DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Too many crashes

Brian D

Active Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2018
Messages
44
Reactions
34
Age
52
Ok ... ever since I've been on this site ... about 3 months .... there seems to be a RELENTLESS topic format of crashes !!!! I say that to say this ?...... WTH is going on ?!?! Why are there so many people crashing and really tearing the**** outta their drones ?!?!? ... why have I never had this problem with either the Mavic Pro or Mavic Pro 2 ?!? Should I be expecting some sort of wild arse crash ..?? Or should I sell me drones as the Crashless Model ??? ..... seriously is this the nature of the sport being associated with hapless pilots or are these really serious construction defects in which a class action lawsuit needs to be put in play to defend the rest of us before some errant drone takes off outta someone's control and takes out a plane full of orphaned children !!!!
 
The vast majority of people that have few posts on the site will visit because they crashed thier drone. They want to find out what is going on and see if its something that is an issue with the drone itself.

One of the first things that those people are asked to do is to upload thier flight logs from the flight in which they had a crash. Instructions and links to do so are posted within the thread they create. The posters that are willing to post those flight data log files will have them examined by some very experienced members in order to determine what caused the crash. In 98-99 percent of the logs posted they demonstrate that "pilot error" was responsible for the crash.

Common pilot errors discovered include - flying up into elevations that have much stronger winds and not knowing about Sport Mode which can be used to fight ones way back to thier Home Point. With either the drone drifting farther and farther away and being lost or running out of battery on the return trip and the drone performing a critical low battery crash.

There are also those that do not obtain a good GPS signal lock and have thier Home Point recorded upon take off so the drone does not know precisely where it is located in 3 D space which induces a crash. Same goes for Strong Magnetic Interference which is reported on ones controller and app , but still trying to take off and fly resulting in erratic behavior and loss of control. Then there are those that think its fine to fly into an area where they will clearly loose GPS reception and the drone will switch to ATTI mode and not respond in the same fashion as when full GPS lock is in use.

The reasons why pilots screw up abound where the actual hardware / software issues pale in comparison. It is proven time and time again!
 
I have been flying RC helicopters for decades. When I started out I was trained by/practiced my *** off under the supervision of more experienced RC heli pilots. My concern since the Phantom one (I still own mine) has been that as easy are drones are to fly the operators don't have to fly hours of practice maneuvers just to feel comfortable flying it.
The lack of properly learned muscle memory means mistakes are more likely when situations arise that require instant control inputs and split second decisions.

I'm the first to admit flying boxes and figure 8s can get old so I think the best thing you can do to improve your drone flying skills is to practice flying a drone without a GPS.
Buy a Blade Inductrix (Tiny Whoop) or something similar, they are cheap, hard to break, hard to fly (relatively speaking) and a ton of fun. They are tiny so you can fly them in your house.
I own a couple drones that do not have GPS including an inductrix and try to fly them often to keep my skills sharp.

Have I crashed RC copters/drones?.. you bet I have. And I can tell you what I did wrong in every case to cause the crash, including the one time I had a component fail.

There are many things that can cause a drone to crash, including a poor pre-flight inspection, or the unlikely component failure (might have been caught in the pre-flight). all I'm saying is that like small manned aircraft (I'm an airplane pilot as well) the number one cause of a crash is pilot error.

my $0.02
 
The vast majority of people that have few posts on the site will visit because they crashed thier drone. They want to find out what is going on and see if its something that is an issue with the drone itself.

One of the first things that those people are asked to do is to upload thier flight logs from the flight in which they had a crash. Instructions and links to do so are posted within the thread they create. The posters that are willing to post those flight data log files will have them examined by some very experienced members in order to determine what caused the crash. In 98-99 percent of the logs posted they demonstrate that "pilot error" was responsible for the crash.

Common pilot errors discovered include - flying up into elevations that have much stronger winds and not knowing about Sport Mode which can be used to fight ones way back to thier Home Point. With either the drone drifting farther and farther away and being lost or running out of battery on the return trip and the drone performing a critical low battery crash.

There are also those that do not obtain a good GPS signal lock and have thier Home Point recorded upon take off so the drone does not know precisely where it is located in 3 D space which induces a crash. Same goes for Strong Magnetic Interference which is reported on ones controller and app , but still trying to take off and fly resulting in erratic behavior and loss of control. Then there are those that think its fine to fly into an area where they will clearly loose GPS reception and the drone will switch to ATTI mode and not respond in the same fashion as when full GPS lock is in use.

The reasons why pilots screw up abound where the actual hardware / software issues pale in comparison. It is proven time and time again!

I agree 100%
 
Maybe I was being a little hypercritical as to the reason for posting ... as my whole livelihood and previous hobbies have had a lot to do with hand-eye coordination and more or less just down right common sense ... I am. Professional Custom Cabinet maker ... building kitchens , vanities , libraries , entertainment centers , furniture ... etc etc , for the last 33 years ... (47 my age ) ... still have all fingers ... drag raced a 7 second , 175 mph dragster for 6 years .... raced semi pro motocross in my early teens ....and have always been a gamer .... guess these things have helped me along the way with attributes that have kept me for the most part safe with my drone operation .... also I live in an area that is surrounded by nothing but water and a lot of my flying is done around these environments .... I don't wanna tank a 1500 drone ... But it is just a bit troubling to see so much about crashes .... was just wondering if it's inevitable by design ... or just a bunch of flukes
 
So I've been told ... many times .... I just like to think I just do what everyone else should be doing
 
seriously is this the nature of the sport being associated with hapless pilots or are these really serious construction defects in which a class action lawsuit needs to be put in play to defend the rest of us before some errant drone takes off outta someone's control and takes out a plane full of orphaned children !!!!
You would need to analyse individual crashes to see what the common causes are.
Having analysed a few hundred, the most common cause I see is flying close to trees, buildings and other obstacles.
If there's nothing to hit, it's hard to get into trouble.
Other common causes of lost drones (not necessarily crashes) are launching from steel or reinforced concrete surfaces, failing to understand how RTH works and flying downwind and/or at high altitudes in winds that are too strong for the drone to return home.
Equipment defects would be the cause of almost zero incidents.
The probability of any of the above mentioned causes of incidents causing an errant drone to find its way into the path of a plane would be so close to zero, it's not worth considering.
 
There are also those that do not obtain a good GPS signal lock and have thier Home Point recorded upon take off so the drone does not know precisely where it is located in 3 D space which induces a crash.
This is not likely to be the cause of many incidents.
If you are very impatient and launch before your drone records a home point, it will record one as soon as it gets a good GPS location fix.
That's usually going to be somewhere fairly close to the launch spot.
The Mavic would know exactly where it is in 3D space at all times after it gets GPS reception.

The only way that could cause a problem is if the flyer uses RTH and leaves RTH to come all the way back and do the landing and the recorded home point is in a problem spot.
And it would be simple to cancel the RTH and resume control if the flyer is observant.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FoxhallGH and BD0G
What I'm really talking about is seeing the ones where people say they launch ,,, and then seconds or even many minutes later they claim the drones just take the hell off in some erratic manner and wiping out the drone .... what's the deal when that happens and gets hung up on the forehead of some political figure out taking a stroll with his or worse yet her grandkids ... and they decide the fate of our hobby based off of that 1 incident ... I'm feeling the comments haven't been acknowledging that part of the original post ..... it's those that concern me more than an actual pilot error .... is the mother company doing there part to take responsibility when if in fact it is a glitch in the software that is the cause ?? ... maybe I'm speculating
 
What I'm really talking about is seeing the ones where people say they launch ,,, and then seconds or even many minutes later they claim the drones just take the **** off in some erratic manner and wiping out the drone .... what's the deal when that happens and gets hung up on the forehead of some political figure out taking a stroll with his or worse yet her grandkids ... and they decide the fate of our hobby based off of that 1 incident ... I'm feeling the comments haven't been acknowledging that part of the original post ..... it's those that concern me more than an actual pilot error .... is the mother company doing there part to take responsibility when if in fact it is a glitch in the software that is the cause ?? ... maybe I'm speculating

Those flyaway-type outdoor events are almost always caused by magnetic distortion at the launch site, usually due to ferrous metal in the ground or as part of the structure that the aircraft is launched from, or flying in winds too strong for the aircraft to fight.

The magnetic interference issue is almost completely preventable with a couple of simple checks before takeoff, but those are nowhere to be found in the instruction manual, so it's arguably not pilot error. Flying in high winds is entirely pilot error.
 
What I'm really talking about is seeing the ones where people say they launch ,,, and then seconds or even many minutes later they claim the drones just take the **** off in some erratic manner and wiping out the drone ....
I'm feeling the comments haven't been acknowledging that part of the original post .....
I covered that in post #10 where I said launching from steel or reinforced concrete surface.
 
How many crashes have been posted about here for mavic2 against how many sales worldwide? People dont come here posting "Flew again today, no crash" do they.

Since you mention it - I flew my M2P again today - no crash.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
130,599
Messages
1,554,254
Members
159,604
Latest member
wlochaty