First two flights - observations. Answered
Two flights today, using a Mavic2 Pro, 9.5" 2018 iPad, with all things on current versions.
Plans were prepared on a Win 10 desktop at home before flight. Both are Public.
General observations:
The small joystick on the Mavic2 RC is not yet supported. I could not change shutter speeds (L&R) or tilt the gimbal full down and back to the horizon (Up & Down). Right thumb wheel changed aperture.
Could not get camera view or map display in lower left corner to hide. They did swap to main view as needed. Wish that the small view and compass/heading indicator were switched left and right to be consistent with other apps.
No way to takeoff manually had to switch to DJI to TO as I don't use Plan or mission to do so.
Craft flew manually as it should.
Received warning regarding electrical interference at stick or some such, wanted me to fly to different location. Switching to DJI GO 4 had no such warning.
Seems that one needs internet connection at this time to be able to fully use the app and change Plans/Mission, more later on some of that. Had thought that the app on iPad would hold missions and start without need for connection in field, not my experience today.
Mission/Plan execution:
They seemed to fly as they were shown in the Preview.
Orbit framing was good, the Mavic2 jerkiness (DJI issue was evident).
WP mission framing not as expected. Problem is probably that I don't yet understand the POI Marker function fully. I tried to iron it out in the preview but still not there. The location on the path of those markers and the differences that the setting for Interpolate etc make are not intuitive or fully understood by me yet.
One transition between POIs had the gimbal pitch changing significantly down and then up rather than moving smoothly from one POI to the next; both POIs had much less down angle than the transition between them. Next transition did not exhibit that behavior. Preview showed this issue, I could not figure out how to overcome it.
Disconnect/Freeze!
When I tried to load the next Plan/Mission after completing one the screen went black. All that showed was a arrow in the top left corner indicting back to Test Flight. Selecting that did return to the Testflight page. On that page the selection of Dronelink resulted in returning to the black blank page with no way to get out of that loop. Much time and battery spent trying to find a way back to something useful. Ended up switching to DJI to land when repeated attempts to switch back and forth had no results.
Shut everything off and restarted Ipad, RC and craft with no change. Selecting Testflight or DL resulted in a return to the blanks screen. Frustrating having to login each time to find no joy.
The only way to restore function was to uninstall DL and reinstall from the TF page on the iPad. This of course required an internet connection. Would have really been a bad scene out in the boonies with no connection and or having to use a data plan for reload. This happened both going from the Orbit plan to WP and from WP to Orbit. Very frustrating and time consuming!
Conclusion:
May be more that I forgot but those are my initial findings. All and all I think that DL has great potential when things get more mature.
More testing to come.
Comments
3 comments
Update:
The freezing mentioned above was operator error; I did not download the mission to my iPad for offline use. I did today and my missions flew fine and I was able to switch between them without issue.
"No way to takeoff manually had to switch to DJI to TO as I don't use Plan or mission to do so."
Hey Greg,
It never occurred to me to do that. I just powered everything up, did the compass dance, then started the mission. DL launched the drone, hovered about 1m, then shot up to altitude before heading to the Approach. When the mission was done, DL brought my Air back and landed it practically in its tracks -- maybe 2 inches off.
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I'm interested in your comment about offline or live loading of missions. Is your update saying you can store the missions offline on your device?
I very much like to go to airplane mode to avoid annoying notifications from other apps while I'm flying, but I left it on for my DL tests because I didn't think I could store the missions on my phone.
Dan,
When I select "Download for off-line mission" the maps and mission are downloaded to my iPad that does not have a connection while flying. Works without issue.
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