What to do if phone crashes

[Storyline]

Today I was flying and my phone rebooted itself during the flight. As it happened my Mavic was close by so I was easily able to continue to use the controller to bring it home easily.

However it made me think what would happen if the same thing occurred when it was near the limit of LOS. Would the app make connection again when I reload it and if so would a new home point be set or would the original one still be there ? If I can't get the app to reconnect is hitting Return to Home on the controller the best thing to do ? I have one of the Flytron strobes to help with visibility but I would hate to fly off in the wrong direction and then lose visual contact !

 

[Top Hat]

Don't panic 'coz you still got the control via RC.

 

[jaysrmc]

Today I was flying and my phone rebooted itself during the flight. As it happened my Mavic was close by so I was easily able to continue to use the controller to bring it home easily.

However it made me think what would happen if the same thing occurred when it was near the limit of LOS. Would the app make connection again when I reload it and if so would a new home point be set or would the original one still be there ? If I can't get the app to reconnect is hitting Return to Home on the controller the best thing to do ? I have one of the Flytron strobes to help with visibility but I would hate to fly off in the wrong direction and then lose visual contact !

I usually just let it hover and reboot my phone. If I know it is getting low on battery, I will turn it and fly until I see the distance going down and eventually I get it close enough to hear or see and land if my phone hasn't finished booting. It happens a lot to me because in arizona my phone gets hot pretty quick.

 

[Just_nick]

If you cannot control the craft just by seeing it you don't actually have LOS. So, follow the regulations and you won't have a problem even if the phone crashes.

 

[james_mav]

Today I was flying and my phone rebooted itself during the flight. As it happened my Mavic was close by so I was easily able to continue to use the controller to bring it home easily.

However it made me think what would happen if the same thing occurred when it was near the limit of LOS. Would the app make connection again when I reload it and if so would a new home point be set or would the original one still be there ? If I can't get the app to reconnect is hitting Return to Home on the controller the best thing to do ? I have one of the Flytron strobes to help with visibility but I would hate to fly off in the wrong direction and then lose visual contact !

You could always turn the controller off & then it should return home.

 

[aokusman]

This is one reason you should never fly your drone on low battery.

 

[FalconLight]

You could always turn the controller off & then it should return home.

Or just hit RTH on the RC.

 

[Storyline]

If you cannot control the craft just by seeing it you don't actually have LOS. So, follow the regulations and you won't have a problem even if the phone crashes.

So are you saying LOS means you have to able to see the Mavic's orientation ?

 

[Marko9219]

So are you saying LOS means you have to able to see the Mavic's orientation ?

No you don't. However, if you can see your MP at all, then with just a couple quick stick inputs you'll instantly know your orientation.

 

[dewster]

I had my iPhone shut down because of cold temperature. I lost sight of my Mavic because of background terrain. I thought my drone dropped out of the sky when my screen went blank but still saw the telemetry of my Mavic Pro on the controller. I hit the return to home and watched it obediently come back.

Just make sure your Home Point is properly recorded prior to flying.

This is also why Mavic Pro’s transmitter is a good design. It provide information independent of a Smart Phone.

 

[Rivendell]

It can happen. Minimising the risk by always flying with a fully charged phone, closing all other apps and flying on cached maps with WiFi off and the phone in airplane mode all help. It happened to me recently when I had forgotten to tun off cellular and an Android update disconnected the phone, which is a similar issue. I hit RTH on the transmitter, recovered the drone, took a deep breath, took my own advice and went flying again.

 

[Storyline]

.....
Just make sure your Home Point is properly recorded prior to flying.

This is also why Mavic Pro’s transmitter is a good design. It provide information independent of a Smart Phone.

Yes and not just information but you are also obviously able to fly it independently. This is one the reasons I would like FCC mode so I would have a more robust, powerful signal to the aircraft. From what I have read it seems my US cousins have a lot more power at their fingertips

One of the questions in my original post and concerns I have is whether a new home point could get recorded when you restart the app. This is not just an app crash but in my case my actual phone restarted itself. I am sure that DJI would have thought of this and hopefully it won't record a new home point but just in case, I came across a useful setting yesterday. There are two options regarding home points. You can select to use the aircraft position as the home point or the position of the controller. I am going to change mine to the controller so that in the event of a new home point being set it will always be where I am.

 

[FalconLight]

Interesting thread.

Though I’ve never experienced a phone crash during flight I decided to 'test' some things.

Stock MP and iPhone 7+ with iOS 11.4.1 (latest) and DJI Go4 4.2.24 (latest)

During normal flight (very closeby of course) I tested the following situations:
- Incoming phonecall
- Incoming Facetime call (I even positioned the AC while in call and switching the phonecamera so that the other party could see the AC hovering and doing some circles!)
- Outgoing phonecall
- Outgoing Facetime call
- Checking mail, play a youtube video and checking unread messages in the mavicpilots-app
- Power off and on the iphone (to simulate a crash?)
-> In all those situations I could continue to control the AC with the sticks.
-> When not touching the sticks it hovered.
-> Also the homepoint was not set again when going back to the Go4 app.

- I even closed the Go4 app during a waypoint mission. The mission continued normally.
- I also closed the app during activetracking a person. The tracking continued.
(of course my finger was hovering above the pause button during the last 2 tests)

I know this was not professional or excessive testing, but for me it is very reassuring that the MP in combination with the RC and my iphone with the latest software is a solid and stable system.

I would say: try it yourself and the trust in the system will rise (even more)

 

[Rivendell]

Interesting thread.
You can select to use the aircraft position as the home point or the position of the controller. I am going to change mine to the controller so that in the event of a new home point being set it will always be where I am.

If you (assuming you're holding the controller) move, remember to update the HP once you've settled in a new position. Except in Active Track, when you can set the HP to automatically update, it doesn't (at least mine doesn't). Went flying from a speedboat recently - set the HP to the transmitter position and asked the owner (my mate) to gun it. Off we went with me doing my best to formate manually (in hindsight I should have used Active Track). He went up to over 45 knots and I, somewhat predictably, lost sight of the drone. No worries I thought and hit RTH. Didn't take long to realise that the drone was off to the position where the HP had originally been set (i.e where I had launched the drone). Stopped boat. Cimbed drone. Found boat. Panic over. Friendship preserved. But a lesson learnt. Very happy to be told it was my finger trouble but that's what happened!

 

[FalconLight]

If you (assuming you're holding the controller) move, remember to update the HP once you've settled in a new position. Except in Active Track, when you can set the HP to automatically update, it doesn't (at least mine doesn't). Went flying from a speedboat recently - set the HP to the transmitter position and asked the owner (my mate) to gun it. Off we went with me doing my best to formate manually (in hindsight I should have used Active Track). He went up to over 45 knots and I, somewhat predictably, lost sight of the drone. No worries I thought and hit RTH. Didn't take long to realise that the drone was off to the position where the HP had originally been set (i.e where I had launched the drone). Stopped boat. Cimbed drone. Found boat. Panic over. Friendship preserved. But a lesson learnt. Very happy to be told it was my finger trouble but that's what happened!

(I think you quoted @Storyline instead of me)
Happy for you it turns out well. Never panic. No need. Keep your head cool and your finger above the pause-button

 

[Storyline]

If you (assuming you're holding the controller) move, remember to update the HP once you've settled in a new position. Except in Active Track, when you can set the HP to automatically update, it doesn't (at least mine doesn't). Went flying from a speedboat recently - set the HP to the transmitter position and asked the owner (my mate) to gun it. Off we went with me doing my best to formate manually (in hindsight I should have used Active Track). He went up to over 45 knots and I, somewhat predictably, lost sight of the drone. No worries I thought and hit RTH. Didn't take long to realise that the drone was off to the position where the HP had originally been set (i.e where I had launched the drone). Stopped boat. Cimbed drone. Found boat. Panic over. Friendship preserved. But a lesson learnt. Very happy to be told it was my finger trouble but that's what happened!

I asked on another thread whether selecting those options just changes the configuration or actually changes the home point as well and some guy (who sounded like he knew what he was talking about) said that they do also record a new home point. It would be good though if there was a button on the controller to press to set a new home point just in case the app has crashed and you want to do it in a rush (panic!) without waiting for the app to reload and establish comms with the controller.

 

[Storyline]

.....
.....
I know this was not professional or excessive testing, but for me it is very reassuring that the MP in combination with the RC and my iphone with the latest software is a solid and stable system.

I would say: try it yourself and the trust in the system will rise (even more)

Yes, that is useful to know. I agree that as you fly the Mavic more and more and experiment in various ways how your confidence in it rises.

It would be interesting to know whether the Home Point is stored in the controller or in the aircraft.

 

[lmel2005]

The home point is stored in aircraft with every takeoff.

If app crashes, there's no need to set a new home point. Pressing rth button on RC, will do the job.

In fact, all information to fly MP safely, is on RC screen. This is one of the reasons, MP is more "pro" than ma is.

 

[FalconLight]

The home point is stored in aircraft with every takeoff.

Agreed. Otherwise the AC can never RTH when connection with RC is lost.

 

[Rivendell]

The home point is stored in aircraft with every takeoff./QUOTE]

I suppose that's the issue when you set the HP to the controller. The audio tells you the HP has been set at take off. If the controller moves, my experience is the "H" remains at the take off position NOT where the controller now is (assuming it's moved). This is important to know (I didn't) because my assumption (where assumption is the mother of all f*** up) was that the HP was updating all the time to the controller position as it moved. It doesn't, but you can update HP to the new controller position for RTH recovery.

If you have suffered an "Aircraft Disconnected" message and the device screen freezes and reverts to monochrome AND you can't reconnect AND your RTH point is the controller AND you hadn't updated it prior to the device disconnecting (all quite feasible I reckon) you will have to return to the take off point to pick up your drone.