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Thinking about all these Mavic problems...
1062 14 2017-4-11
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Rusty Iron
lvl.4
Australia
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I'm still very new to the Mavic and haven't done a whole lot of flying yet. So I am no expert. Touch wood, I haven't had a single problem with it yet. Well, apart from the very first flight...my avatar is my bleeding leg. My fault entirely. Indoors, dark carpet and being a bit over exuberant...

But I saw a DJI video on here the other day talking about correct antenna orientation. So I can't help wondering how many of these loss of control incidents are just that. People getting fixated on the screen and forgetting where their antennas are pointing.

So, a question for the tech experts - can anyone speak with authority about the propagation of the signal from the antennas? According to the graphics on the video, if the vertical face of the antennas is not pointing directly at the Mavic, loss of signal can occur. But - how bad and how fast?

I think the one good habit I have developed is always thinking about this and make sure I'm always facing the drone.

2017-4-11
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hallmark007
Captain
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Are antennas and the positioning of , the cause of many of these problems, probably not, many of the fly a ways you read about here are pilot error. But once you say that there is a tendency for those who have had problems to freak out, and usually say well if it happened to you , you wouldn't be saying that.

If you loose radio signal your aircraft will RTH provided you have set the parameters correctly, that's a fact and 99.9 % of these aircraft provided they are set up correctly and checked before you go to fly will act as you have set it up.

Why do people loose signal, not setting up antennas properly, flying in unsuitable areas or flying out of line of sight of remote controller, all of these potential problems are clearly pointed out in the manual.

A lot of people just want to take these aircraft out of the box and fly them, they flick through the manual quick check over the app , put the Mavic on the ground and away they go.

When something goes wrong they are not sure what to do, panic might set in and continually pushing buttons in the hope that they will get lucky, this very seldom happens, and they report fly a way.

A fly a way nearly always will have an explanation as to why this happened, in my experience nearly all so called fly a way are caused by loss of gps or compass interference or by badly set up aircraft.

The cause of fly a way is nearly always pilot error, not reading and understanding the manual , not preparing their aircraft before they fly, never thinking about risk assessment if something goes wrong, if your gps is low you will be able to check this on your monitor screen, you can avoid loosing gps a number of ways, but if you don't know how to then you have problems, but if you read the Manual it will tell you exactly what happens when you loose gps, so if you take the time to figure out what you might do in such a situation or how you can avoid a this , you may well be able to recover your aircraft.

Take a example , in the manual it tells you to fly VLOS so if you loose gps you can still see your aircraft, you will have an option of flying your aircraft to safety or you can just land it, if you can't see your aircraft your now flying by the seat of your pants, or if you are more experienced you may be able with the use of telemetry to fly your aircraft to safety.
So VLOS gives you a good option to save your aircraft from fly a way.
And for many other reasons these aircraft crash or fly a way or loose signal, there are an equal amount or more things you can do to avoid these things happening. In my opinion the proper amount of preparation and understanding of flying these aircraft in suitable places will go along way to avoiding many of the problems you read about on this forum.
2017-4-11
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K4Unl
Second Officer
Flight distance : 122175 ft
Netherlands
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Have to agree with Hallmark.

I too am still quite scared of flying it further away than 900 meters. And even that was SCARY. But i know that most of the reports are indeed, human error. Not understanding the aircraft, pushing on when something feels off.
The other day i was flying with a bit of activetrack, and the drone started behaving weird. I immediatelly stopped it from tracking and made it return home (by myself, not automatically)
I push myself to use as little automatic modes as possible, purely because i want to know what the craft is doing in specific environments.

I also make sure to always be in visual range of the drone, and especially that i can atleast make out the front and back of the drone.

All these things are done because this forum has made me scared of flying, Eventhough my little mavic so far has never failed me *touch wood*


Best thing to do, get confident with your drone, read the manual back to front, try some advanced maneuvers while closeby, and always try to land without using that RTH button.
2017-4-11
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SkunkWerxs
Second Officer
Flight distance : 231217 ft
United States
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hallmark007 Posted at 2017-4-11 02:59
Are antennas and the positioning of , the cause of many of these problems, probably not, many of the fly a ways you read about here are pilot error. But once you say that there is a tendency for those who have had problems to freak out, and usually say well if it happened to you , you wouldn't be saying that.

If you loose radio signal your aircraft will RTH provided you have set the parameters correctly, that's a fact and 99.9 % of these aircraft provided they are set up correctly and checked before you go to fly will act as you have set it up.

Hall,

Very well said and explained --- I am 100% in agreement with you !! --- As other Experienced pilots will too.
DJI should make your post a Sticky in the top of the Discussion's Form
Cheers

                        
2017-4-11
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Airobotix
Second Officer
Flight distance : 357310 ft
United Kingdom
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Totally agree with Hallmark. K4Unl also makes a very valid point; use the automatic modes as little as possible, that way you learn how actually FLY the aircraft without the computer doing everything for you. A lot of the problem, in my opinion, is that drones (and other R/C aircraft) have so much computer control to make them idiot proof that we tend to rely on these aids and forget, or never learn how to fly them manually.
2017-4-11
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Ex Machina
Captain
Flight distance : 1806362 ft
United States
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After briefly loosing signal a couple times, myself, and reading all the horror stories, I'm now in the habit of paying attention to the signal level and adjusting the antennas and/or my positioning when the indicators get low. I also try to get higher ground when it would be advantageous, LOS/signal-wise.
2017-4-11
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Gary Mac
Second Officer
Flight distance : 741683 ft
United States
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My longest flight to date is 2.5 miles (one-way) over water.  No issues with signal.  On the other hand, I've had shorter flights that have had issues and most were pretty obvious why the signal dropped:  Going around the end of a hill, going over the crest of a hill, going out far enough that the signal has to travel through a bunch of trees, etc.  I've never had a weak signal with the drone straight up, even though i always forget to angle my controller/antennas appropriately.  I've pretty good at turning my body when I do longer distance flights though.  So far, I've never completely lost signal and had the drone RTH.  When I see it starting to drop out, I turn around and come back.  So far so good!
2017-4-11
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jeebs-9
First Officer
Flight distance : 174262 ft
United States
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Ex Machina Posted at 2017-4-11 06:09
After briefly loosing signal a couple times, myself, and reading all the horror stories, I'm now in the habit of paying attention to the signal level and adjusting the antennas and/or my positioning when the indicators get low. I also try to get higher ground when it would be advantageous, LOS/signal-wise.

Agree that's my rule of thumb as well. I'm always adjusting ad getting as high as possible.

I agree with what HallMark is saying to a point. But I feels as though they are some truthful stories being told here. And there might be another side of the coin here. DJI until recently just start this free teaching thing with your purchase. Because as usually with something like this. I would say about 70-80% of users don't read the manual and are brand new to the market. When people say read the manual. I think it's hilarious because the manual doesn't come with the Mavic (and it's ever changing and improving).  Yup they spent $1000 and didn't read the manual. I work in IT. And I can't tell you how often this is the case. And I think most would agree with this Users/Pilots are uneducated.

...But DJI has had quality issues. For example the landing mode problem. This could happen to anyone. You could read all the manuals from first to last page. But if you had been flying for months. And was use to your bird being able to cancel as it went into landing mode. You could of easily put your bird into the drink.

I think it's both sides.
2017-4-11
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hallmark007
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jeebs-9 Posted at 2017-4-11 08:12
Agree that's my rule of thumb as well. I'm always adjusting ad getting as high as possible.

I agree with what HallMark is saying to a point. But I feels as though they are some truthful stories being told here. And there might be another side of the coin here. DJI until recently just start this free teaching thing with your purchase. Because as usually with something like this. I would say about 70-80% of users don't read the manual and are brand new to the market. When people say read the manual. I think it's hilarious because the manual doesn't come with the Mavic (and it's ever changing and improving).  Yup they spent $1000 and didn't read the manual. I work in IT. And I can't tell you how often this is the case. And I think most would agree with this Users/Pilots are uneducated.

The manual comes with your app, you cannot fly your activate your Mavic without the app, so while you don't get a hard copy of the manual it's all there in your app, many new technology products come without hard copy of there manual , this is quite common, nothing unusual and yes the manual does change simply because dji are adding new firmware and software to try to improve your aircraft and to add new features.
If there is a firmware issue like the one with not being able to cancel auto landing, that should be covered by warranty.
But your own issue with the prop, does sound like it was your own fault, whether you leave your props on or off, you should always check your motors and props before you go flying and that would almost certainly be in your preflight checklist.
2017-4-11
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jeebs-9
First Officer
Flight distance : 174262 ft
United States
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hallmark007 Posted at 2017-4-11 10:17
The manual comes with your app, you cannot fly your activate your Mavic without the app, so while you don't get a hard copy of the manual it's all there in your app, many new technology products come without hard copy of there manual , this is quite common, nothing unusual and yes the manual does change simply because dji are adding new firmware and software to try to improve your aircraft and to add new features.
If there is a firmware issue like the one with not being able to cancel auto landing, that should be covered by warranty.
But your own issue with the prop, does sound like it was your own fault, whether you leave your props on or off, you should always check your motors and props before you go flying and that would almost certainly be in your preflight checklist.

I think your answering in the wrong thread. But I will repeat it again... I always do a flight check list before take off. I have the freaking app on my phone for crying out loud. And I use it each time. You keep trying to blame me. But I did everything in my power to check my props and motors even gimbal clamp. I went through it all. But my prop popped'snapped/broke off the motor. I know because the the stubs for the prop were still inside the motor. Brand new props straight out of the DJI box.  
2017-4-11
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hallmark007
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jeebs-9 Posted at 2017-4-11 11:38
I think your answering in the wrong thread. But I will repeat it again... I always do a flight check list before take off. I have the freaking app on my phone for crying out loud. And I use it each time. You keep trying to blame me. But I did everything in my power to check my props and motors even gimbal clamp. I went through it all. But my prop popped'snapped/broke off the motor. I know because the the stubs for the prop were still inside the motor. Brand new props straight out of the DJI box.

Did you check them for defects, that should be part of your checklist?
2017-4-11
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jeebs-9
First Officer
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hallmark007 Posted at 2017-4-11 11:41
Did you check them for defects, that should be part of your checklist?

You think I didn't check the props, I was about to put on my $1000 bird. You must have it in for me right? lol jk. I hate the checklist. But because I live in NYC. And I don't want to hurt anyone. I make sure I go through it all the time. I had the app before I ever had my drone. And with all this said why would it hover with no weird noises? Went from flying (hover) normal for a minute and sixteen seconds to crashing into the ground (looking back I should tried to catch it and taken the hurt). I just been without a drone for much long then I ever thought. And I love how you say "should of" lol
2017-4-11
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hallmark007
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jeebs-9 Posted at 2017-4-11 12:01
You think I didn't check the props, I was about to put on my $1000 bird. You must have it in for me right? lol jk. I hate the checklist. But because I live in NYC. And I don't want to hurt anyone. I make sure I go through it all the time. I had the app before I ever had my drone. And with all this said why would it hover with no weird noises? Went from flying (hover) normal for a minute and sixteen seconds to crashing into the ground (looking back I should tried to catch it and taken the hurt). I just been without a drone for much long then I ever thought. And I love how you say "should of" lol


Look your problem is you checked the props, you made a decision that they were  ok , so why would you think it was dji's fault you had a faulty prop, when you had just checked them, surely you can see the irony of saying something like that.

So getting back to the topic, most crashes are caused by pilots.
2017-4-11
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jeebs-9
First Officer
Flight distance : 174262 ft
United States
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hallmark007 Posted at 2017-4-11 12:10
Look your problem is you checked the props, you made a decision that they were  ok , so why would you think it was dji's fault you had a faulty prop, when you had just checked them, surely you can see the irony of saying something like that.

So getting back to the topic, most crashes are caused by pilots.

Let me explain why I think it's DJI fault before we more on publicly. I brought a fly more combo. With the extra battery, props and others. I don't care about other things that came with this package. You replace your props after checking they were OK out of the box. You start the motor manual with your brand new props out of the box. No weird noises no problems with your brand new props out of the box. You start to ascend to make sure everything is OK with your brand new props out of the box. Your now at about 6-8 feet right in front of your face. You still don't hear anything wrong still at about 6-8 feet in front of you. You yaw left, yaw left right everything is fine with your brand new props out of the box. You now start to descend. But as you throttle down to land. All of a sudden you hear snap, popply. crunch! The last one should be smashed.

And I can see that your Vet in this club of DJI drone world. If it was my fault I would of taken all the blame. But this wasn't my fault or as it it most of the time pilot error. I've already brought a new mavic.  At this point my drone will probably never be the way it was when I got it. From all the stories especially mine with CSR here. I don't feel 100% putting a drone with problems (from the repair center) into the air here in NYC. But thanks for caring man.
2017-4-11
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fans0929b234
lvl.1
Flight distance : 39101 ft
United Kingdom
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I have to agree to an extent that most crashes are pilot errors but there is still a lot of them not pilot errors and faulty drones from dji, I have flown drones and helicopters for years and I have flown my mavic about 14 times with no issues, but last time there was an issue and it certainly was not pilot error no matter what anyone says, I have already posted about it and still had no help or joy from dji, the company is a joke and have no customer relation, £1000 is a lot of money for something that is not usable and not getting any help from dji, I will never buy another dji product, they are quick at responding when they want money from you. Anyone who wants to be treated like this then that's fine but me for one will not put up with it and I will take this further, I've never known nothing like it in all my life how they cannot answer a simple question, I do not know how they still have customers, mine will be going back to the retailer under consumer rights act and that's me and dji finished. Good luck to anyone else that needs customer support.
2017-4-11
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