Purchased Mavic Air six months ago for dive trip to the Maldives last week. Practiced flying and hand landings for boat flights, got pretty good at it. Took off from boat, one quick lap around the boat and the video link went out, fortunately I had a good visual on the drone. The drone started acting strange and hardly responded to controls. I was able to nurse it back and just cleared the rail of the boat when it landed very hard on the deck. There was no way I could stop the landing and thank god I was over the boat or it would have set down in the water. Spent an hour on the phone with tech service but could not resolve the problem and I had to send it back. Just informed that main board went bad. Fortunately fixed under warranty. Lessons learned:
1. Practice Practice Practice - I was able to recover in an emergency.
2. Keep the drone in view - it would have been lost if I could not see it.
3. Things will go wrong at the worst time. After six months of great flights, I carried the drone 15k miles to get 30 seconds of footage.
1. Practice Practice Practice - I was able to recover in an emergency.
2. Keep the drone in view - it would have been lost if I could not see it.
3. Things will go wrong at the worst time. After six months of great flights, I carried the drone 15k miles to get 30 seconds of footage.