Ray_Dunakin
Captain
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I just got back from my annual trip to photograph old mines, mining camps, and ghost towns in Nevada. I had planned to do a lot of filming with my Mavic Pro. It was so important to me that I took the precaution of buying a second MP, so that if anything happened to the first one, I'd have a backup and wouldn't be stuck. BTW, this isn't my first time using a Mavic -- I've been flying mine since April 2017 and have never had any serious hardware or software issues. Until now...
On the morning of the first day of the trip, I had a very successful flight. A few hours later, I got ready to fly the MP again. I turned everything on, the MP connected successfully to the remote, I got the "ready to fly" message, pushed the left joystick up to lift off -- and nothing happened. I double checked all my connections, etc and couldn't find anything wrong. The display showed everything normal, but the only response when using the joystick was that the camera gimbal would move rather than the propellers.
So I got out my new backup MP, and it too refused to lift off!
Both aircraft were flown prior to the trip and were working fine, but now when I needed them most, they were just very expensive bricks!
When I got into a small town that had cellular phone service, I called DJI tech support, but the gal I talked to was not very helpful. Her only suggestion was that it might have something to do with the fact that there was a dirt airstrip somewhere near the town. Which is nonsense. I flew my Mavic all over Nevada last year without any problems, and I've flown it at home despite living next to a major military airbase!
During the rest of my trip, I made several more attempts to fly, at various remote locations, all with the same results. I also updated the firmware and still could not get the Mavic to launch.
To say I'm upset would be putting it mildly! I only get one chance per year to go where there is anything worthwhile to see and photograph. I had big plans for this trip. Now it's all down the toilet and I have to wait an entire year for another chance.
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