Hello there,

this mornig i wanted to take a quick picture of the sunrise, but sadly i lost my spark.
I had a weak GPS signal, so i just wanted to go up quick and back down (stupid me, i know).
After a few successful pictures the drone suddenly drifted away over some houses and got faster until i didn't see it anymore.
Now i tried to figure out via the flight record where it went after the signal loss.

The starting point shown, is not the real starting point. The Homepoint in the app is around 200m north west.

At the beginning I just went up to 20m for the photo and then it started drifting away in north west direction.
During that time it just had 6 satellites. It started getting up to 30m and stayed at this hight, but still going sideways.
The horizontal speed was going up from 0 to 9m/s, jumped to 0 and went up to 9 again for like 6 times. (so I don't know how correct this data can be to determine the distance travelled)

Then i got a total signal loss from 1:09 to 2:38 and my flight record jumped from 88% battery to 75%.
Also the altitude changed to 47m. but i got 14 satellites now. But i still didnt know where it was and i couldn't see it. Horizontal speed 0 m/s.
Then another time jump happens and I am at 3:13, 24m altitude and no horizontal movement. Status: Landing.

All of the recored path is just in a circle of about 1m, so no real information here :/.

Now i have a few questions:
1. I just can get the flight record update, if the controller connects again with the drone, so it must be in an area where i was. what is the max resonable range of this?
2. will the gps coordinates of the map update themsselfs when the connection got better with the 15 satellites? Like is the last know position correct or is there still the shift from the beginning.
3. Any tips for finding a drone? like places or hiding spots etc...
4. how can i add the flight data here in the forum? I searched for it but didn't find any help.

Thanks for every little help, i hope i can get some information to pinpoint the area where i have to look. I tried for like 3 hours now and I have no idea how to interpret the data i have.
Have a very nice day

CCR

Please, download your log file and post us a link, that we could help you
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

I hope I did it Right

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/63Y03W6M1ERQ1LQDNBF4/#

Uuuh, that is difficult, at least for me!
You tried to bring it home, using stick control, so it is no clear drift with the wind.
For me it is not clear if you had line of sight during that.
But it just "waited" ~30 seconds before auto landing.

Any phone number @ your bird, address?
Isn't Germany one of the countries with "have to" sticker on drones?

Well, i don't want to rely on the sticker alone.
I started inside the red roof house complex to the right and lost eye sight over the one of the three little houses left next to it.
Also if the drone landed on one of the roofs or even worse the garbage deposit … i don't want to think about that .
Later this afternoon i get the keys to the roof of the car wash. Maybe I can find something there.

Do you think the position shown on the map is correct when the drone got 15 satellites at the end?

Hi CCR, (good music btw...)

Bad luck this flight....never start a flight with no GPS lock!

After takeoff > ATTI and OPTI mode, max height 5 meters.
But with 6 satellites sometimes with some reception you can fly higher up to 30 meter.
More UP and reached 24 meters, no OPTI so into ATTI!

All the time no positions recorded, no HP set.

After 1m10s HP is recorded with now 14 sats and good reception. [50.77142100,6.05949900]
Twice connection loss, guess you did a RTH but beacuse SPARK was close to HP (not your position) it did an autolanding.
PS speed indication in the app witn no GPS signals not reliable.

Landing at the yellow marker.
cheers
JJB

Sorry to know that

Hi CCR, I am sorry to know what happened to your previous flight. This is not the experience we want you to have with DJI. If your product is within the warranty period, the best thing you need to do is to contact our support team at: https://www.dji.com/support?site=brandsite&from=nav for additional help and analysis. Please take note that DJI will not perform data analysis for cases occurring after the expiry of the warranty. If you need further assistance with your case, please let us know. Thank you for your support.

if you had the last flight track on the dji go app you can find it but please ask the people in your area if they have seen your spark.

D2_cayde Posted at 4-10 18:30
if you had the last flight track on the dji go app you can find it but please ask the people in your area if they have seen your spark.

Have you read coversation above?

Hello again,
I am sorry for the long wait for an update.
I only had short times during the last days to look out for the drone, and real difficulties even getting a look on the roof.
Finally i got an owner of one of the houses to go up on his one and look out at the recommend spot.
He almost didn't see my little spark, but it's there!
The only problem at the moment is that the roof it landed on is very instable and now we have to find a way to get it down.
But i guess this is not a problem of yours anymore

So thank you all very much for the help and the support.

I learned a lot for what to do if a drone gets lost, so i will maybe update this thread later once more with some tips and personal experience, in case someone uses the search bar and needs some help, too.

So once again thank you very much, have a great and nice day!

CCR (still a spark owner)

CCR Posted at 4-11 20:25
Hello again,
I am sorry for the long wait for an update.
I only had short times during the last days to look out for the drone, and real difficulties even getting a look on the roof.

It's really great news! Not so much flyaways actually finalize with such happy ending. Hope you get it before any rain!

CCR Posted at 4-11 20:25
Hello again,
I am sorry for the long wait for an update.
I only had short times during the last days to look out for the drone, and real difficulties even getting a look on the roof.

Good news! hope you can recover it from that instable roof!

CCR Posted at 4-11 20:25
Hello again,
I am sorry for the long wait for an update.
I only had short times during the last days to look out for the drone, and real difficulties even getting a look on the roof.

You know someone with a mavic ?
(Don't forget to do a video!)

Sorry to read that

So this morning I walked around the industrial quarter and talked to people, so they don't worry when they see me and call the police. I even asked for permissions for the Roofs i wanted to climb on to get to the drone spot.
With some help of a guy working at the near garbage disposal I found a great way up on the first roof and climbed my way over the the one where my drone landed.
Like I thought the roof with the drone was way too instable for my weight so i brought a 2m stick and some rulers with me, which I taped together.
Unfortunaly this was still not long enough so I layed down on the roof to distribute my weight, made a hook at the end of the ruler and fished my drone back into my hands
No scratches, no broken parts, just like it would have landed in jello.
Sadly my GoPro wasn't charged, so no video for today.

So here are some of my of TIPS AND TRICKS for People who lost their drone in a city enviroment:

- drones can fly high!  Even if you started low, it can rise up in the air very fast, try to look out for it way higher than ecxpected, even check to return to home hight.

- drones can fly fast!   I was Looking in a way too narrow area at the beginning. I thought it may be a 100m away for my point of start, but it ended up around 250m away.

- drones are small!    The spark is a very small drone, so look out for a lot of places where it could hide. Even of it lands on a roof it is still very hard to spot.

- your Controller is your best friend!   Even when you lose eyesight and the video feed, your remote Controller still recieves valuable information and can also reconnect if you are near your drone. In my case this safed my a**, because i got a glimps of information where the drone was and an updated last gps point. NEVER turn the Controller off. You can get a lot of information out of it and put it into a website-converter like the one we used above in this tread, this can give you and others an idea what happened and you can better find a way, where your drone could have flown or landed.

- most people are friendly!  I know sometimes People can be very agressive against drones, but in my case even some grumpy old neighbours checked their backyard after I asked politly. If you have a smaller drone, maybe play it down a little like it's a toy and not a "thousand-dollar-high-tech-kamera-video-quadrocopter". For most people this will trigger the "we-kicked-our-football-over-the-fence,-can-we-get-it" mechanism. Also most people were interested and wanted to know more. If you need to go on someone elses property to recover the drone, at least ask for their permission.

- Safe your footage!   I had some footage from my last holiday on the sd card, and after the first day searching I would have excanged my lost drone just to get the sd card back again. So always safe at every possible moment you can.

- Lose Hope! Get help!    If you can't find the drone in the first few days. accept that it's gone. In my case I got very very lucky, but I also accepted I would see my drone never again. This helps not to panic and deal with the loss, if you really lost your drone. As bad as it seems, a lost drone is still better than a crash with injured people or property (most times). But don't stop looking for it, for me it took 3 to 4 days until i found it! And if you have no idea what to do next, or (like me) you have no idea what to do with the Information you have or could have: look into the Forum (which you allready did ) and ask People for help. All the People above helped a lot to understand what has happened and what I can do next.


So I hope that These Little tips can help to maybe find a drone again or get some structure into the searching Progress.
Again thanks to all who helped me and have a nice day

CCR

Wise words. So glad you got your drone back.

Glad to hear you got it back!

CCR Posted at 4-11 20:25
Hello again,
I am sorry for the long wait for an update.
I only had short times during the last days to look out for the drone, and real difficulties even getting a look on the roof.

Thank you for the additional information. We're glad to know that you already manage to retrieve your spark. Thank you for your continued support.