I've been flying my new Avata for a few days, and even though I love it, I almost crashed yesterday due to some weird behavior. I was flying in Manual Mode all the time, and when I was about to do the turn you see in the video, the drone automatically tilted down for some reason and recovered itself really close to the water without me doing anything. I don't think I pressed the break button and certainly that strange tilt was not caused by me, if anything I would say it was due to the aerodynamics of a cinewhoop style chassis.
What do you think? Have you experienced anything similar before?



And yes... That was a close call...

Hello there T3lmuf. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please try flying your DJI Avata to a different location to see if the issue will persist? The DJI Avata's sensors might be affected by the reflection of the sun on the body of water where you have flew your DJI Drone. Please keep us posted for further assistance. Thank you.

Whoa! That would have scared the crap out me. Wind can throw the avata around pretty easily, but it looks like you had zero wind. Did you check your flight log for signal anomalies?

No signals anomalies whatsoever. And judging by some videos in Youtube, it seems I'm not the only one with the issue, please DJI take a deeper look and fix it ASAP. This is quite dangerous!

DJI Stephen Posted at 9-19 00:26
Hello there T3lmuf. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please try flying your DJI Avata to a different location to see if the issue will persist? The DJI Avata's sensors might be affected by the reflection of the sun on the body of water where you have flew your DJI Drone. Please keep us posted for further assistance. Thank you.

Strange, since the sensors are supposed to be disabled while in manual mode. I've seen quite a number of videos with this exact issue. Definitely a bug.

Look at my my Reddit post: (https://www.reddit.com/r/dji/comments/x7iof0/wtf_did_happend_mid_air_with_my_avata/)

The Internet is full of this Bug.. DJI gives a ... about it.

After contacting the support and sending them the blackbox-data with the video: DJI says theres no problem.
This tells me: DJI doesnt fly there own Drone in manual and do sharp turns...

Could be ‘rotor vortex ring’ at play, more likely in low wind conditions, especially in the hover, all rotor craft can run into this problem including full sized helicopters. There's a fair bit of info on Google if you want to see the physics behind it.

Flying forward avoids this as you don’t end up in your own vortex created by the props. The Avata IMU may be reacting unexpectedly once it’s encountered. This would explain some of the odd crashes that have been seen.

Increasing power without pushing forwards will make it worse.

yaw washout. not enough torque. happens when yaw and pitch and/or roll are applied at the same time enough to stall one of the motors. bf, inav, ap, etc have the same problem. no surprise there.

mattbrad2 Posted at 9-21 04:37
Strange, since the sensors are supposed to be disabled while in manual mode. I've seen quite a number of videos with this exact issue. Definitely a bug.

Hi there mattbrad2. Thank you for the reply and for giving out these information and update. I will forward these information to the designated DJI Department for attention. Again, I am sorry for the trouble and thank you.

I can't stop finding new videos related to the same issue, please DJI do something asap.

Wow, that was close!

fansebae Posted at 9-21 12:30
yaw washout. not enough torque. happens when yaw and pitch and/or roll are applied at the same time enough to stall one of the motors. bf, inav, ap, etc have the same problem. no surprise there.

I reckon that ducted props aren't suited to yaw turns.

fansebae Posted at 9-21 12:30
yaw washout. not enough torque. happens when yaw and pitch and/or roll are applied at the same time enough to stall one of the motors. bf, inav, ap, etc have the same problem. no surprise there.

I reckon that ducted props aren't suited to yaw turns.

keggyhander Posted at 10-1 00:57
I reckon that ducted props aren't suited to yaw turns.

There's something else also behind the yaw washout, otherwise all ducted drone will fall to ground, anyway only dji can tell us what is going on.Too many videos of avata falling to ground.

there is no strong wind for your case i am sure coz i am a boat driver as well. If there is strong wind, there is no way you can have such a calm water condition.
And again your situation is being encountered by many pilots already, hope DJI will fix it in the next firmware...