Operator Error?

Yes. As it was drifting towards / into the car the pilot (you?) yawed left which didn't do anything to prevent it from hitting the car. Pushing the right stick to the left instead would have put some distance between the aircraft and the vehicle and possibly avoided a crash.

DroneFlying Posted at 2017-4-18 10:04
Operator Error?

Yes. As it was drifting towards / into the car the pilot (you?) yawed left which didn't do anything to prevent it from hitting the car. Pushing the right stick to the left instead would have put some distance between the aircraft and the vehicle and possibly avoided a crash.

Completely agree.

Definitely pilot error.  What kind of damage to the Mavic and the car?

81SFORLIFE Posted at 2017-4-18 10:36
Definitely pilot error.  What kind of damage to the Mavic and the car?

Looks like scratches on the car (2:08) and a detached camera / gimbal (2:16).

Live and learn. Hopefully gimbal is not too jacked up.

the mavic does seem to be drifting though almost as if you weren't pushing directly forward on the sticks... the movement seems unnatural.

If you look at his stick inputs there is nothing that should be making the mavic drift right towards the car. It also seems to be unaturally drifitng at the beggining of the video.

Fractures Posted at 2017-4-18 10:46
the mavic does seem to be drifting though almost as if you weren't pushing directly forward on the sticks... the movement seems unnatural but it is something you could be doing with the controls.

It was windy (they even commented on this at the beginning of the video) and VPS probably couldn't lock on to anything because the pavement didn't offer much in the way of a distinct pattern that would have helped stabilize it. With a bit of wind and no help from VPS, this is pretty much the outcome I'd expect in tight quarters like that.

RedTailHawk36 Posted at 2017-4-18 10:45
Live and learn. Hopefully gimbal is not too jacked up.

Out of curiosity, who was the pilot? You, a friend, or a stranger whose YouTube video you came across?

Gimbal repair costs -- at least when done by DJI -- seem to vary quite a bit.

DroneFlying Posted at 2017-4-18 10:46
It was windy (they even commented on this at the beginning of the video) and VPS probably couldn't lock on to anything because the pavement didn't offer much in the way of a distinct pattern that would have helped stabilize it. With a bit of wind and no help from VPS, this is pretty much the outcome I'd expect in tight quarters like that.

Good point, the wind doesn't appear to be too strong in the video but if the VPS system was having trouble reading the asphalt patterns then it could definitely be causing issues in combination with light wind. I haven't seen this type of behavior in my Mavic pro but it seems like a viable explanation. It usually takes a strong wind to blow my mavic of course at all but I haven't spent much time flying close to asphalt like the OP

DroneFlying Posted at 2017-4-18 10:50
Out of curiosity, who was the pilot? You, a friend, or a stranger whose YouTube video you came across?

Gimbal repair costs -- at least when done by DJI -- seem to vary quite a bit.

I was the pilot (my voice saying it's windy). I have the gimbal plate on order. It looks like and easy fix as long as the motors and mechanical part of the gimbal did not break (they appear to be intact). It seemed to be responding but I don't think I'll know until I get it mounted.

Fractures Posted at 2017-4-18 10:46
the mavic does seem to be drifting though almost as if you weren't pushing directly forward on the sticks... the movement seems unnatural.

If you look at his stick inputs there is nothing that should be making the mavic drift right towards the car. It also seems to be unaturally drifitng at the beggining of the video.

Thank you! I thought I was going crazy.

Sorry to see , when we panic we disorient ourselves specially when its coming toward you and you have to think opposite. Thats why I need to practice practice in a field . One lesson I learned from this  video when taping narrow areas use gimble cover and go to tripod mode.

RedTailHawk36 Posted at 2017-4-18 11:21
I was the pilot (my voice saying it's windy). I have the gimbal plate on order. It looks like and easy fix as long as the motors and mechanical part of the gimbal did not break (they appear to be intact). It seemed to be responding but I don't think I'll know until I get it mounted.

When it's engaged VPS plays a pretty big role in the Mavic's stability, and without it -- whether due to height, darkness, or just lack of a distinct pattern below the aircraft -- the Mavic will drift around a little. It'll try to stay at the same GPS location when it's hovering, but that still gives it a good 6+ feet of leeway.

Anyway, I'm sorry about your crash, and hopefully the repair will be painless and inexpensive.

so you dinged someone else's car and you are ok with that? Thats why we are getting these stupid rules.. If crashed my UAV into someone else's car and scratched it even a little bit. I would that person to smahs my drone to pieces and i would be ok with that!.

alirz5 Posted at 2017-4-18 12:15
so you dinged someone else's car and you are ok with that? Thats why we are getting these stupid rules.. If crashed my UAV into someone else's car and scratched it even a little bit. I would that person to smahs my drone to pieces and i would be ok with that!.

Easy there. Don't get your blood pressure up to too high a level ;-) And yes I would leave a note there to call me for cost settlement - I do hope the OP does so, would be a sensible thing to do.

alirz5 Posted at 2017-4-18 12:15
so you dinged someone else's car and you are ok with that? Thats why we are getting these stupid rules.. If crashed my UAV into someone else's car and scratched it even a little bit. I would that person to smahs my drone to pieces and i would be ok with that!.

Yeah it's real bad here in central valley, US. Get a lot of people who do this type of stuff, ding cars, hit and run. I'm sure it's worse in China though (from what I hear anyway) A lot of baiju

I'm sure the op will do the right thing, it's Canada. The drone laws there might come down on him hard.

I didn't get the sense that the guy laughing in the video was the owner / pilot, and I heard somebody ask,"They weren't home?" so my interpretation was that the OP had already tried to talk to somebody about the crash while they were still recording. And since the only damage we know of was to his own Mavic and to the car I'm guessing he was trying to let the owners of the vehicle know and make amends. Plus, they didn't exactly seem to be in a hurry to hide or flee the scene, so I'm not sure why anyone would assume that the OP was ok with what happened or might be hoping to escape responsibility. For that matter, he didn't even have to admit that it was his video -- but he did when asked, so he doesn't sound like the hit-and-run type to me.

Sounds good. Hope  no one got in trouble.

It was going quite fast and pretty low to the ground. I'd imagine the asphalt pattern was changing too quickly for the VPS to keep track of. I wish there was a way to tell if the VPS was working or not.

Windy, low flight, narrow street with cars...

Talk with the owner of the car yet?

I'd pay a detailer to come out and try to fix it via buffing the surface. I doubt it went through the clear coat and allot of that can even be left over plastic residue. If I owned the car I'd actually want that over painting it because original factory paint will always be higher quality  than aftermarket paint done at an autobody shop.

Lucked out sooooo much!

Doesn't look to bad hope it will be ok.

Your aircraft seemed to be veering to the right, this maybe caused by lack of texture and dark colour of the ground when flying with VPS , I know this is quite common when flying low with say tightly mown grass.
Some test their aircraft at very low heights to see if they are flying straight and don't realise that VPS needs good light and good texture and when they see it veering left or right, immediately think it's something to do with IMU , when if they took the AC up above 10 meters it will give them a much better indication that aircraft is flying in a straight line.
Hope it's not to costly for you.

Guys....I've seen my brand new drone and a few other do the same exact thing.  My first Mavic (which is still in repair) Didn't do any of this. It was super stable. But my brand new one. As soon as I updated I noticed it started to drifted more and more.  
It looked like this at first (my first mavic) super stable.....like a rock...

Now it's shaking on the brand new one. My android which never crashed. Now app crashes about 3 -4 times in a flight.
One month of updates could mess up a good thing.

geofox784 Posted at 2017-4-18 18:09
Talk with the owner of the car yet?

I'd pay a detailer to come out and try to fix it via buffing the surface. I doubt it went through the clear coat and allot of that can even be left over plastic residue. If I owned the car I'd actually want that over painting it because original factory paint will always be higher quality  than aftermarket paint done at an autobody shop.

You were exactly correct. It buffed out. Lucky it was a slow drift.

cluc Posted at 2017-4-18 17:45
Windy, low flight, narrow street with cars...

Recipe for hitting a parked car.

DroneFlying Posted at 2017-4-18 10:50
Out of curiosity, who was the pilot? You, a friend, or a stranger whose YouTube video you came across?

Gimbal repair costs -- at least when done by DJI -- seem to vary quite a bit.

Did it myself. 20$ for the gimbal plate. Everything is working pretty good now.

RedTailHawk36 Posted at 2017-4-21 17:53
Did it myself. 20$ for the gimbal plate. Everything is working pretty good now.

Good job! I'm glad you didn't have to pay a bundle or wait a long time to get back in the air.

Are you kidding me?  What were you thinking?  It's people like you that are forcing the government to come down hard on us hobbyists. Go to an open field and obey the rules.

RedTailHawk36 Posted at 2017-4-18 18:11
Lucked out sooooo much!

Some of your country cousins are sympathetic to your crash but us Aussies might get a bit peeved with having our pride and joy scratched like that. But hey, we have a sense of humour. We'd just get some rope and tie your nuts to the Mavic and let 'er rip at warp speed.

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-4-23 16:18
Some of your country cousins are sympathetic to your crash but us Aussies might get a bit peeved with having our pride and joy scratched like that. But hey, we have a sense of humour. We'd just get some rope and tie your nuts to the Mavic and let 'er rip at warp speed.

xd And I bet the hawks over in Australia would have ate his mavic after his balls were tore off. He did make one of the most awesome mavic videos though, so

Sorry to hear what had happened.  Hopefully all went well with the car owner and hoping the Mavic is in good condition.