After a routine flight i had done over and over again, I had gone for my ~15th attempt on the same route however in this unfortunate instance i had experienced something i had never seen before. I had the drone moving away from me a few hundred meters in the distance, the signal strength indicating on the controller was about half which appeared normal. As it slowly moved away from me the RC and APP suddenly fluctuated from no signal to half signal. After a few cycles in this condition and before I could turn it around and head back i completely lost the video feed and the app indicated "aircraft disconnected". As i have practiced RTH before i didn't feel too panicked, I waited for it to regain the signal so I can fly it back to safety. But to no avail after a minute. 2 minutes. 3 minutes nothing no video no RC indicator... at this point in time my heart was pounding. Usually way before this point i would have regained control and video. After about 5 long minutes with no video and and RC signal, - which seem forever- to my relief i heard the unmistakable sound of the Mavic in the distance and the suddenly over my head. It started to auto land and descend.. on top of the trees above me!!! I went from panicked to relief to terrified as it quickly dropped down on the trees. I jumped at the controls to take over but as the controller was still haywire i had no control. knowing how useless and laggy the APP can be sometimes I instinctively used the RC buttons to desperately regain control after about 10 seconds it then it respond to my relief. It stopped several meters above a tall narrow leafless tree. Once I had full control the drama ended and I landed it safety.
Before this happened I had almost 20 hours of flight time on the Mavic, with no crashes, I had never crashed it because I had always been careful studying the craft and getting used to the features. I would simulate in a controlled environment a loss in signal at short distances to observe see how the craft would react. I would practice RTH in a number of critical circumstances. But this time i was caught of guard particularly when the last line of comms (RC controller telemetry) completely went haywire.
So my lesson to all of you out there is to:
1. Get to know the safety functions of the drone. Practice it in a controlled environment, build your confidence that the drone can safety manage it self in the event that you loose complete control.
2. Accept the fact that mavic is not bullet proof, the GO app aside (which crashes regularly for me and could never by relied on). Anything with software can and will fail and crash. after a restart the controller was 100% again. never experienced it again. so my assumption is that the software within the controller crashed, (not sure if this had to do with the recent update 600)
3. Launch the drone in a clear line of sight to the sky(sounds obvious i know). But In this instance i hand launch the drone under a tree (albeit a very tall one) assuming i had 100% control given i was within range to manually land it.
4. Rely on the RC controller telemetry (if its working) and buttons only and ignore the app, the app is only good as a indicator. Over time i have forced myself to look at the RC screen for critical info rather than then APP, as it can be delayed/ laggy and can freeze. Which occurs more often than not. Buttons are the same. If you use RTH, push the button on the RC. dont rely on the app button and slider! no doubt some one will be caught out on this beveling they had send the command the drone, during a time where the app has crashed!
What I would have done differently given that I had no controls from the RC, is to turn the controller off and restarted it. The Mavic as per its design allows for the controller to be turned off and on again and reconnect even in mid flight (yes i have tried this in a controlled environment) this would had almost certainly recovered the flight controls and would have given me less to stress about. Having said this I Carnt praise the RTH function enough, without it i would have lost the darn thing big time! The Mavic as a complete unit is an awesome device but it needs to be treated with a little knowledge and respect for it to work as per the design.
I hope some of you will take the learning's from this because it has certainly taken me off guard and i have become wise since.
happy flying.
Side comment: one gripe with DJI is that everything has firmware, including the bloody charger! not everything needs software! the more software something has the more complicated inherently becomes. Which inevitably leads to malfunction.
Before this happened I had almost 20 hours of flight time on the Mavic, with no crashes, I had never crashed it because I had always been careful studying the craft and getting used to the features. I would simulate in a controlled environment a loss in signal at short distances to observe see how the craft would react. I would practice RTH in a number of critical circumstances. But this time i was caught of guard particularly when the last line of comms (RC controller telemetry) completely went haywire.
So my lesson to all of you out there is to:
1. Get to know the safety functions of the drone. Practice it in a controlled environment, build your confidence that the drone can safety manage it self in the event that you loose complete control.
2. Accept the fact that mavic is not bullet proof, the GO app aside (which crashes regularly for me and could never by relied on). Anything with software can and will fail and crash. after a restart the controller was 100% again. never experienced it again. so my assumption is that the software within the controller crashed, (not sure if this had to do with the recent update 600)
3. Launch the drone in a clear line of sight to the sky(sounds obvious i know). But In this instance i hand launch the drone under a tree (albeit a very tall one) assuming i had 100% control given i was within range to manually land it.
4. Rely on the RC controller telemetry (if its working) and buttons only and ignore the app, the app is only good as a indicator. Over time i have forced myself to look at the RC screen for critical info rather than then APP, as it can be delayed/ laggy and can freeze. Which occurs more often than not. Buttons are the same. If you use RTH, push the button on the RC. dont rely on the app button and slider! no doubt some one will be caught out on this beveling they had send the command the drone, during a time where the app has crashed!
What I would have done differently given that I had no controls from the RC, is to turn the controller off and restarted it. The Mavic as per its design allows for the controller to be turned off and on again and reconnect even in mid flight (yes i have tried this in a controlled environment) this would had almost certainly recovered the flight controls and would have given me less to stress about. Having said this I Carnt praise the RTH function enough, without it i would have lost the darn thing big time! The Mavic as a complete unit is an awesome device but it needs to be treated with a little knowledge and respect for it to work as per the design.
I hope some of you will take the learning's from this because it has certainly taken me off guard and i have become wise since.
happy flying.
Side comment: one gripe with DJI is that everything has firmware, including the bloody charger! not everything needs software! the more software something has the more complicated inherently becomes. Which inevitably leads to malfunction.
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