So, I'm not sure if this is the best section of the forum for this, but I have a weird story I thought I'd share.
The other day I went flying on my university campus (knowing full well that it was against the rules). I started off from one end of campus and flew it forward a ways, then set it to hover over a basketball court while I closed in on foot (so I could keep a line of sight on it).
Unfortunately, the RAs saw me, so one of them came up to demand that I land. I started to fly it back to me as he talked, but after a moment I looked down at the controller and saw that it had disconnected. I was only at 160 feet a moment ago, and now the drone wasn't in sight at all, so I began to panic, thinking I was in the middle of a flyaway. Even so, I kept walking in that direction, hoping I might pick it up. A short while later, it picked the signal back up... but the camera feed showed the drone sitting on the ground!
I was absolutely perplexed at what happened, and at first, I thought the remote control had somehow dropped the signal (despite being only a few hundred feet away) and landed itself (despite being set to return home). After looking at several flight records, though, I've pieced together what I believe happened.
When I started flying back, I rocked the left joystick back, thinking that I was bringing it back. But, as you all know, that's actually the button to descend. I remember doing this, but I thought I had let it go as I realized my mistake. Well, it turns out that with the distraction of talking, I just kept holding it down even as I thought I'd taken my thumb off... so, over the space of about 20 seconds, the Mavic landed in the basketball court, and I didn't notice anything was wrong until I looked back at my controller. The controller must have dropped after that, then, due to the several buildings between me and the drone.
So basically, the perfect storm of distraction/incompetence and luck lead to me manually landing my drone without even noticing.
The other day I went flying on my university campus (knowing full well that it was against the rules). I started off from one end of campus and flew it forward a ways, then set it to hover over a basketball court while I closed in on foot (so I could keep a line of sight on it).
Unfortunately, the RAs saw me, so one of them came up to demand that I land. I started to fly it back to me as he talked, but after a moment I looked down at the controller and saw that it had disconnected. I was only at 160 feet a moment ago, and now the drone wasn't in sight at all, so I began to panic, thinking I was in the middle of a flyaway. Even so, I kept walking in that direction, hoping I might pick it up. A short while later, it picked the signal back up... but the camera feed showed the drone sitting on the ground!
I was absolutely perplexed at what happened, and at first, I thought the remote control had somehow dropped the signal (despite being only a few hundred feet away) and landed itself (despite being set to return home). After looking at several flight records, though, I've pieced together what I believe happened.
When I started flying back, I rocked the left joystick back, thinking that I was bringing it back. But, as you all know, that's actually the button to descend. I remember doing this, but I thought I had let it go as I realized my mistake. Well, it turns out that with the distraction of talking, I just kept holding it down even as I thought I'd taken my thumb off... so, over the space of about 20 seconds, the Mavic landed in the basketball court, and I didn't notice anything was wrong until I looked back at my controller. The controller must have dropped after that, then, due to the several buildings between me and the drone.
So basically, the perfect storm of distraction/incompetence and luck lead to me manually landing my drone without even noticing.
