issue free (till now)!
Yesterday went on an incredible hike and threw out my MP1, flew for 17 minutes with no problems and being only 1,000 ft away from me at most, and at 400' above from home point, I thought time to come home......(thats when the not so fun part started) :

- Lost signal (wow I thought, bad cable maybe?)
- Unplugged and replugged in , with no success
- closed the dji4 go app on my phone, restarted and yes, reconnected! (wow, I was happy)
- pressed controller sticks to take control of drone...NOTHING!, zero effect....oh crap, now I'm in trouble!
- initiated RTH ....(tons of beeping and recognition that she'll RTH)
- ............ahhgggggg, nothing, won't RTH (wow, panicking now.....)
- 2 minutes later, battery low and auto lands....
- I immediately in DJI4 Go app, go to "find my drone" ..... even though it's not the 'exact' location, I find my drone 30 minutes later.... (phew, totally relieved)

....and now, post-mortum please from the experts. I've included all my .dat files, and AirData files...........

thanks in advance for your review

Glad you found your drone. why not send in your drone for a free inspection?
Free shipping both ways you & only pay if we fix
Click here for your free estimate

 

[DanMan32]

Eventually it's going to encounter the sun as it has to turn back to get back on course. Besides, it doesn't know it's the sun or any other unavoidable obstacle.
The MA and M2 does try climbing over obstacles, but that's not going to work.

The best approach is for the pilot to be aware that the sun being at a low angle is a possible problem going home as it would for some photo and video shots, and like a heavy wind might be. Unlike wind though, you can turn off OA or go into sport mode and fly manually the rest of the way.

 

[Sd80mac]

Sad... it should....

The RTH schema doesn't have a plan B.