I purchased the Litchi app and practiced with it at a local field, then this evening took it for it's first official autonomous flight.
I planned the course using the Litchi Mission Hub, checked and double checked the altitudes and path, and had it set for a 14-minute loop flight (according to the mission hub) to leave plenty of room for the battery. I was climbing up a fairly big hill (800 feet total climb) so I was very careful to set it to 200 feet above ground level for each waypoint.
It look off and it went off on the mission. About 1/2 of the way out it lose signal, which wasn't completely unexpected but still unnerving. 10 minutes after losing signal it still wasn't back, so I feared the worst.
I began to hike up the trail to look for it, and to my relief saw it coming back overhead. I ran back down the hill to the takeoff point (and final mission waypoint) and saw the bird overfly the waypoint by a significant distance of probably 200 yards. I had my remote turned on the whole time, but Litchi still said disconnected, even though it was relatively close. I tried closing and reopening Litchi, the remote, and even tried DJI GO. I was unable to get a signal and soon the bird disappeared from the sky.
At this point it had been in the air more than 20 minutes, so I'm assuming it ran out of battery and auto-landed. Unfortunately it is in a very heavily wooded hillside with no access, so I'm afraid it's a goner. I just can't figure out why it overflew the final waypoint by so far and why I couldn't re-establish communication with it.
At this point I'm afraid its a total loss but thought I'd share and perhaps someone else can offer some insight, and perhaps where the best deal is on a new one.
I planned the course using the Litchi Mission Hub, checked and double checked the altitudes and path, and had it set for a 14-minute loop flight (according to the mission hub) to leave plenty of room for the battery. I was climbing up a fairly big hill (800 feet total climb) so I was very careful to set it to 200 feet above ground level for each waypoint.
It look off and it went off on the mission. About 1/2 of the way out it lose signal, which wasn't completely unexpected but still unnerving. 10 minutes after losing signal it still wasn't back, so I feared the worst.
I began to hike up the trail to look for it, and to my relief saw it coming back overhead. I ran back down the hill to the takeoff point (and final mission waypoint) and saw the bird overfly the waypoint by a significant distance of probably 200 yards. I had my remote turned on the whole time, but Litchi still said disconnected, even though it was relatively close. I tried closing and reopening Litchi, the remote, and even tried DJI GO. I was unable to get a signal and soon the bird disappeared from the sky.
At this point it had been in the air more than 20 minutes, so I'm assuming it ran out of battery and auto-landed. Unfortunately it is in a very heavily wooded hillside with no access, so I'm afraid it's a goner. I just can't figure out why it overflew the final waypoint by so far and why I couldn't re-establish communication with it.
At this point I'm afraid its a total loss but thought I'd share and perhaps someone else can offer some insight, and perhaps where the best deal is on a new one.
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