Litchi flight records only contains 'connected' data?

Questions & Answers
1

As some of you may know, I’m trying to track the building of a local dual carriageway bypass.

I’ve been working on a Litchi mission to basically fly the route of the bypass and for testing purposes I broken it down in to smaller missions, with each mission getting braver (ie. further away)

The two local missions have been fine, no problems. Today though I ran the ‘full’ mission which saw my trust Mavic Pro head off under it’s own steam, beyond VLOS (I know, I know, but that’s a whole other subject).

Anyway, during the mission I started to lose my bottle, mainly because the video signal was starting to drop out, as was the RC connection too. I knew the Mavic should carry on and complete it’s mission, and the last waypoint on the mission was set directly above my house.

Sure enough, the connection dropped out and I had now lost all visuals and all comms.

My beloved Mavic was flying under its own steam towards a huge expanse of water (Wigan Flashes) where I’d set it up to take four photos of a bridge being built over the canal.

Those were looonnnnggg minutes that it was gone. Panic started to set in :blush:

Eventually my trusty bird reconnected and then a minute later I could see it.

PHEW!

The mission completed perfectly and I was taking a look at it on AirData tonight and noticed that the flight log only seems to contain data that was recorded while the RC was connected. All data while the drone was out of range was missing.

The yellow line is what was logged, the red circle is where the drone carried on (successfully) and did it’s thing.

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My question being, is this correct?

I was expecting to see the entire flight log?

Thinking about it I suppose that the Litchi app can only log what data it gets from the RC, but I somehow assumed it might magically download the log from the bird.

I guess not?

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2

Unfortunately, yes.

It doesn’t seem to do a retrospective sync of the missing data.

There is the onboard DJI log, though. There must be a way to access this and convert it into an AirData compatible format.

I started to look at this because my Litchi app (on over congested phone) wasn’t logging ANY data … and wanted to get something out to replace it.
So far no joy - but I didn’t follow up on this in ages.

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3

Bugger.

That’s a shame.

Ok, but good to know :+1:

I should have used the Titan Atlas I guess :wink:

I’ll also freely admit that those few minutes that it was away seemed to last an eternity… I hadn’t realised just how emotionally attached I’d become to my little Mavic :blush:

Ok, thanks for the confirmation Dave, I’ll try and come up with a different plan :+1:

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4

It does take some acclimatisation to sit back and know it will be coming home.

As I’ve mentioned often - I tend to trust the app/MP more than I trust my skills to create the mission as I want it.

But - so far - it may not have been pointing where I wanted at all times, but it has ALWAYS followed the route it has been set, and always come home,

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5

I feel like that when I loose connection with my Mavic Air for few seconds - but minutes :open_mouth:

6

Hi
Just to be clear, when you say you lost all comms does that mean you not only lost the video feed to your phone but the controller lost it’s connection also ?

If so, how far away was it when it dropped out as I thought that even under our nanny state mode the transmissions were supposed to be good for a couple of km’s ?

7

Hi Paul,

Yes, exactly so.

The picture went blocky and froze a couple of times, then a few moments later all connectivity was lost.

Too far @Storyline :rofl:

I live on the back of a large housing estate, imagine a disused railway line with a housing estate on either side of it. Well the old railway line provides a great ‘corridor’ for flying up and down for testing settings etc but the local WiFi interference is crazy round this way.

It’s not often I fly from my back garden but if I fly to the right up the old railway the interference is that strong that I can lose both video and rc while still in line of sight, it’s absolutely mental!

Flying to the left is better, as the estate is only on one side if I go left, but still she loads of interference…

Hence me doing the Titan Atlas mod, to try and cut through it all.

But that only works if I actually use it on a flight eh :blush:

8

Yes, have no fear, if I’m out flying a farm I can go forever without so much as a flicker in signal strength :+1:

This is just an issue local to where I live :slight_smile:

9

Just a thought,but would forcing FCC mode not help things along?:+1:

10

An interesting thread. My pal has the MA and does the Litchi waypoint thing regularly. He was showing me video of his latest ‘adventure’ and the route he’d input, showing his MA stopping off to photograph a church and various places of interest along the way. He said he just sits there and waits till he hears the familiar buzz overhead as the MA comes into land. Legal ramifications aside, I’m not sure I could send my MP toddling off on a mission, I’d be worrying about bird strikes, hot air balloons, birthday party balloons, paragliders (I’m one), even those Chinese lanterns that were all the rage. I can understand your anxiety waiting to hear your aircraft returning, I was having palpitations just listening to my pal recounting his latest mission. I wanted to run home and hug my MP, cooing to her that I’d protect her and I’d never send her out into the cruel world all alone. (Maybe I need therapy).
I understand that the detailed flight log on the aircraft is now encrypted and unreadable by air data, only DJI can access it. (I may be corrected on this small point).

11

You worry too much! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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