Almost lost my Mavic Pro drone yesterday (footing)

[kirkbauer]

I'm very new to drones, with this being my first serious purchase. I have had the Mavic Pro for about a month now. I took it out on the lake for my second time yesterday and learned a valuable lesson about watching my altitude. Normally the drone maintains its altitude very well so I completely wasn't paying any attention to how high I was, but if you watch in the video (at the 30-32s mark) you'll see that the drone was slowly descending and got uncomfortably close to the water.

 

 

Now, I'm guessing this was because I had it in sports mode and/or was going max speed, but I'd love to get some confirmation on that. If I know when the altitude might not be maintained I can be more vigilant in the future at keeping an eye on it.

[Edmund]

I have never used a drone, but yes, you sure did get close to ditching it. Just curious; why can we see the blades in the upper left corner at the 36, 43, and 1:22 marks but not in most other parts of the video? It seems the blades appear when you make a (quick?) right turn. Or are you panning or zooming at those times? Drones are sure allowing for great video views.

[kirkbauer]

I'm so new to the drone I'm not sure why we see the props sometimes. The camera is on a gimbal so it must need just the right orientation.

 

This video wasn't great because the drone maxes out at about 38mph. But I think with practice I can start in front and then expertly spin around when the footer passes me.

[theboardingschool]

I am really new too, and have a Mavic as well. Just starting to use it in sports mode. What I have noticed is that at the faster speeds the drone angles down a lot more, and because of that will lose some altitude, so you have to adjust a little bit to keep it constant.

[kirkbauer]

I think that is exactly what happened, and I'm so used to the drone maintaining perfect altitude that I wasn't even watching it! It looks like it pretty much got down to the high point in the boat's wake before I noticed and launched it higher.

[MarcusBrown]

@kirkbauer DJI products are pretty dialed...but one thing about the sports modes on both the P4's and the Mavic's is that it won't fly quite as stable as in GPS mode,...including not holding altitude as well. Definitely get in the habit of keeping your head on a swivel when you fly....so that you can always be checking back in (visually) with your drone and keep track of its position relative to hazards, like water/trees/powerlines, etc.

 

Also, if you are filming barefooting and wanna avoid the rotors getting in your shot, either stay a bit higher, so you can angle the camera down a bit, or fly in front of the boat/footer, and fly backwards. Stoked to see you didn't lose it....that was a close call for sure!

[kirkbauer]

This footer was doing 42-43 so faster than the Mavic Pro. My only shot for awesome video is to start in front at full speed reverse and then do a 180 as he passes under the drone. Will take some practice but doable.