Good News!
I’ve just checked my “Airdata UAV” app and it tells me that the next time I can safely fly my Mavic Mini is at 04:00am on Thursday!
If I send her up now she can be in Norway by breakfast.
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With that wind right now, she’ll make it on one battery 
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Why put the battery in?
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Just in case she’s losing altitude
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In regards to next time to fly.
As the weather is so bad still I opted to fly in the warehouse again for the 6th -7th time as I’m too eager to learn and get used to the mini.
Here is where it went wrong. Wait for good weather!!!
All pre flight checks done.
Hovering and checked movement, all good.
So went for a fly straight ahead.
All went well until … Atti mode.
Lost GPS.
Mini went full roll left at what I can only describe as light speed and went straight through the racking at work. Missing all items and coming to a halt 10m away.
Not sure if I managed to slow it down and stop or if it just happened.
As a new flyer that was a terrifying moment thinking what have I done or not done.
And feeling helpless for a few seconds.
I will from now on fly outside. I know I shouldn’t be flying in a warehouse but it’s been fine before.
Learnt a lesson today and luckily had no damage or issues.
But I am glad in some ways it happened in a sort of controlled environment. I now know what jappens
So there we have it.
Lessons learnt.
Hopefully any new pilots can read these sort of things and learn from them.
I have read about this and watched videos of this but it doesn’t prepare you for when it actually happens.
Cheers
Dave
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Thanks for sharing this experience. I have been very wary of trying to try my Mini indoors because of the lack of GPS. The GPS is, I believe, what causes the drone to hold it’s position. Without it I think your are entirely in control. I got the Flymore combo but have yet to try the blade guards that come with. IF I ever decided to try and fly indoors I wouldn’t even consider it without fitting the blade guards.
Fly safe. Glad you made it through this unscathed.
Yes the GPS gives the mini it’s hold position. Which is great as it has worked the 6-7 times I have flown in the warehouse.
I checked before take off and hover that these were all ok.
Yet GPS got lost and all hell broke lose.
Ultimately even though the warehouse is huge it’s a big lesson.
You can lose GPS outside but it should be a lot easier to regain control in a larger area
The blade guards are easy to put on and take off when you know how.
Moving forward a great experience to have had in some ways. I definitely understand the drone and potential issues a lot more.
Big sighs of relief a few slaps on my own knuckles for being impatient with the lovely UK weather.
And ready to go again outside when the weather is good enough.
Cheers.
That is indeed very strange behaviour.
The newest DJI product I own is the Spark which I happily fly in indoor environments without GPS. In fact I’ve programmed the Sport mode switch to force it into ATTI mode when outside. When less than 10metres in altitude the Spark primarily uses the vertical positioning system and the underside mounted camera to maintain a constant altitude and a stationary position. I would have thought that the Mavic Mini does the same? However under poor lighting conditions and if the floor surface lacks any discernible pattern it will start to wander.
Another thing that could be a contributing factor is if it had a GPS lock the quality may not have been great resulting in a high HDOP (Horizontal Dilution Of Precision). This could be caused by multi-path reflections of the weak GPS signals, creating timing errors, resulting in the Drones perceived location changing rapidly.
Regards
Nidge.
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