Things not to do whilst flying your drone...

[Inkedcarpenter]

That makes much more sense. Hopefully your drone was okay

Broken prop was all. Could've easily been worse.

 

[Johny5610]

Sorry for the very long post - hope I am not breaking any of the forum rules, but this is a true and fun story, which I am sure some members will relate to and enjoy.

I remember watching a documentary on the sinking of the Titanic in which they showed how there were a whole chain of small events that led to the sinking. Had any single one of those events not occurred, the Titanic would probably not have sunk. Such was the case with my first, (and only - touch wood) crash.

Whilst planning a photographic trip down to the Western Cape last year, I decided to investigate drones and quickly fell in love with the technology. I bought a Mavic Pro and spent several hundred hours over the next 4 months watching You tube videos, reading threads on this forum and other forums, studying flying rules and doing lots of additional planning for my drone flights, plus a little bit of flying - I was determined that having put in so much time and effort that I was not going to drive all the way down from Joburg to Cape Town and have a crash or a "Newbie Flyaway".

The W. Cape in winter is great for photography, green and lush and has four seasons every day. On my third day of flying, I was in a nice mountain valley covered in Fynbos, (Lots of different varieties of small colourful bushes and shrubs). In such terrain you can fly LOS but not VLOS as the small grey Mavic quickly gets lost against the background.

I was on my last battery and decided to do one last 300-400m flight down the valley followed by a pull back shot. On all previous flights I had landed on 25% battery and in order to get this last flight in I would have to break this rule, but I figured the drone would be coming back to me so not a problem - what can go wrong? So there I was on my long slow pull back shot, focusing on trying to get a nice smooth slow turn and then suddenly my drone stopped and there were branches in front of the camera - I quickly turned off the motors. (Important lesson learned - long pull back shots can be very risky as it is easy to get disorientated and for the drone to be quite some way off from where you think it is). I was facing down the valley and with trepidation I turned around and faced back over my left shoulder and looked at the steep mountainside behind me which was covered in loose scree and Fynbos and I realised that I had just reverse parked my drone into a bush somewhere up there. My 60 year old knees have good days and bad days and the thought of having to stumble and slip my way up that steep slope under the midday sun, whilst holding my tablet in front of me on a "Find my Drone" mission caused all three of us to let out huge groans.

Luckily I was flying with propeller guards and since I had been able to turn the propellers off, it occurred to me that I might be able to take off again. With heart in mouth I started the motors, pushed the left stick forward and my beautiful drone rose up into the air again - PHEW!! disaster averted.

The little lady in the DJI Go4 app politely advised me that a new home point had been set and asked if I would like to cancel it. I ignored her because I was going to fly the drone home and land it myself, which I duly did. I turned the motors off and started putting everything back in the car and the next minute from 30m away, where I had landed the drone, there was a huge roar and my drone rose up like an angry serpent. WT... you can't do That!! Stunned, I quickly reached back inside the car and pulled out the remote. The App had crashed and was all greyed out, but not a problem I only need the remote to fly..... but as I stood there staring up in disbelief, my drone ignored all stick inputs - it turned slowly back to face the direction it had come from and then raced at high speed towards the mountainside.

This was all too much for the modern part of my brain to take in - it just shut down - after all that studying and training - I was not having a "Flyaway", I was having a "Take off on my own and Flyaway". As is supposed to happen at times like this, the older reptilian part of the brain stepped into the breach, but there was not much it could do either - there was no one to shout at, no one to swear at and no one to punch. So I just stood there doing the "Newbie Goldfish" (eyes wide open, mouth slowly opening and closing).

I watched carefully to see where it was going to crash into the hillside so that I could go up and retrieve the bits. Then suddenly, just before impact it screeched to a halt and then slowly turned around and faced me - it was taunting me!!

I stood looking at it for a while with it just hovering there looking back and then as some parts of the modern brain started firing up again I heard - "Its done a RTH, it can't land because of the bush underneath".

I looked down at my hands and realised that the remote was turned off - I had obviously done this subconsciously whilst thinking about other things and putting everything back in the car - hence the App crashed and the drone did not respond to stick inputs. PHEW!! - disaster averted AGAIN !!

I could not figure out how it had started on its own though - but not important - time to think about that later - first get the drone back. I started the remote and App again and touched on "Go Fly" just in time to hear the little lady politely tell me that the battery level was critical and the drone was landing. I did not even manage to get my thumb on the left stick before the image in the app was spinning all over the place and when it stopped, the ground was up in the air and the air was down on the ground. I knew there would be no taking off again from that position - three huge groans again.

Luckily no serious damage to the drone - a couple of broken props - my knees were a different story though!!

To rub salt in the wound, when I got back home, there was a thread on the forum discussing whether a drone can take off again after landing at a different spot and do a RTH once the remote is turned off. One of the members from Canada had even put it to the test and made a video. The logical answer that came back was yes if the props keep spinning and no if the props have been stopped. On closer examination of my video - I realised that the yellow cloth of my landing pad was still swaying gently - I had not kept the sticks pressed in and down for long enough.

What a day!! Luckily unlike the Titanic, my Mavic is still afloat, I have had no further mishaps and I got some quite nice footage of my trip which I will post shortly.

 

[Kazzaaz]

Sorry for the very long post - hope I am not breaking any of the forum rules, but this is a true and fun story, which I am sure some members will relate to and enjoy.

I remember watching a documentary on the sinking of the Titanic in which they showed how there were a whole chain of small events that led to the sinking. Had any single one of those events not occurred, the Titanic would probably not have sunk. Such was the case with my first, (and only - touch wood) crash.

Whilst planning a photographic trip down to the Western Cape last year, I decided to investigate drones and quickly fell in love with the technology. I bought a Mavic Pro and spent several hundred hours over the next 4 months watching You tube videos, reading threads on this forum and other forums, studying flying rules and doing lots of additional planning for my drone flights, plus a little bit of flying - I was determined that having put in so much time and effort that I was not going to drive all the way down from Joburg to Cape Town and have a crash or a "Newbie Flyaway".

The W. Cape in winter is great for photography, green and lush and has four seasons every day. On my third day of flying, I was in a nice mountain valley covered in Fynbos, (Lots of different varieties of small colourful bushes and shrubs). In such terrain you can fly LOS but not VLOS as the small grey Mavic quickly gets lost against the background.

I was on my last battery and decided to do one last 300-400m flight down the valley followed by a pull back shot. On all previous flights I had landed on 25% battery and in order to get this last flight in I would have to break this rule, but I figured the drone would be coming back to me so not a problem - what can go wrong? So there I was on my long slow pull back shot, focusing on trying to get a nice smooth slow turn and then suddenly my drone stopped and there were branches in front of the camera - I quickly turned off the motors. (Important lesson learned - long pull back shots can be very risky as it is easy to get disorientated and for the drone to be quite some way off from where you think it is). I was facing down the valley and with trepidation I turned around and faced back over my left shoulder and looked at the steep mountainside behind me which was covered in loose scree and Fynbos and I realised that I had just reverse parked my drone into a bush somewhere up there. My 60 year old knees have good days and bad days and the thought of having to stumble and slip my way up that steep slope under the midday sun, whilst holding my tablet in front of me on a "Find my Drone" mission caused all three of us to let out huge groans.

Luckily I was flying with propeller guards and since I had been able to turn the propellers off, it occurred to me that I might be able to take off again. With heart in mouth I started the motors, pushed the left stick forward and my beautiful drone rose up into the air again - PHEW!! disaster averted.

The little lady in the DJI Go4 app politely advised me that a new home point had been set and asked if I would like to cancel it. I ignored her because I was going to fly the drone home and land it myself, which I duly did. I turned the motors off and started putting everything back in the car and the next minute from 30m away, where I had landed the drone, there was a huge roar and my drone rose up like an angry serpent. WT... you can't do That!! Stunned, I quickly reached back inside the car and pulled out the remote. The App had crashed and was all greyed out, but not a problem I only need the remote to fly..... but as I stood there staring up in disbelief, my drone ignored all stick inputs - it turned slowly back to face the direction it had come from and then raced at high speed towards the mountainside.

This was all too much for the modern part of my brain to take in - it just shut down - after all that studying and training - I was not having a "Flyaway", I was having a "Take off on my own and Flyaway". As is supposed to happen at times like this, the older reptilian part of the brain stepped into the breach, but there was not much it could do either - there was no one to shout at, no one to swear at and no one to punch. So I just stood there doing the "Newbie Goldfish" (eyes wide open, mouth slowly opening and closing).

I watched carefully to see where it was going to crash into the hillside so that I could go up and retrieve the bits. Then suddenly, just before impact it screeched to a halt and then slowly turned around and faced me - it was taunting me!!

I stood looking at it for a while with it just hovering there looking back and then as some parts of the modern brain started firing up again I heard - "Its done a RTH, it can't land because of the bush underneath".

I looked down at my hands and realised that the remote was turned off - I had obviously done this subconsciously whilst thinking about other things and putting everything back in the car - hence the App crashed and the drone did not respond to stick inputs. PHEW!! - disaster averted AGAIN !!

I could not figure out how it had started on its own though - but not important - time to think about that later - first get the drone back. I started the remote and App again and touched on "Go Fly" just in time to hear the little lady politely tell me that the battery level was critical and the drone was landing. I did not even manage to get my thumb on the left stick before the image in the app was spinning all over the place and when it stopped, the ground was up in the air and the air was down on the ground. I knew there would be no taking off again from that position - three huge groans again.

Luckily no serious damage to the drone - a couple of broken props - my knees were a different story though!!

To rub salt in the wound, when I got back home, there was a thread on the forum discussing whether a drone can take off again after landing at a different spot and do a RTH once the remote is turned off. One of the members from Canada had even put it to the test and made a video. The logical answer that came back was yes if the props keep spinning and no if the props have been stopped. On closer examination of my video - I realised that the yellow cloth of my landing pad was still swaying gently - I had not kept the sticks pressed in and down for long enough.

What a day!! Luckily unlike the Titanic, my Mavic is still afloat, I have had no further mishaps and I got some quite nice footage of my trip which I will post shortly.

No comments on the automatic return to home but a heart-pounding situation nonetheless.
Love reading posts like these. Thanks for sharing!

 

[fleurdelisxliv]

Never ignore mag interf.........went down in 10 feet of water! Its the mavic2gator now though bc she still just like new.

 

[MAGA]

A confessional thread as I’m sure we’ve all done something stupid whilst flying.

Me? The other day I flew out from the coast about 800m to photograph a shipwreck. Took the drone down to about 9m for one last shot and then hit RTH on the display.

Only I didn’t - I hit auto land instead! Luckily I noticed pretty quickly and cancelled it but was a nervous moment. Didn’t have a lot of altitude to play with.

From now on I will only use the RTH button on the actual remote...

Yeah I did that by mistake and landed my drone on the side of a mountain. 400 dollar repair bill. I had my UAV on auto lighting so flying into the sun my screen was black from the apature closing down and just hit the wrong button .I was in a bit of panic being blind. The land button is in a bad place.

 

[Ophidia Snaketongue]

In my early days of flying I did some hilarious dumb things, but I think one that stands out is an incident I had while flying my Spark.

I had taken it over to a friend who is a keen photographer to show her how it worked. It was dark outside, but I decided to take it for a quick fly anyway- not quite understanding the meaning of the term 'visual positioning'. It flew in a stable way, but drifted more than usual due the dark, and at one point, it drifted dangerously close to me. Instinctively, I raised my hand and shooed it away.

Yeaaah...that works on flies, less so on drones. All I got for my trouble was a crashed drone, two cracked propellers and a very badly cut hand!

 

[baddog]

A confessional thread as I’m sure we’ve all done something stupid whilst flying.

Me? The other day I flew out from the coast about 800m to photograph a shipwreck. Took the drone down to about 9m for one last shot and then hit RTH on the display.

Only I didn’t - I hit auto land instead! Luckily I noticed pretty quickly and cancelled it but was a nervous moment. Didn’t have a lot of altitude to play with.

From now on I will only use the RTH button on the actual remote...

That would be scary. I for one, and I do not know why, never use the RTH feature. I always try to use all of my ~20 min. flight time wisely and efficiently. So even on my way back I look for a cinematic view. Usually, just backing out of the shot all the way back.

 

[dannybgoode]

That would be scary. I for one, and I do not know why, never use the RTH feature. I always try to use all of my ~20 min. flight time wisely and efficiently. So even on my way back I look for a cinematic view. Usually, just backing out of the shot all the way back.

I quite often spot something on RTH and cancel it, take a few more pics, and then re-initiate. Works quite well as I often don’t fly out in a straight line so RTH returns over areas I’ve not necessarily flown.

 

[Taylor1430]

Rookie mistake from not fully studying and understanding RTH. After I first got the bird, I kept it close by and practiced using it. I was flying at an old mental hospital with large oak trees. The lower branches are fairly high so there was plenty of room along the ground. I was doing things like flying forward and turning around, etc....just getting used to the controls and the handling. When the low battery warning hit, I wasn't overly concerned since the drone was in close proximity to me. I figured I'd let it run down a bit more and could easily land it. Well, it got to a point where the RTH kicked in automatically. The bird paused..then shot straight up into the tree canopy...did a lot of hacking at the branches and bounced around until finally coming to rest in front of me. Fortunately, only damage was to the props...it's a great (but painful to watch) video.

 

[OldGoatMTB]

I pulled a Stupid today, I flew out 500feet 340 high.So I decided to go full speed back to my take off location . But not pushing the right stick forward I was pushing the left stick forward and had line of sight saying to myself wow the head wind is very strong and the drone is not moving forward then I look at the instrument readings and saw the 500 feet distance. So I pushed the left stick forward again (thinking it was moving forward)and watching the drone for 15 seconds or so I noticed 575 and I said why am I going further. THEN I REALIZED I was going up instead of forward... that was a pure and plain stupid move/action... Well the moral of this is I decided to fly so I could get some relief of thinking of my dad who is barely hanging on as of this morning. The Doctors are giving a lot of morphine to him and when a doctor usually does this To a really sick elderly person I learned this by past elderly family members this meant one thing....

Yeah, I sometimes try to go up and down with the right stick. So far I've been lucky!

 

[OldGoatMTB]

Other than rogue winds, water is actually safer than rugged terrain IMO. The main problem is figuring out how to walk on water but on the plus side you have perfect LOS, good signal (staying VLOS), and no possibility of running into a tree (most of the time) or mountains. I've yet to hit the ground but have clipped a few branches in my day flying over land. I still get pumped up when flying in mountainous terrain. VLOS is a bit more difficult and trying to keep below 400'AGL can be challenging. Chances of finding my downed drone in some of those places would be difficult to impossible as well. On the down side of water, some people have insurance that requires the drone be retrieved to get a replacement so you'd need a boat and a locating target like get er back.

Exactly! I've thought of attaching a piece of pool noodle so that it would float, so I could get a replacement!

 

[GadgetGuy]

Exactly! I've thought of attaching a piece of pool noodle so that it would float, so I could get a replacement!

Mask and snorkel in your kit works well, too!

 

[DanMan32]

c) Don't call it an mp2 because that does not exist. Call it what it actually is, an M2P.

I'd rather see MP2 than MP2 Zoom. Now THAT does not exist.

 

[DanMan32]

Sorry for the very long post - hope I am not breaking any of the forum rules, but this is a true and fun story, which I am sure some members will relate to and enjoy.

I remember watching a documentary on the sinking of the Titanic in which they showed how there were a whole chain of small events that led to the sinking. Had any single one of those events not occurred, the Titanic would probably not have sunk. Such was the case with my first, (and only - touch wood) crash.

Whilst planning a photographic trip down to the Western Cape last year, I decided to investigate drones and quickly fell in love with the technology. I bought a Mavic Pro and spent several hundred hours over the next 4 months watching You tube videos, reading threads on this forum and other forums, studying flying rules and doing lots of additional planning for my drone flights, plus a little bit of flying - I was determined that having put in so much time and effort that I was not going to drive all the way down from Joburg to Cape Town and have a crash or a "Newbie Flyaway".

The W. Cape in winter is great for photography, green and lush and has four seasons every day. On my third day of flying, I was in a nice mountain valley covered in Fynbos, (Lots of different varieties of small colourful bushes and shrubs). In such terrain you can fly LOS but not VLOS as the small grey Mavic quickly gets lost against the background.

I was on my last battery and decided to do one last 300-400m flight down the valley followed by a pull back shot. On all previous flights I had landed on 25% battery and in order to get this last flight in I would have to break this rule, but I figured the drone would be coming back to me so not a problem - what can go wrong? So there I was on my long slow pull back shot, focusing on trying to get a nice smooth slow turn and then suddenly my drone stopped and there were branches in front of the camera - I quickly turned off the motors. (Important lesson learned - long pull back shots can be very risky as it is easy to get disorientated and for the drone to be quite some way off from where you think it is). I was facing down the valley and with trepidation I turned around and faced back over my left shoulder and looked at the steep mountainside behind me which was covered in loose scree and Fynbos and I realised that I had just reverse parked my drone into a bush somewhere up there. My 60 year old knees have good days and bad days and the thought of having to stumble and slip my way up that steep slope under the midday sun, whilst holding my tablet in front of me on a "Find my Drone" mission caused all three of us to let out huge groans.

Luckily I was flying with propeller guards and since I had been able to turn the propellers off, it occurred to me that I might be able to take off again. With heart in mouth I started the motors, pushed the left stick forward and my beautiful drone rose up into the air again - PHEW!! disaster averted.

The little lady in the DJI Go4 app politely advised me that a new home point had been set and asked if I would like to cancel it. I ignored her because I was going to fly the drone home and land it myself, which I duly did. I turned the motors off and started putting everything back in the car and the next minute from 30m away, where I had landed the drone, there was a huge roar and my drone rose up like an angry serpent. WT... you can't do That!! Stunned, I quickly reached back inside the car and pulled out the remote. The App had crashed and was all greyed out, but not a problem I only need the remote to fly..... but as I stood there staring up in disbelief, my drone ignored all stick inputs - it turned slowly back to face the direction it had come from and then raced at high speed towards the mountainside.

This was all too much for the modern part of my brain to take in - it just shut down - after all that studying and training - I was not having a "Flyaway", I was having a "Take off on my own and Flyaway". As is supposed to happen at times like this, the older reptilian part of the brain stepped into the breach, but there was not much it could do either - there was no one to shout at, no one to swear at and no one to punch. So I just stood there doing the "Newbie Goldfish" (eyes wide open, mouth slowly opening and closing).

I watched carefully to see where it was going to crash into the hillside so that I could go up and retrieve the bits. Then suddenly, just before impact it screeched to a halt and then slowly turned around and faced me - it was taunting me!!

I stood looking at it for a while with it just hovering there looking back and then as some parts of the modern brain started firing up again I heard - "Its done a RTH, it can't land because of the bush underneath".

I looked down at my hands and realised that the remote was turned off - I had obviously done this subconsciously whilst thinking about other things and putting everything back in the car - hence the App crashed and the drone did not respond to stick inputs. PHEW!! - disaster averted AGAIN !!

I could not figure out how it had started on its own though - but not important - time to think about that later - first get the drone back. I started the remote and App again and touched on "Go Fly" just in time to hear the little lady politely tell me that the battery level was critical and the drone was landing. I did not even manage to get my thumb on the left stick before the image in the app was spinning all over the place and when it stopped, the ground was up in the air and the air was down on the ground. I knew there would be no taking off again from that position - three huge groans again.

Luckily no serious damage to the drone - a couple of broken props - my knees were a different story though!!

To rub salt in the wound, when I got back home, there was a thread on the forum discussing whether a drone can take off again after landing at a different spot and do a RTH once the remote is turned off. One of the members from Canada had even put it to the test and made a video. The logical answer that came back was yes if the props keep spinning and no if the props have been stopped. On closer examination of my video - I realised that the yellow cloth of my landing pad was still swaying gently - I had not kept the sticks pressed in and down for long enough.

What a day!! Luckily unlike the Titanic, my Mavic is still afloat, I have had no further mishaps and I got some quite nice footage of my trip which I will post shortly.

So if the motors were still running but idle, it decided to go to its new home point on signal loss due to you turning off the remote. It should be designed that if it's on the ground idle, it should not respond to signal loss.
But then again, you could intentionally land at a remote location, and then lose signal with no way to take off again.

Great story.
Reminds me of the good news bad news joke about a parachutist.

 

[DanMan32]

In my early days of flying I did some hilarious dumb things, but I think one that stands out is an incident I had while flying my Spark.

I had taken it over to a friend who is a keen photographer to show her how it worked. It was dark outside, but I decided to take it for a quick fly anyway- not quite understanding the meaning of the term 'visual positioning'. It flew in a stable way, but drifted more than usual due the dark, and at one point, it drifted dangerously close to me. Instinctively, I raised my hand and shooed it away.

Yeaaah...that works on flies, less so on drones. All I got for my trouble was a crashed drone, two cracked propellers and a very badly cut hand!

I believe the spark has gesture commands which would have helped, except for the problem of it being dark.

 

[DanMan32]

I've mixed up my right and left sticks once in a while. Fortunately it's only for a second or two, and going up when I mean out.

Doh!

 

[GadgetGuy]

I'd rather see MP2 than MP2 Zoom. Now THAT does not exist.

Actually, DJI contributed to the confusion of the Mavic 1 by adding a controller and calling it a Mavic Pro! The original Mavic Pro aircraft was always just a Mavic with controller. Then they added the Platinum version and it became a Mavic Pro Platinum, or MPP. It was still basically just a Mavic with a controller. When DJI then created the Mavic 2, it was actually already a Mavic 2 Pro because it came with the controller, using the same original Mavic nomenclature, where Pro meant it came with the RC. Compound that with the two different cameras on the Mavic 2 , the Zoom and the Pro, and now we really have a Mavic 2 Pro Zoom and a Mavic 2 Pro Pro! Everyone now still uses the capital letters of M, MP, MPP, and M2Z and M2P, but they are really M2PZ and M2PP, but the M2 dropped the wifi device control, so they dropped the Pro part for the included controller, because the M2 cannot be flown without the RC, unlike the M1. Now further confuse everyone, the Mavic 2+ will be available in January, but won't have the display built into the controller, like the P4P+, because they already have a Smart Controller, which really should have been called the M2+! Instead we now have the SC, not to be confused with the CS!

Confused yet?

As the the M2P Zoom, that does not exist yet.
2x optical zoom on a 1” sensor, even at today's new higher M2P price would be a real coup!

 

[DanMan32]

Nope. A Mavic 2 is a Mavic 2. A totally redesigned aircraft using the basic folding quad concept with two different gimbal/cameras: Pro and Zoom.
Then came Enterprise.

By your logic then M2P from my perspective would be Mavic Pro 2 Pro.
Definitely not what it is.

Besides, all the Mavics came with RCs, except the Spark.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Nope. A Mavic 2 is a Mavic 2. A totally redesigned aircraft using the basic folding quad concept with two different gimbal/cameras: Pro and Zoom.
Then came Enterprise.

By your logic then M2P from my perspective would be Mavic Pro 2 Pro.
Definitely not what it is.

Besides, all the Mavics came with RCs, except the Spark.

Yes, DJI started with new nomenclature on the Mavic 2, but the original Mavic was originally available without the RC, as a plain Mavic, with a Wifi only connection through the phone with limited range. Offered with the RC, it was called the Mavic Pro in 2016. See below for a quote from a review. It didn't sell well without the RC, so nobody remembers the plain original Mavic that wasn't a Pro!

"How much does the Mavic Pro cost?"

"The Mavic Pro is currently $999. There’s also a bundle which includes two extra batteries, a carrying case, a quad battery charger, a Mavic Pro battery to USB adapter (for charging your phone on the go) and extra propellers. There will be a cheaper option of the Mavic that doesn’t come with a controller for $749, but I would recommend getting the controller if you plan on using this drone for anything other than taking selfies and getting the occasional slow panning shot here and there."

The Ultimate DJI Mavic Pro FAQ: Every Question Answered | MyFirstDrone

We've gotten thousands of questions regarding the DJI Mavic Pro. Since we have the Mavic, it's time to answer every single one of them, all at once.

myfirstdrone.com

 

[DanMan32]

It definitely wouldn't have made sense for the original Mavic to not have an RC.
But I was focused on Phantoms at the time, so maybe I'm thinking when the P4 first came out, then the Pro. Both had a remote.