Unfortunate new operator, in high wind, no understanding of how to recover...

[Mike Canaris]

Strong winds which made the motors work harder and 35% battery usage left. I make sure if it's a bit windy I have a full charge..

 

[Xanadu]

Great video, thank you sharing!

 

[Zbip57]

Here's an example from 2016 where a forced ditching nearly went bad with a Phantom. He flew it too far out over water and realized it wouldn't make it all the way back Home against the wind. He chose a safe location to set it down on the nearest point of land. Just before touchdown he lost the signal and assumed it must have landed. He packed up his gear and his family and jumped in the car to go fetch the drone.
Only watching the video later he noticed that when the drone lost signal it automatically went into RTH mode and started climbing again. If it had more battery power left it would have turned for Home and eventually run out of power over the water! But the battery was already too far depleted and the critical battery level caused the drone to over-ride its RTH response and instead immediately land in place. Very lucky for him, he eventually found the drone exactly where he thought it was going to be.

 

[Zbip57]

I love it when people are brave enough to share video evidence of the mistakes they've made. We all benefit if we can learn from these examples.
The article posted in the opening post in this thread is just another example that we can learn from. We've all made mistakes.
But I object to opinions such as, "I didn't get why some people called the DJI Mavic Mini incapable, until mine flew away." It is not the Mini's fault that it, like any other tool, has physical limitations. It is the operator's responsibility to read the manual and understand what those limitations are.
Furthermore, it is important to experiment and practise using it's various safety features in order to fully understand how they work. That way, in the event of something unexpected happening, you'll be less likely to panic and will hopefully not do something that makes the situation worse.

 

[djharrisx]

If, for whatever reason, you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation where your only option is to do an emergency landing in a remote location, here's something to think about.

Thank you for a clear explanation of a scenario which I think is often not fully understood and rarely mentioned. The new descend option following loss of signal -- when carefully applied like you have shown -- can be a real Get Out Of Jail card when things have gone badly wrong.

 

[AFount]

One thing i have noticed about some of the mini fly away videos is that people are trying to fly in high winds (20-25 mph) with propguards on. I won't fly if winds are above 22 mph and most certainly never fly outside with the propguards on since the added weight seems to cause the mini to struggle when flying into the wind.

 

[Herbie]

I love it when people are brave enough to share video evidence of the mistakes they've made. We all benefit if we can learn from these examples.
The article posted in the opening post in this thread is just another example that we can learn from. We've all made mistakes.
But I object to opinions such as, "I didn't get why some people called the DJI Mavic Mini incapable, until mine flew away." It is not the Mini's fault that it, like any other tool, has physical limitations. It is the operator's responsibility to read the manual and understand what those limitations are.
Furthermore, it is important to experiment and practise using it's various safety features in order to fully understand how they work. That way, in the event of something unexpected happening, you'll be less likely to panic and will hopefully not do something that makes the situation worse.

When in descend mode how far does it desend, 1.2m as in take off agl?

 

[Zbip57]

When in descend mode how far does it descend, 1.2m as in take off agl?

That's an easy question, but with many different answers all depending on exactly which "descend mode" you are referring to.

When manually landing as normal the Mini descends until reaching (1.2m?) at which point it pauses. If you hold full-down on the throttle the autopilot will take over from there and auto-land itself. That's all perfectly normal.

If you press the Home button on the left edge of the app screen, you are presented with a choice of Land or RTH. Choosing "Land" makes the Mini descend at its current location. But it will only continue to Land if it has an uninterrupted control signal all the way down. Eleven seconds after loss-of-signal the Mini switches to its Failsafe routine, which by default is RTH. In that case it will abort it's landing and instead climb and return Home.

Since the v1.0.8 app update, we now have the ability to change the Mini's Failsafe response between a choice of RTH, Descend, or Hover. I suspect THAT is the Descend that you're asking about. If you change the Failsafe response to Descend, then a loss-of-signal will always cause the Mini to descend at its current location rather than return to Home. Do NOT use this setting if you fly over water, or over sewage treatment plants, or... It will descend straight down from any height and land.

However, having said that...

I made a series of four videos testing how one would go about conducting a landing in a remote location in the event you choose to ditch the drone for whatever reason. You can see all four in this YouTube playlist:

TinyURL.com: MM-ForcedLandings

TinyURL.com: https://tinyurl.com/MM-ForcedLandings is a short link for url https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLngMU-9AtNNXcGwtXZh7o_qpB7qKwgb4

preview.tinyurl.com

The first three videos were done back in December, when the Mini's only Failsafe response was RTH. The 4th video is with the latest firmware and app v1.0.8, which provides the choice of switching the Failsafe to "Descend".

At 11:35 in the first video, I tried updating the Home Point to my chosen ditching location. That way even if the signal is lost on the way down, eleven seconds later the Mini would still go into Failsafe RTH but it would find itself within a 20m radius of the Home Position. Therefore it should not climb to RTH height and fly off to somewhere else; it should just continue to land at it current location. That looked like it should work, until...

... just before touching down, it stopped and hovered. It didn't like the look of the plywood board it was supposed to land on. It announced, "Area under aircraft unsuitable for landing. Control aircraft to land in safe area."

So that's something else that still requires more testing. Does anyone know for sure? Even if the Failsafe setting is switched to "Descend", can the Mini still decide it's descending into an unsuitable landing location and choose to hover there instead until the battery runs out?

 

[Herbie]

That's an easy question, but with many different answers all depending on exactly which "descend mode" you are referring to.

When manually landing as normal the Mini descends until reaching (1.2m?) at which point it pauses. If you hold full-down on the throttle the autopilot will take over from there and auto-land itself. That's all perfectly normal.

If you press the Home button on the left edge of the app screen, you are presented with a choice of Land or RTH. Choosing "Land" makes the Mini descend at its current location. But it will only continue to Land if it has an uninterrupted control signal all the way down. Eleven seconds after loss-of-signal the Mini switches to its Failsafe routine, which by default is RTH. In that case it will abort it's landing and instead climb and return Home.

Since the v1.0.8 app update, we now have the ability to change the Mini's Failsafe response between a choice of RTH, Descend, or Hover. I suspect THAT is the Descend that you're asking about. If you change the Failsafe response to Descend, then a loss-of-signal will always cause the Mini to descend at its current location rather than return to Home. Do NOT use this setting if you fly over water, or over sewage treatment plants, or... It will descend straight down from any height and land.

However, having said that...

I made a series of four videos testing how one would go about conducting a landing in a remote location in the event you choose to ditch the drone for whatever reason. You can see all four in this YouTube playlist:

TinyURL.com: MM-ForcedLandings

TinyURL.com: https://tinyurl.com/MM-ForcedLandings is a short link for url https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLngMU-9AtNNXcGwtXZh7o_qpB7qKwgb4

preview.tinyurl.com

The first three videos were done back in December, when the Mini's only Failsafe response was RTH. The 4th video is with the latest firmware and app v1.0.8, which provides the choice of switching the Failsafe to "Descend".

At 11:35 in the first video, I tried updating the Home Point to my chosen ditching location. That way even if the signal is lost on the way down, eleven seconds later the Mini would still go into Failsafe RTH but it would find itself within a 20m radius of the Home Position. Therefore it should not climb to RTH height and fly off to somewhere else; it should just continue to land at it current location. That looked like it should work, until...

... just before touching down, it stopped and hovered. It didn't like the look of the plywood board it was supposed to land on. It announced, "Area under aircraft unsuitable for landing. Control aircraft to land in safe area."

So that's something else that still requires more testing. Does anyone know for sure? Even if the Failsafe setting is switched to "Descend", can the Mini still decide it's descending into an unsuitable landing location and choose to hover there instead until the battery runs out?

I did a RTH under normal conditions and when it started to descend right above the landing spot I manually took it up, down, left, right etc and just before touchdown it also gave me unsuitable location on a rubbermat which it has landed many times before and I had to land it manually.

 

[Zbip57]

I did a RTH under normal conditions and when it started to descend right above the landing spot I manually took it up, down, left, right etc and just before touchdown it also gave me unsuitable location on a rubber mat which it has landed many times before and I had to land it manually.

That's still the question then.

Even if you lose the video signal but can still use the map, as long as you have an uninterrupted control signal all the way down, you still have some positive influence over where the thing is going to land. And, you'll have recorded telemetry in your app's flight log to help you find the drone where it ditched.

But if you're afraid of losing the bird to a strong wind, the last thing you want to have happen is a total loss of connection that'll leave you guessing where the drone went after the telemetry was lost.

So even if you change your Failsafe setting to "Descend" as a last desperate measure to ensure it'll land somewhere soon, it still might ultimately reject that landing spot as unsuitable, go into hover, and still be carried off by the wind until the battery eventually dies.

That's depressing.