Author: Luis

Lessons learned from crashing and almost losing my drone

The return to home feature may not be accurate based on your location. At my house, it always returns about 2 feet away from the initial GPS location. But in Malibu, it returns to almost at the same initial location, maybe a couple of inches off.

  1. Never launch your drone near obstacles like a tree or a car. When it does a return to home sequence, it might hit the object or may just hover above or near it.
  2. Never fly your drone when the battery is below 20%. You’ll end up crashing the drone or losing it if it doesn’t have enough power to land automatically.
  3. Be careful when it’s windy and avoid winds over 25 mph. When you launch the drone, let it hover 10 feet above the ground and if it moves land it immediately. If it’s stable then let it hover 100 feet above the ground and make sure that the wind is not blowing it.
  4. If for some reason, you lose sight of your drone while in the air, initiate a return to home sequence. It’s probably safer to let the drone return to its initial launch location rather than you flying it blindly.
  5. If you crash and lose sight of your drone, use the Find My Drone feature to locate it. DJI Go 4 has this feature and hopefully other manufacturers have it too. It will also show the GPS location of your drone so you can walk to the crash location and retrieve it. If the camera was on, you can also review the footage on your DJI Go 4 app.