FLflyer
lvl.1
Flight distance : 79642 ft
United States
Offline
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I have been flying my Mavic avidly since May 2017 and have never had any issues. That has dramatically changed in the last 5 days. As usual, I insured I updated the software before my trip last week. I did several flights with no real issue, though I noted random erratic gimbal seizures I had never seen before. The gimbal would just pitch over dramatically and then slowly regain horizon. This was not caused by a fast movement, and sometimes happened in hover. After noting this, I insured everything was updated through the app store and through the app. On my first flight the next day I got several pop-up messages asking to confirm if I had permission to fly in the area - I don't recall getting these messages before. I checked and hit confirm but I got the message several more times. Then I lost signal transmission; it was regained and then lost totally again but it went into RTH mode (even though I had it to hover it somehow came back to launch point). I could not abort the RTH mode. The GPS map froze and video screen was black in both instances. I had no idea what was going on until I spotted the Mavic back above me descending. At that point I noted the Mavic was responding to controls, even though the video screen was still black and GPS map was frozen showing drone about 1,000 feet away. Upon shutting down and resetting, DJI GO 4 said I had a incompatible version and needed an update (even though in the app store it was updated and confirmed up to date). It did not give me that prompt upn the first flight. Update done in DJ GO 4. Shut down and reset. I rebooted and got it again, although at the end of the last cycle it said I had the latest version. I don't recall seeing this message after connecting to the drone in the DJI GO 4 app (it shows up in a light blue bar towards the top of the screen). The next day I insured everything was updated and as recently noted, the new firmware checks to see if I have the latest version, which I did. I then fly several more days with no issues aside from noting I am unable to get the horizon perfectly true, even with adjusting the gimbal roll manually during the flight.
I conduct a flight this morning with zero issues. On my second flight today I had no issues connecting, etc., but it did prompt for a compass calibration, which I did. I should note this is the first time it has prompted me for one, even with traveling overseas. I performed the calibration and all was good to go. I launch and fly over the river a bit to set up for a shoot and noted the gimbal was erratically off, like 20 degrees. As I am looking at that I note the Mavic is flying on its own with zero control input from me and making a fast arc and then heading back to me. I try to get it to fly back clear over the water but it comes quickly crashing down, breaking off a rotor arm, fracturing the battery housing, and damaging the camera gimbal. I noted as it was doing this a SYS WARNING on the screen. But I had mere seconds to react as it flew abnormally and not responding to controls. Thankfully no one was hurt when it crashed on its own.
I look at the log and everything was nominal on take off and the first couple of seconds. Then it is nothing but yaw error, speed error, and compass error. It logs events even after it crashed, which happened in about 10 seconds. I just tried downloading the card and I note the first flight today has the correct date and time but the crash flight several hours later states "Dec 31, 2013, 11:00 PM" -- so what's up with that?!
With my past uneventful flights and given all these buggy things noted in the past few days I am pretty confident this is a software/update glitch. But it seems DJI is offline for the next several days. Weird coincidence?
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