Thought I was gonna lose my drone for a moment there!

[dealy663]

Hi

So I've had my Mavic Air for about 5 days now. Due to weather and work I haven't been able to fly it in the daylight 'till this weekend. Everything was fine at the local park on Friday. But today I took it out to the cliffs above Palos Verdes and almost had a couple of heart attacks when things went a little weird. I'm sure some of it is just me getting used to things. But I wanted to check in and see if people had any comments about why I could do to make something like this not happen again.

My starting point on the cliffs was at least 300ft, maybe 500ft above the water. On my first flight everything was fine, I raised up 200ft above my starting point and headed out towards the water. Flew around for about 10 min or so, then hit the return to home button (the app said that the starting point was recorded at the beginning of the flight). I couldn't see the drone as it was too far out and the sun was low and making things difficult. Watching the screen I could see the drone descending, but not coming towards me. Then the descent started going into the negative numbers, so it was below me. Once it went 20ft below me I canceled the return to home. Using the display it took me about 5 min to orient myself and figure out where the drone was relative to me. Then I raised up about 100ft above me and flew it back manually.

Why did the drone go to an altitude below its starting point? That just seems wrong to me. A good way to loose signal contact with the remote and make it more difficult to manually fly the drone back. I had the return to home altitude set to 30m. Maybe I incorrectly assumed that that meant 30m above its starting point? Did I do something wrong? Should I have trusted the flight algorithms on the device?

My second moment of difficulty came with a new battery and I flew about 1000ft away from my starting point and almost 300ft above. Flying around and recording video I say a couple of screen freeze ups but they were short lived and didn't freak me out too much. But then the screen went black! I couldn't see the drone with my eyes and the app just crapped all over itself. A few seconds later it came back, maybe 10 - 20, but it felt much longer. I immediately hit return to home with my heart pounding. And it wanted to confirm that I wanted to land immediately right there 1000ft away. WTF! It forgot where my starting point was. I guess the app restarted and didn't record the starting point to disk (how flippin' dumb is that). Luckily the display became active again and it only took me a moment to orient myself this time and I manually returned to home. At this point I had had enough and packed everything up and went back home.

Is the screen going black like that and loosing the starting point a common occurrence? Is there something I should have done differently to prevent these kinds of mishaps????


Thanks, Derek

 

[BD0G]

Become overly familiar with the DJIGO4 radar display so that you will always know the orientation of the drone relative to the home point. If you think you are pointed towards the home point and are actually pointed away you will fly away from yourself thinking you are getting closer only to realize that you are now even further away with less battery.

This has caused crashes due to running out of battery and landing at a critical level.
Dont fly over water for the first series of flights. Its a good way to donate your drone to "Davy Jones' Locker"
Always try and fly VLOS.

Dont run any other apps when using DJIGO4. Force Close all the other open apps . Less potential for app crash .

 

[Meta4]

it wanted to confirm that I wanted to land immediately right there 1000ft away. WTF! It forgot where my starting point was. I guess the app restarted and didn't record the starting point to disk (how flippin' dumb is that).

Is the screen going black like that and loosing the starting point a common occurrence? Is there something I should have done differently to prevent these kinds of mishaps????

Your screen problems are most likely due to using a phone or tablet that isn't up to the task of running the app properly.
With a suitable phone or tablet, you won't see that.
Losing the home point?
It doesn't happen.
How dumb would the designers have to be to allow that?

There will be an explanation (possibly related to the distance) and it would be made clear in the recorded flight data.

Why did the drone go to an altitude below its starting point? That just seems wrong to me. A good way to loose signal contact with the remote and make it more difficult to manually fly the drone back. I had the return to home altitude set to 30m. Maybe I incorrectly assumed that that meant 30m above its starting point? Did I do something wrong? Should I have trusted the flight algorithms on the device?

All heights are relative to the home point.
Maybe you are making some incorrect assumptions.
Whatever the explanation for the incident is, it will be found in the recorded flight data.
To get help interpreting the data from these incidents:
o to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.

There are a hundred things that can go wrong flying your drone.
You need more experience and understanding to learn what could go wrong and how to prevent them being a problem for you.
Flying out of sight over the water is not a good idea when you don't have that experience.
Out there one mistake or misunderstanding, means the game is over.

 

[DanMan32]

Did you hit the screen to engage RTH or the button on the remote? If the former, is it possible you hit the land virtual button rather than the RTH button?
Txt logs will have that information.

Home point is recorded by and retained by the AC. App just reports it.

You can still fly the AC and engage RTH even without the app. All you need to continue flying is an RC to AC connection. A disconnect between RC and mobile is not considered a signal disconnect. Of course you're blind for a bit until the app is restored but if you're flying VLOS, that shouldn't be an issue. There's also letting go of the sticks, pause button and of course RTH button to get you through your temporary blindness.

App crashes so happen, even with the most capable device.

 

[Meta4]

App crashes do happen, even with the most capable device.

If you think that ... you aren't using a properly capable device.
I haven't seen an app crash since I changed my tablet three years ago.

 

[dealy663]

I did use the onscreen RTH icon. So I suppose its possible I goofed when tapping it. However I've not had that problem before. My phone is a Galaxy Note 9, which is a very powerful device. I'd be surprised if my phone isn't suitable for flying my drone.

Given that I had 2 RTH failures today, I'm definitely going to be more careful about flying and being dependent on it when things go wrong. Its good to know that the RTH button on the RC should still work even if the screen isn't working. Though without the screen I wouldn't have been able to tell that the drone was going to a negative altitude from the starting position. Sorry, but there has been no viable explanation for that. Maybe the Russians or the Chinese were messing up the GPS signal over my location today? Ha ha ha.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Post the flight logs, you and everyone else can learn better that way.

 

[Meta4]

I did use the onscreen RTH icon. So I suppose its possible I goofed when tapping it. I'm definitely going to be more careful about flying and being dependent on it when things go wrong.
Its good to know that the RTH button on the RC should still work even if the screen isn't working.

There are only three possible causes of the drone descending.
If the battery was above critical low voltage level and you were more than 20 metres away, there is only one and that's confusing the RTH and Land Now screen buttons.

Understanding RTH properly is one of the most important things to learn.
You should go to a large, open area and test RTH including cancelling and resuming control to get a good idea of what it does.
Use the controller button too to see how to activate RTH with the controller.
Also try flying out 100 feet and switching the controller off to simulate loss of signal, and see what happens.

 

[DanMan32]

As well as unplugging phone from RC and see that AC still operates normally with RC controls.

 

[bigswifty]

TLDR; OP - learn how the map works. Practice using it somewhere safe under optimal conditions.

I like that RTH exists, and I mostly like how it's implemented. But I dislike actually having to use it. For the OP, my suggestion would be to spend several sessions flying with the map, always within VLOS distance, in good conditions with plenty of battery. Check the map, watch how the arrow behaves as you fly. See how the green line works and the flight track displays.

I dunno, I have this nagging kinda feeling that just leaving it to RTH as a matter of routine is in some way evading my responsibility as a pilot. Particularly in such a good system as DJI's where there is an abundance of information and control available to you to actively fly your drone home yourself.

 

[dealy663]

Is there some better way to get the flight logs than plugging the phone into the computer? I hate doing that. You would think that there would be a way to select the logs that I'm interested in and just sending them via email or something.

I don't think that there is a land now button on my version of the dpi go app. The icons on the left are for take off, RTH, tap to fly (whatever the one with all the preprogrammed flights is) and APAS.

 

[Scoobychief]

Is there some better way to get the flight logs than plugging the phone into the computer? I hate doing that. You would think that there would be a way to select the logs that I'm interested in and just sending them via email or something.

I don't think that there is a land now button on my version of the dpi go app. The icons on the left are for take off, RTH, tap to fly (whatever the one with all the preprogrammed flights is) and APAS.

no you either plug it in and connect to computer or take the sd card out (if you are using an sd card) and do it that way.

 

[Meta4]

Is there some better way to get the flight logs than plugging the phone into the computer? I hate doing that. You would think that there would be a way to select the logs that I'm interested in and just sending them via email or something.

Who are you wanting to send your flight data to?
If you need to send them to DJI, you just have to synch the records to send them to DJI.
If you want to see the flight data you'll have to connect to a computer - it's no trouble to do it.
And you won't find them on the SD card so there's no point looking there.

I don't think that there is a land now button on my version of the dpi go app. The icons on the left are for take off, RTH, tap to fly (whatever the one with all the preprogrammed flights is) and APAS.

The Takeoff button is a Takeoff & Landing button.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Is there some better way to get the flight logs than plugging the phone into the computer? I hate doing that.

Well, there actually is. Go to Airdata.com; register with a free account, sync your flight data (either through DJI or using their HD Sync app), find the particular flight you are interested in once the sync is complete, and share or send the link of the flight in discussion. Voila!

EDIT: But I think plugging your phone in to the computer and extracting the flight log manually is the easiest and quicker way to do this.

 

[torsen]

If you think that ... you aren't using a properly capable device.
I haven't seen an app crash since I changed my tablet three years ago.

I had two app crashes only yesterday on a 7.85 Crystal Sky which was a little disappointing...

 

[Meta4]

I had two app crashes only yesterday on a 7.85 Crystal Sky which was a little disappointing...

That's not an uncommon complaint:

CrystalSky not fit for purpose?

Here I am, with yet another CrystalSky problem effecting my ability to work and wondering why on Earth did I ever waste my money on these monitors. You can see the latest problem I'm having in the video below, which means I have to use an iPhone or iPad as the pilot's screen if I want to be...

forum.dji.com

 

[PAW]

Become overly familiar with the DJIGO4 radar display so that you will always know the orientation of the drone relative to the home point.

Agree. Hers's a quick and easy to understand tutorial:

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[Icelandman]

A few weeks ago I flew my Mavic 2 Pro from the beach with what I thought was a full battery. As I was over the sea battery power was important! Suddenly up comes Critically low battery landing now! I immediately turned round and headed for shore and made it but had no idea where it had landed. All I had wad the image on the screen of the view from the drone. It took me ½ an hour to find it. Lesson learned: Always check your battery thoroughly before taking off over water!!!

 

[BD0G]

A few weeks ago I flew my Mavic 2 Pro from the beach with what I thought was a full battery. As I was over the sea battery power was important! Suddenly up comes Critically low battery landing now! I immediately turned round and headed for shore and made it but had no idea where it had landed. All I had wad the image on the screen of the view from the drone. It took me ½ an hour to find it. Lesson learned: Always check your battery thoroughly before taking off over water!!!

Try and fly out against the wind so that when you turn around and fly back the wind is now at your tail and helping push the drone back. Some hard core flyers will bring a small anemometer with them to determine wind speed and direction.

 

[Icelandman]

Try and fly out against the wind so that when you turn around and fly back the wind is now at your tail and helping push the drone back. Some hard core flyers will bring a small anemometer with them to determine wind speed and direction.

weather was not a problem - the battery was! I also take an anemometer!