My Mavic Air has been faultless to date and touch wood, never crashed. However recently something strange has happened on a few occasions. When RTH is activated the drone stars returning home as normal but when over the start point and before initiating descent, carries on flying and I have to cancel RTH and bring it back manually. During take off, I always wait until I get all the satellites showing on my monitor (Smartphone), let it fly up to its holding height for 10 seconds or so and check the green LEDS are flashing on the drone. So what could be causing this strange behaviour?
When GO4 tells you, “the home point has been updated, please check it on the map” - are you checking it? And is it exactly where you’re standing?
How far beyond the take off point does it go before you cancel it?
What’s the take off surface pattern like? Are you launching from grass or tarmac? Is the VPS not getting a sufficient lock?
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Hi PingSpike
Thanks for your response.
To answer your questions, I use a plastic fold-up heli pad to launch the drone and I wait for the message “the home point has been updated, please check it on the map”, but I can’t say that I always check my location on the map. However the drone normally lands within a few inches of where it took off from on the pad which is amazing. When the error occurs It sometimes carries on flying past the home point for a few hundred yards before I take control and on two occasions the flight became very erratic.
When I started using the pad, I had to disable the ground obstacle avoidance system as the drone would hover about 10 feet above the pad and not land. I discovered the drone didn’t like the pattern on the pad and would land ok on a flat gravel or short grass surface.
I’ve had the Mavic Air since It’s release. Flown it in several European and the Caribbean countries and have had no problems at all until recently. I flew it yesterday and made around eight RTH landings of which one flew past the landing pad for a hundred yards or so before I cancelled RTH. I was flying above some old pit workings and did wonder if they were affecting the drone, although at 90 feet I didn’t think so.
A bit of a puzzle?
Regards
Doug Cooper