Credit for that one goes to @BudWalker. But yes, it does seem like the most reasonable explanation.
These are actually two very different scenarios. Compass interference can cause flight behavior like what you posted, but it’s not always easy to identify just from flight data alone. Having the opportunity to see the flight video made it much clearer.
As for DJI’s comment about flying over water, I’m not sure why they mentioned that. While the Neo might not always perform perfectly over water, I wouldn’t expect it to encounter a scenario where recovery isn’t possible.
If the compass isn’t functioning properly, I don’t think the drone could do much other than land at its current location. Even if such a feature could be implemented, the flight path might still be risky until the drone reaches the ground.
As mentioned earlier, the safest approach is to ensure the drone is correctly oriented in DJI Fly before takeoff. This quick preflight check is especially crucial when flying in unfamiliar locations.
@BudWalker it seems that launching from a geomagnetically distorted site can also affect GPS positioning, as the flight log shows the aircraft in locations it never actually visited. Any thoughts on why this might have occurred?
The Neo is such an odd bird I’m not sure what to say. My suspicion is that it was using the vision system to arrive at a location solution. I.e., the heading and location errors were independent. Just a theory.
To draw a line under this the replacement Neo arrived today in Scotland. It will take me a while to get it out to Turkey
I had a chat with the DJI Tech Department . Pleasant to talk to and didn’t seem rushed or defensive.
I talked through the incident and my main safety concerns about not being able to stop the drone with Pause and it flying 4 x faster than Normal mode should allow.
He said they were incorrect when they said it was caused by flying over water. It never did.
He said it wasn’t Operator Error but in hindsight and with more knowledge , in my mind, flying it from where I did was an error and a new check has been added to my pre-flight.
I owned up about the compass pointing in the opposite direction to the direction the drone was facing. He didn’t leap on that. Just said lots of things can interfere with the GPS signal and / or compass. There are assorted failsafes built in. I think he said they were missing some metadata from when the GPS complained briefly about signal. He said they just don’t see this type of behaviour.
He tried the “wind may have caused it to drift” but there was no wind. The bay was like a mirror.
Bottom line is they can’t explain it , or why it flew away from Home at 52.6 mph and couldn’t be Paused
But I shouldn’t worry … it will probably never happen again
Thanks everyone for your input and for the Flight Record Viewer
I’m not sure the drone could pause itself without access to accurate GPS and/or compass data. Assuming a geomagnetically distorted location is to blame here, this is how all of those scenarios end.
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