Scary Return Home

[skyview]

Mavic Pro paralysed by an obstacle 149,600,000 km away - Has anyone else seen this?

Out at dawn on the weekend to get some early morning scenery, so I stand with the sun behind me and fly the Mavic out in front of me and up into the distance to about 45m altitude. Then I press the RTH button (RTH altitude = 30m) expecting it to come back, but it turns around and then obstacle warnings start going off. Clearly there is no obstacle nearby, but it then ascends to maximum altitude and gets stuck there.

I eventually brought it back by cancelling the RTH and manually flying it back ignoring constant obstacle warning signals. Seems that flying directly into the Sun fools the visual system into thinking there is an obstacle where there isn't one. It kept gaining height to avoid the Sun until it reached maximum altitude and then couldn't go up or come back!

I am a novice, and this was a rather unexpected and surprising situation, especially as I'd been practising for weeks with RTH in more controlled circumstances and not come across any problems.

I know you can switch off obstacle avoidance in RTH, but in the heat of the moment this didn't occur to me.

Any thoughts, suggestions or comments? I thought others might like to be warned about this, and not to get too reliant on RTH.

 

[Robbyg]

There are litterly dozens of threads on this subject!
You were lucky, many pilots have ended up losing or crashing their Mavic because they failed to realize what was happening and the drone just hovered until it forced landed at 10%.

Rob

 

[tmoerel]

Easy.....next time this happens switch to sport mode. Fly to a point where you can turn it away from the sun and fly back. In sport mode forward vision is turned off so it will ignore the sun. Careful of obstacles though and if you are not used to sports mode use small stick movements!

 

[4wd]

You can usually turn or reverse but not go forward - options there, but sport mode to shut OA off is best way.
You can still proceed at modest speed.
Obstacle avoidance reduces forward speed substantially anyway, there's really no need to have it on if not near any obstacles.

 

[collins]

Yes something similar happened to me except the RTH was triggered by a lost connection about 800m away. The obstacle avoidance warnings simply drove the Mavic higher and higher until it reached its maximum altitude setting of 400m. Being a bit of a newbie, I was frailing around frantically with very spotty connection trying to cancel RTH and obstacle avoidance. Eventually with the battery near 10%, the Mavic started to descend for land. And eventually I regained control and managed to land in a nearby public park.

The incident certainly got my pulse racing but I sort of reckon that any misfortune that doesnt harm you makes you stronger. I have certainly learned a lot (which I should really have known before) and would be in a far better position to handle the problem now.

 

[Will.i.am]

The Mavic is a quad - it can fly backwards. You don't have to point the nose in the direction that you want to fly. Try using Homelock instead of RTH. Pull the stick back and it will fly towards you, no matter what its orientation is.

 

[skyview]

Thank you, I hadn'd even thought about using home lock, that is a brilliant idea.

 

[DomoDan]

This is the first I've heard of HomeLock! I read the entire manual on a long flight too. Off to google that one.

 

[hychewright]

If you are flying in a clear area you could always turn obstacle avoidance off. That is what I do when flying on bright sunny day.

 

[Turnerm]

The Mavic is a quad - it can fly backwards. You don't have to point the nose in the direction that you want to fly. Try using Homelock instead of RTH. Pull the stick back and it will fly towards you, no matter what its orientation is.

I would've never thought to use Homelock!! Really smart idea! I would've just put it in Sport Mode, pointed towards home and started hauling back home.

 

[Will.i.am]

I would've never thought to use Homelock!! Really smart idea! I would've just put it in Sport Mode, pointed towards home and started hauling back home.

I'm pretty sure that Homelock works in Sport mode. So you get the increased speed, no OA, and it doesn't matter which way its pointed. Just watch your altitude and pull the stick back until you can hear/see it overhead, then descend and land.