Daniella3d Posted at 6-19 07:02
is it possible to cancel an autolanding over water?

Yes, it is possible. I was able to cancel it about 20 feet above the water. The app was not responding as quickly as I would have liked. At least from my experience, the cancel button takes a couple of taps before it responds.

Glad you did not lose your Mini - you were lucky.
Can't believe wind forecasts.  This is a 100% true story from quite a few years ago.  I was the pilot on a flight from a little north of Everett, Washington to Sacramento, California in a Cessna 172 (4 seat single engine airplane) with a refueling stop in Eugene, Oregon.  While at Eugene, I received a new weather forecast and filed my instrument flight plan.  The forecast was for an 18 knot headwind.  Took off in late afternoon and almost immediately flew into the clouds.  Somewhere around the Oregon / California border at 11,000 feet the air traffic controller asked me if I had calculated my ground speed.  I had only partially done so, and was aware that I was getting more headwind than forecast.  He advised me that my ground speed was 62 knots.  Since my airspeed was 120 knots, that meant that I had a 58 knot headwind!  Sure a lot more than the forecast 18 knot.  I did the math and figured I might need to make an early fuel stop.  The controller did his part and let me go to lower altitudes every time the Minimum Vectoring Altitude lowered, and every time I got lower, my ground speed improved a little.  Broke out of the clouds about an hour north of Sacramento, and ultimately determined that I had enough fuel to make it to Sacramento.  After my safe landing, it turns out that I had about 2 gallons left (15 to 20 minutes).  A LOT less than I would like to have had!  Especially at night.
So, the moral of the story is:  Don't believe wind forecasts!
BTW, before someone questions why my GPS did not tell me my ground speed - this was before GPS was available to civilians.

K6CCC Posted at 6-19 08:13
Glad you did not lose your Mini - you were lucky.
Can't believe wind forecasts.  This is a 100% true story from quite a few years ago.  I was the pilot on a flight from a little north of Everett, Washington to Sacramento, California in a Cessna 172 (4 seat single engine airplane) with a refueling stop in Eugene, Oregon.  While at Eugene, I received a new weather forecast and filed my instrument flight plan.  The forecast was for an 18 knot headwind.  Took off in late afternoon and almost immediately flew into the clouds.  Somewhere around the Oregon / California border at 11,000 feet the air traffic controller asked me if I had calculated my ground speed.  I had only partially done so, and was aware that I was getting more headwind than forecast.  He advised me that my ground speed was 62 knots.  Since my airspeed was 120 knots, that meant that I had a 58 knot headwind!  Sure a lot more than the forecast 18 knot.  I did the math and figured I might need to make an early fuel stop.  The controller did his part and let me go to lower altitudes every time the Minimum Vectoring Altitude lowered, and every time I got lower, my ground speed improved a little.  Broke out of the clouds about an hour north of Sacramento, and ultimately determined that I had enough fuel to make it to Sacramento.  After my safe landing, it turns out that I had about 2 gallons left (15 to 20 minutes).  A LOT less than I would like to have had!  Especially at night.
So, the moral of the story is:  Don't believe wind forecasts!

Do you trust the data on ventusly.com?

Daniella3d Posted at 6-19 09:59
Do you trust the data on ventusly.com?

Not anybody's forecast.  There is a reason they are called weather guessers.

TDZHDTV Posted at 6-17 10:07
Warnings and messages are there to keep your Mini safe, why on earth didn’t you turn back when you got weak signal warning or at the very least lower your altitude?

I am afraid he doesn't care or he might thinkMavic Mini is so superior....?  I don't know.

Nolan Silvius Posted at 6-19 04:25
I almost lost my mavic air 2 over water...but that was due to pilot error I ignored the low battery warnings and it started to land itself over water.

Maybe DJI should make new waterproof Mavic Mini 2?

DeafMacBoi Posted at 6-20 16:26
Maybe DJI should make new waterproof Mavic Mini 2?

That would be interesting.

Hello there trader6777. I am sorry to know what happened to your previous flight with your DJI Mavic Mini. It is great to know that you were able to recover the said drone.  Just a reminder to please fly carefully and please be aware of the drone's altitude when flying above water. When flying above the water, the vision system of the said drone will turn off automatically, if the vision system is affected an accident might happen. Thank you and have a safe flight always.

DJI Stephen Posted at 6-22 00:41
Hello there trader6777. I am sorry to know what happened to your previous flight with your DJI Mavic Mini. It is great to know that you were able to recover the said drone.  Just a reminder to please fly carefully and please be aware of the drone's altitude when flying above water. When flying above the water, the vision system of the said drone will turn off automatically, if the vision system is affected an accident might happen. Thank you and have a safe flight always.

Hi Stephen,

Can you explain better ; flying over water will automaically turn off the vision system ?
This is not in the manual written, i doubt if this is correct.

So what triggers the vision system if i fly over water at 50 meters that it will turn off?

cheers
JJB

Huh?? the vision system turn off over water?? at what altitude over water does that happen?

Retitle - "Never trust pilot"

It might make sense that it turns off when certain conditions are met. You could better understand this had you piloted a Mini above a torrent, it kind of drifts, probably fooled by the moving water. It's pretty easy to understand that could quickly turn against you as it could drift out if your control, especially when no clear GPS coverage is present.

I could see it turning "off" after a certain altitude is reached, say 20? meters or something.
Kind of useless at that altitude as they use them now...

Glad you made it!

always fly over large water body cautiously ,where unexpected gust may appear from no where and force your drone consume more power to compensate the wind force.
Rule of the tump is:  fly to  headwind and rth with tailwind.
Good to see eventually she landed safely.

The manual does not say it is turned off, it says it is unreliable above reflective or uniform surfaces (snow, glass and water). Would be valuable to get confirmnation and more details about how it works. Also, a message in the App that the VS is inactivated (or unavailable / unreliable) could also let the operator know he has to be extra careful.

You are crazy.  I got caught in the same situation and wasn't as lucky.  Lost my drone.  

Paulaleroux Posted at 6-27 16:36
You are crazy.  I got caught in the same situation and wasn't as lucky.  Lost my drone.

Sorry to hear that!  How far out did you fly? and how close were you to shore when it went down?

2 basic rules I've learned for flying over water:
#1 Never fly more than 11,000 ft out, no matter how calm the wind is..
#2 Fly along the coast, so if you can't make it back, you can land on the beach and pick it up.

I won’t even fly my Zoom more than 5000 feet away, let alone 15,000 with a WiFi connection. You are lucky you still had any control at that distance.

Strange flight
Wind help you to go so far...
And wind was a disadvantage to come back.
You write "never trust battery %" but the drone system was not so bad when it tell you to return home...

Right off the bat I can tell you that you made at least three mistakes.

The first is that you are very sure that the battery indicator was the problem here and are reluctant to accept any other conclusion. This is a bad mindset to have - you need to be able to accept that you can make mistakes. We are all human and you need to learn from your mistakes or you are doomed to repeat them.

The second is that it sounds like you fully trusted the wind forecast. The wind speed that was reported to you could be recorded from a weather station that is miles away, and not necessarily accurate to your exact location. This wind speed is also almost always recorded at ground level and can be often much stronger when you are hundreds of feet in the air. And even further, wind can change dramatically with no warning. So never 100% trust the wind forecast. First and foremost you need to trust how the drone is responding to the environment around it.

The third is that you trusted RTH to save you. RTH should be your absolute last resort. ALWAYS manually fly the drone when able. RTH will not use the full speed of the drone, despite having sport mode selected. You should have manually piloted the drone home, especially if you suspect that you are fighting the wind.

You can clearly see in the video that you are flying away at 29mph but then returning at only 16-18mph. This is due to either the RTH speed limit, a headwind, or both. So as you can imagine, it's going to take longer to get home and your drone is going to drain more power than it used on the way out.

From what I can tell from your video, your drone performed exactly as it was supposed to.

I always try to fly out into the wind, especially over water. That way, the wind helps me to return home.
There was nothing wrong with the battery indicaor. There was only a problem with the pilot. The pilot made several mistakes. You need to be more careful (conservative) while flying over water because you cannot land out there.

Hi! I recently bought a Mini 2 and today I was at the same point as the guy on this thread, and learned so much reading. I almost lost my drone today, did not took into consideration facts like altitude or wind speed, and on the RTH it came slower than expected when flying over a lake. Just a few meters before getting to the cost it started landing, on water!!! Did not know how to cancel it and I got to the point I resigned I was going to loose it... 1-2 mts before sinking it detected it was not "safe" to land there and gave me control back, I pushed it as fast as possible into the cost (rocks) and made it! Impressively despite the hard crash nothing happened to the drone, not even a scratch! I was so happy!! Lessons learned: I have to read a LOT more about different flight situations and factors, and be much more carefull. Battery depleted quite quick, so my guess is that it was too high and too much wind. Is there a way to extract the data about that flight? So it never happens again

djiuser_7fX3kD2Wn9Q0 Posted at 9-4 19:58
Hi! I recently bought a Mini 2 and today I was at the same point as the guy on this thread, and learned so much reading. I almost lost my drone today, did not took into consideration facts like altitude or wind speed, and on the RTH it came slower than expected when flying over a lake. Just a few meters before getting to the cost it started landing, on water!!! Did not know how to cancel it and I got to the point I resigned I was going to loose it... 1-2 mts before sinking it detected it was not "safe" to land there and gave me control back, I pushed it as fast as possible into the cost (rocks) and made it! Impressively despite the hard crash nothing happened to the drone, not even a scratch! I was so happy!! Lessons learned: I have to read a LOT more about different flight situations and factors, and be much more carefull. Battery depleted quite quick, so my guess is that it was too high and too much wind. Is there a way to extract the data about that flight? So it never happens again

Hi,

Use this link > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
and post the uploaded link on here

happy many landings! (not like this one ....  )

cheers
JJB

DeafMacBoi Posted at 2020-6-20 16:26
Maybe DJI should make new waterproof Mavic Mini 2?

I saw a company that makes what they call a raincoat for the min....

Nolan Silvius Posted at 2020-6-19 04:25
I almost lost my mavic air 2 over water...but that was due to pilot error I ignored the low battery warnings and it started to land itself over water.

Oh how sad ...