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Thought I almost lost it...

Halcyon

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Hi. New member/new drone pilot here. I received my MA2 yesterday and was blown away by how awesome it is in just about every respect. This morning, on my fourth flight, I had an heart stopping issue. I was about 20 minutes into a flight, about 1000 ft away, at about 380 ft altitude. The DJI Fly app gave a warning that winds were too high and return to home was unavailable. Two seconds later, the screen went black and that's when my heart skipped a beat. Thinking that the phone's display timed out, I pressed the power button on the phone and the app initially displayed a black background with the various icons in the margin, and then the video feed returned. I activated RTH and the drone returned safely.

Has anyone else experience such a glitch, or is there another possible explanation? Also, is there a good resource available for knowing winds aloft? The closest airport to my location is 7 miles away.
 
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Hi. New member/new drone pilot here. I received my MA2 yesterday and was blown away by how awesome it is in just about every respect. This morning, on my fourth flight, I had an heart stopping issue. I was about 20 minutes into a flight, about 1000 ft away, at about 380 ft altitude. The DJI Fly app gave a warning that winds were too high and return to home was unavailable. Two seconds later, the screen went black and that's when my heart skipped a beat. Thinking that the phone's display timed out, I pressed the power button on the phone and the app initially displayed a black background with the various icons in the margin, and then the video feed returned. I activated RTH and the drone returned safely.

Has anyone else experience such a glitch, or is there another possible explanation? Also, is there a good resource available for knowing winds aloft? The closest airport to my location is 7 miles away.
You have to love RTH
 
Hi. New member/new drone pilot here. I received my MA2 yesterday and was blown away by how awesome it is in just about every respect. This morning, on my fourth flight, I had an heart stopping issue. I was about 20 minutes into a flight, about 1000 ft away, at about 380 ft altitude. The DJI Fly app gave a warning that winds were too high and return to home was unavailable. Two seconds later, the screen went black and that's when my heart skipped a beat. Thinking that the phone's display timed out, I pressed the power button on the phone and the app initially displayed a black background with the various icons in the margin, and then the video feed returned. I activated RTH and the drone returned safely.

Has anyone else experience such a glitch, or is there another possible explanation? Also, is there a good resource available for knowing winds aloft? The closest airport to my location is 7 miles away.
You have much to learn, Grasshopper!

You came close to a "blow-away" disaster, and RTH was probably your worst choice. The wind at that altitude is generally far stronger than at ground level, and the drone won't descend to your RTH height if it's already above it when RTH is activated. Had the wind not abated a bit just when you reconnected, you'd have lost your brand-new drone.

Faced with a "blow-away" situation, you should descend to the lowest safe altitude and fly home manually; RTH does not apply the maximum available power to the drone.

I don't mind saying "You were flying beyond your ability", because I once crashed a drone for that same hubris.
 
You have much to learn, Grasshopper!

You came close to a "blow-away" disaster, and RTH was probably your worst choice. The wind at that altitude is generally far stronger than at ground level, and the drone won't descend to your RTH height if it's already above it when RTH is activated. Had the wind not abated a bit just when you reconnected, you'd have lost your brand-new drone.

Faced with a "blow-away" situation, you should descend to the lowest safe altitude and fly home manually; RTH does not apply the maximum available power to the drone.

I don't mind saying "You were flying beyond your ability", because I once crashed a drone for that same hubris.
Sure, I understand that winds are higher at altitude, and I should have determined how high before flying. Lesson learned. However, given the screen going black, wouldn't it be unwise to descend under the circumstances? Is it normal for the controls to go dark in high winds?
 
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You basically will never lose the drone that way. When all else fails, the drone just starts heading back to the marked home location, and will even land itself there if there’s no intervention.

This is my 3rd DJI drone and I pretty routinely run the drone out to the limits until I black screen on purpose.

You could fly the drone a mile out, power down your phone and controller and go in the house. When you come back the drone will be sitting where you took off from [emoji23].

You’ll see. Once you build confidence with it, there’s almost no limit to how you can push it... At times you forget that you’re even piloting a flying craft. It just seems like a magical camera in the air that you’re moving around. The idea of it falling out of the sky becomes sort of remote..
 
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You basically will never lose the drone that way. When all else fails, the drone just starts heading back to the marked home location, and will even land itself there if there’s no intervention.

This is my 3rd DJI drone and I pretty routinely run the drone out to the limits until I black screen on purpose.

You could fly the drone a mile out, power down your phone and controller and go in the house. When you come back the drone will be sitting where you took off from [emoji23].

You’ll see. Once you build confidence with it, there’s almost no limit to how you can push it...
That is about the worst advice I have ever seen.
 
That is about the worst advice I have ever seen.

Why? Because he had a wind warning? I guess you don’t have a Mini... It’s about the most routine warning you get, and it doesn’t mean you’re remotely in danger of losing the drone...
 
Why? Because he had a wind warning? I guess you don’t have a Mini... It’s about the most routine warning you get, and it doesn’t mean you’re remotely in danger of losing the drone...
I suggest you read some true stories of blow-aways, particularly with the Mini: Mavic Crash & Flyaway Assistance
 
I suggest you read some true stories of blow-aways, particularly with the Mini: Mavic Crash & Flyaway Assistance

Oh believe me, I’ve seen plenty. Plenty of “brother in-laws” buying the $400 drone and flying it downwind with 35mph wind gusts. Of which, probably 80% of them could have been avoided by simply switching the drone over to sport mode.

This platform is a lot more robust than the mini.. I’d confidently put the Air 2 in the positions that would do the mini in, and wouldn’t worry at all.. The worst thing that will happen is a brief slowdown to 8mph at the peak of a gust and then it’ll resume a reasonable speed..
 
You basically will never lose the drone that way. When all else fails, the drone just starts heading back to the marked home location, and will even land itself there if there’s no intervention.

This is my 3rd DJI drone and I pretty routinely run the drone out to the limits until I black screen on purpose.

You could fly the drone a mile out, power down your phone and controller and go in the house. When you come back the drone will be sitting where you took off from [emoji23].

You’ll see. Once you build confidence with it, there’s almost no limit to how you can push it... At times you forget that you’re even piloting a flying craft. It just seems like a magical camera in the air that you’re moving around. The idea of it falling out of the sky becomes sort of remote..

Until the day you step back out and it's not sitting where you took off from. I know you're using that as an extreme example, but RTH is not a panacea. It mostly works as intended, but cannot overcome strong winds aloft, a too low battery, loss of GPS, etc. And as others have pointed out, under some extremes, it can be a fatal choice or at the least, a poorer option than manually flying it home or landing in a known safe spot.

First time I used RTH was with an old Phantom 1 with no video feed. Lost sight of it and had zero orientation. RTH had it come home and land . . . I was suitably amazed and thankful. Today's RTH is way better of course.
 
... This platform is a lot more robust than the mini.. I’d confidently put the Air 2 in the positions that would do the mini in, and wouldn’t worry at all.. The worst thing that will happen is a brief slowdown to 8mph at the peak of a gust and then it’ll resume a reasonable speed..
The wind warning is calibrated to the drone's capabilities, so your point is no point at all. Any drone--even your magic MA2--can blow away.
 
Hi. New member/new drone pilot here. I received my MA2 yesterday and was blown away by how awesome it is in just about every respect. This morning, on my fourth flight, I had an heart stopping issue. I was about 20 minutes into a flight, about 1000 ft away, at about 380 ft altitude. The DJI Fly app gave a warning that winds were too high and return to home was unavailable. Two seconds later, the screen went black and that's when my heart skipped a beat. Thinking that the phone's display timed out, I pressed the power button on the phone and the app initially displayed a black background with the various icons in the margin, and then the video feed returned. I activated RTH and the drone returned safely.

Has anyone else experience such a glitch, or is there another possible explanation? Also, is there a good resource available for knowing winds aloft? The closest airport to my location is 7 miles away.

What was the wind speeds at 380ft?
 
So if I understand correctly the correct course of action would be:

** High Wind Warning **

1. Enable sport mode
2. Decrease altitude
3. Return home or land in a safe area

** Signal / Video Loss (no high wind warning) **

1. Press RTH
2. When feed is restored, fly home manually or continue RTH mode
 
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What was the wind speeds at 380ft?
I'm not sure, but based on UAV Forecast, I would guess around 30 mph with gusts a bit over 40 mph. I still don't understand why that would cause signal loss for 3.6 seconds.
 
Remember that you want to adjust the RTH altitude based on your current location. If you have it set to 100ft and you have 120 ft trees around you there could be an issue.
That I do know. First thing I did was adjust it to 150 feet, because there are pine trees that are around 80 feet tall.
 
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W
I'm not sure, but based on UAV Forecast, I would guess around 30 mph with gusts a bit over 40 mph. I still don't understand why that would cause signal loss for 3.6 seconds.

Is it at all possible that the sudden increase of speed would cause a signal drop?
 
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