After six months of having a DJI Mini 2 sitting on the shelf staring back at me, today, there were no more excuses.
Yesterday, I did a full preflight review. Everything was talking to everything else, settings were updated. I was good to go.
This morning, I went to what is the most unpopulated place I could find. Country park/golf course on a hill.
Wind was a little bit concerning, a little bit choppy, but was determined to be well within its design limits.
I get set up and…… fly app would not load.
Yesterday was absolutely fine. Today, I opened it, only for it to crash immediately. Time and time again. Very, VERY frustrating start.
I had to redownload it all over again. And then it loaded and connected just fine.
It would not auto launch, dont know why, so I did a manual take off.
Did a little bit of basic manoeuvres, left right, rotate, up down.
Took it up to 50m, and off she went.
Now, I was on a hillside. My flightplan was a nice easy two mile straight out and back. Should have been a easy mission.
At just over 1 miles, I lost signal. FFS
I turned to face home when there was some signal, but that was almost non-existant.
I tried RTH. That didn’t work either.
I was started to think it would just park itself where it was until it decided to land…somewhere…
Every snippet of signal, I was nudging it towards home.
After a very long couple of minutes, it regained a solid connection, and made it back to me. I tried autoland, it didn’t want to know. I had to manually land it.
NOT the smooth uneventful flight I had been hoping for.
Quite a stressful first flight. But the drone didn’t crash, nobody died, and I didn’t end up being chased by police helicopters, so I will take it as somewhat of a win.
I didn’t have screen recording going, so all I have is the inflight video, no telemetry to review.
12 minutes of flight time in the book.
A one mile range was disappointing. Obviously, “the hack” is essential.
Spatial awareness was unnerving. No eyes in the back of your head.
Depth perception is going to take some time to get used to.
I have an actual pilots license. I learnt to fly both fixed wing and helicopters. And I can tell you, this drone flying is an entirely different beast to conquer. Drone flying takes actual skill.
Controls with no sensory feedback, very limited field of view, and a temperamental automation.
I shall endure and I shall be victorious.
I can see how some can get addicted to this stuff.
Looking forward to my next flight……
Having to literally re-download Fly App in the field, I overlooked checking and changing any of the settings. Although to be fair, I think RTH should be the default setting?
From what I know when it’s picked up enough satellites then it will tell you your home point has been updated please check it on the map , if it does not tell you that get it just off the floor and manually set your home point while it’s hovering where you are , if no home point has been set and I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong , then it won’t know where to come back too hence RTH not working , this is an educated guess !
The video, for what it is, got broken into three pieces. Around the time of the LOS, I inadvertently pressed on the take picture button, and that stopped the video, which I noticed straight away and restarted. The second break, I have no explanation for. I don’t recall it stopping again or anything happening, on the way back, yet when I went to offload the video, there are three pieces. With First Flight and so many things going wrong, it was a lot to keep on top of. But thats how people learn. And thats why I am sharing, so other newbies maybe can learn from my mistakes.
Let me know how you get on , that is your priority to make sure that it is set , if it does lose connection there’s no reason why it should not come back to you , one other thing in the fly app make sure it’s set to RTH when signals lost or something to that wording , check all your settings within the app as things can change after re instal , good luck
Edit : if and when you hit the RTH button hold yr finger on it for a couple of seconds until it starts beeping at you and you should hear “ Karen saying go home “ seriously , follow those steps you should be good
When you auto take off and the circle comes up hold yr finger on it until it spins round to the whole green circle , just one touch will not do it , hold until as I said and the same for land , I’m pretty confident that is the right sequence , however it’s been a while since I used auto but I’m sure it’s still the same
Also remember , what you might try and set within the fly app or what you thought you did set in the fly app ( when it’s not all powered on ) does not always or if at all save your preferred settings , Do it when everything is turned on and connected drone , remote and phone then adjust your preferred settings within the app , once you have done that they should be the same next time you power on , unless you do an update or something then I’d double check , also if you un installed the app again , hope that makes sense .
All does make sense, all points duly noted.
Regarding the disappointing 1 mile LOS, what is the optimum angle to be holding/pointing the remote?
And another question. The displayed altitude is reference the take off point. There is no way to have it actual position AGL? I took off on a small hill, to be safe, but as I was going outbound, idk, it felt almost like I was slowly getting closer to the ground. Like the ground was coming up to me. Could have just been a depth perception optical illusion. I will look for a topographic map of the area to see whats what.
Reviewing the video, its all “square” with the movements. I hope one day to be able to perform flowing movements. The fractions of a second delay between control input and seeing the action on the video its not helping with smooth flying. Having said that, when I made the manual approach and landing, it was all over the place, yet the video didnt show any of that. That gimbal is incredible technology.
Agreed, it’s shockingly hard to do, compared to full size fixed wing.
I recommend for you, Go take a look at the arduopilot and px4 communities.
More control over the software and hardware. Better telemetry and recording but hardware not often as elegant as dji although the other makers who are all seem to be using betaflight or px4 software (often without admitting it!)
Best to keep the aircraft where you can see it, then if the video link gets ‘dodgy’ you can pilot it home manually. For me, flying beyond where I can actually see the aircraft in the sky is stressful
Always make sure your home point is recorded upon take off, sometimes you can lose video feed before losing a control link so it won’t RTH in that scenario unless you press RTH.
If it doesn’t auto return upon pressing RTH as long as the home point was recorded upon take off simply switch off you transmitter and wait.
When you see your drone approaching simply switch your controller back on, it should automatically re connect upon switch on, you can then regain rmanual control and land it safely
These are top of my to-do list for flight #2. Thanks
I think some of the problems are not pushing AND HOLDING, the buttons for RTH, Auto take off, Auto land.
If you don’t know, you don’t know. So these things must happen to many. Theres no instruction book.
I suspect that flight #2 will resolve all flight 1’s issues, and I will come home with a bunch of new things needing sorting.
Valid question. Just wanted to do a range test. And going in a straight line, unobstructed perfect line of sight, will tell me what I needed to know. Conclusion: advertised range does not equal real world range.
seriously , follow those steps you should be good
