How the DJI Mavic Mini TOTALLY RUINED my Christmas Holidays
How
the DJI Mavic Mini
TOTALLY RUINED
my Christmas Holidays
TOTALLY RUINED
my Christmas Holidays
It
flew away from me on the second day
To
the DJI Mavic Mini community of owners, enthusiasts, reviewers and
more...
Hello, I am m80(116) and I am from Italy... and no I am not 16 years
old in case you're wondering about this Greta styled introduction,
but I've had my first and only drone recently, so I am novice drone
pilot and I was so excited about it like I haven't been for a long
time before, and with the Mini has been love at first sight.
Let me just point out something about my character: I am quite an old
style dude, but decently competent when it comes to tech, say for
example customize a PC many would tell you change the desktop
wallpaper or change the colours, for me it means regedit.exe,
services.msc and task scheduler. I could carry on...
So like many of you probably I was made aware from the Interweb about
this wonderful little creature that is the Mavic Mini and I decided
almost immediately, within a few hours from viewing the presentation
video that I was gonna get one.
Not to be ungrateful to all the reviewers and ethusiasts that were
selected for marketing campaign (received the drone beforehand) and
posted great content about the Mini but by the time I was following
them I had already delved deep into the matter to verify it was a
legitimate top notch product and not a bloated advertising bubble,
not a TOY drone (like a Tello, I didn't need one) and something that
could really initiate me properly to drones. Something that if I
decided to pursue with more upscale models I could still keep and
enjoy for the convenience of it: the size, the weight, the
integration, the quality, the support from a reputable company...
Well... did I just say that. I've had my Mavic Mini for 2 days
straight. I waited patiently over a month and stayed home the whole
Christmas eve to receive the DHL package. Two full and intese days
later I was left with just the remote controller. My drone flew away
from me. Rewind a bit more than a month ago, I was already deep into
specs, instructions, safety notices after my dji.com order. Basically
I already knew how to fly (not that it needs much training) and I was
already aware about all the good practices specific for this kind of
fortified Wi-Fi drones.
My stats are 2.9 h of flight, 18.1 km, 34 flights. After having
performed several routine manual takeoff and landings which made me
comfortable I tested the transmission pushing the drone to 1.5 km
(2km is the maximum open field reach for the EU model) and several
other tests, including one where I deliberately tried to land it
beyond my view into a shoadowed area (for the Wi-Fi signal) behind a
warehouse.
Needless to say the drone performed flawlessly, the signal indicator
ramained reliable and decreased lienarly with distance, when I
attempted the out of view landing it lost contact with my remote
gradually and initiated the RTH procedure which I was able to cancel
as soon as it got above the shadowed area. Even the wind resistance
seemed very good... I was expecting a little bit more challenge and
the Mini made me feel immediately familiar with it... up to the point
that (on the second day) I was already comfortable piloting it very
close to me for landing.
Now, fast forward at the end of the second day. Since I already shot
videos of my town along the river I've had this idea of doing the
last and only flight directly above my town for 300 meters, being a
quite small Italian town that is all it takes to trace back the
street that opens out into the main central square. Being directly
line of sight with the square and well within the range spec (500m in
5 GHz and 2000m in 2.4 GHz, which I have already scanned, most of the
5 gig band is free at every distance) I thought that it would be
reasonably safe operation, and that in the worst case scenario of
complete loss of control the drone would fly back to me, and I'd be
able to regain control shortly like in the test.
The flight path was planned beforehand and the RTH altitude was
already set above 50m to stay on the safe side, and proceeded to flew
line of sight for around 300m without much fuss at 26m height which I
can demonstrate with video cache evidence is above every building
passed by. During the approach I experienced 2 brief interference
notices which quickly re-entered (i.e. disappeared, the aircraft link
was operating perfectly again, probably after switching channel for a
close by interference source), but I still decided to push up the
altitude from the home point to 33m, which considering the slope in
the road leading to the center increased the actual aircraft to
ground altitude even further, while the signal icon stayed full.
I then came on the brim of the last edifice which happens to be an
old church, hovered there a bit, made some videos and shot some
stills, I never entered the square because I deemed it an unworthy of
the risk, despite the size, flying height and noise level of the
drone suggesting it went unnoticed by everybody (the background noise
of a town square with a carousel is certainly not very low).
As it is costume with drones I did what everybody does when taking
videos, I backed out a bit to try and shoot a cinematic opening into
the square... and then the NOTHING came.
The drone lost connection with my remote (beeping at me like crazy),
and video froze on my smartphone monitor display. It had a 76% full
battery, so it could still hover the area for quite a long time,
probably in excess of 20 minutes. I waited patiently about 7-8
minutes climbing on top of a bench in the hope to regain control...
while the remote was beeping at me and the video was stuck on the
last decolored video frame. Nothing significant happened before I
lost contact, the signal was full strength, the battery was full (at
take off), every propeller correctly inspected and screwed in, the
video was silky smooth at that moment of link loss and I didn't
notice any sudden jolt in the pictures (indicating something that
might have impacted the drone).
So I quickly ran below the zone where I piloted the drone, I
sincerely hoped to find it there, still hovering. Nothing. It
disappeared like it never existed. The only proof that I've had a
drone are now my accessories and the DJI invoice. No signs of crash
at and around the last known position site. No signs of the drone at
the home point.
Anxiety and dispair pervaded me... not knowing the outcome of the
incident put me in a very unpleasant position. I feared that the
object might heve hit someone, and I checked the local news website
almost as fast as a browser can refresh for the next 24 hours.
I then started to think logically about various possibilities:
whatever happened after the link was lost since the aircraft was
already clear of every building it should have flown back even if
unable reach the preset RTH altitude for some reason. But still if
the auto-RTH failed to initiate the GPS and attitude control should
have kept it in place and I should have found it hovering the area
after the around 10 minutes it took me for the wait and quick walk to
the site, with plenty of time to re-gain control and execute a manual
landing. Since it is a new product and I am among the first ones to
pilot it I can even speculate the internal flight controller unit
might have crashed or some hardware failure intervened. Since no jolt
was ever transmitted in the video I ruled out a mid-air collision
(another drone would have been unlikely but pigeons were otherwise a
solid possibility).
Now before you step out and say -you're a crazy imbecile for piloting
a drone above houses- let me just say: I've seen worse, far worse. I
know I am a beginner pilot, I know the urban envirinment is probably
the most challenging of them all... but pushing a 2 Km of range drone
to 0.3 Km line of sight didn't seem to me beyond its capabilities,
especially considering the almost clear 5 GHz band (0.5 Km of range,
with plenty of totally quiet empty channels). If it can't do that what have I got the drone for? Even if the 2.4 GHz spectrum might
have been completly saturated when cumulatively sampling all the
distances and heights in line of sight the 5 GHz was not, and was
well withing the range. And before you go -it's interference, it can
fly anywhere- when was the last time that you were in a weak or
interfered Wi-Fi area with your phone and tapping the news page parts
of the youporn website started to populate your screen? It simply
cannot happen... at most the worst that can happen is the page
loading times out and your browser displays it mangled because it
hasn't got time to finish loading the styling CSS(es). And nothing of
the above happened in my case, I also stopped moving the sticks as
soon as I've got unlinked (not that it could have done anything since
the connection was already lost).
Then it should have initiated the auto-RTH (return to home) procedure
which it didn't and even if it did, it obviosly it didn't complete,
never got back to me at the home point.
The following days the search operations ensued from ground and air,
we got to the upper deck of a nearby skyscraper with 10x50
binoculars, and a friend even tried to fly his DJI Phantom 4 around
the last known position site above the church. We even accessed with
permit a nuns convent and a lawyer studio to survey the roof in which
we thought the tiny drone might have auto-landed once the battery was
depleted to no avail.
Nothing has ever been found. The DJI customer support opened an
investigation as a flew away case, they will inspect the live
telemetry from the remote and the drone stored in my account
(uploaded from the smartphone logs) to establish if it was pilot
error. But regardless of their finding I can't help but think that I
couldn't have done anything differetly, not even after 1000 hours of
experience.
Well... to be completely honest except I would never attempt such
deed again because I risked an heart attack and after realizing it
probably didn't hit anybody or anything significant I don't have 500
EUR to shell out every time the tiny creature might get a mind of his
own. Drones are unreliably dangerous that is it... they're not built
with aviation standards.
I wouldn't even fly more capable drones anywhere near a town after
I've seen a Phantom 4 smash its propellers into a concrete flower pot
(because of problems, not pilot error) and the experience is
absolutely terrifying. I can testify why flying that thing is a
complete liability in the air... should that thing hit you from the
sides you're gonna be sliced to death, or be dead on spot should it
fall into your head. Much less with a Mini but it is still to be
verfied...
This and many others were the reasons behind the Mavic Mini drone
choice, and I am still craving it, despite the 500 EUR loss, the
missed heart attacked, 3 days wasted for contingency operations and
the liability of having a property of mine fallen or landed onto
somebody else's property and still unrocovered to date. I might be
really sick for still wanting a drone like this... but I do.
From the box to the case opening, meeting the little drone,
re-charging the batteries array within the carrying case, everything
was an outstanding and enjoyable experience... until the event almost
every aspect made me really fall in love with it. Even the shape of
the drone with its cunning black (unpopulated) eyes made me feel
empathic toward the little thing and I deeply regret not having
tested it further so I could have noticed the problem before it
happened critically.
Despite what happened I should still thank DJI for at least giving me
hope, and thanks everybody for suggesting the Mavic Mini, it was
really a wonderful product and experience until it lasted... too bad
mine flew away the second day of ownership.
I think you should consider my experience before letting anyone
(including yourself) fly this (and probably many other) drone(s).
m80116, Dec 2019
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