Lon Denard
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2017
- Messages
- 77
- Reaction score
- 20
- Age
- 59
All this stuff? Every GPS drone needs to be calibrated. Once done properly, it can be done periodically and always if flying more than 100 miles from where it was last calibrated.
It's the pilots responsibility to ensure that all of the safety checks have been done on the craft before each flight, the environment (including kp index below 4) is suitable, and all settings & calibrations are correct. If you aren't doing this with your Mavic, you should return it as well.
Oh boy, another one of these guys. Why get personal? What's with all this "pilot" stuff? Why do some of you apparently think that you get to dictate to the rest of us what we should and shouldn't do before every flight? I'm flying a 1 1/2 lb toy around as a leisure activity. Some of you guys act as if you're launching an Apollo mission. What's the point in buying a drone that's ready to fly in less than a minute if you're going to re-calibrate it every time you fly? If you want to talk "irresponsible" perhaps you shouldn't fly your Karma period, considering all of the problems that it's had with fly aways and randomly falling out of the sky!
You probably get into a vehicle every day that weighs thousands of pounds. Do you check the brakes? The steering? The tires? All the lights? The fluids? Etc? Or do you trust that the systems on board will warn you if there's a problem? Actually, I can imagine one of you guys leaving for work an hour early, breaking out a creeper and inspecting your brake lines, exhaust, etc with your wife standing by with a clipboard. "Front passenger brake line check!". "Front passenger brake line heard!" Hahaha!
In 20 hours of flight so fsr, my Mavic has never requested a calibration, although I'm confident that it will when/if it's necessary. I've owned or have owned several 3DR drones, several Parrot drones, a Yuneec, 2 Karmas, a couple Syma drones and now the Mavic. The Karma needed a re-calibration constantly because of it's poor design. So did my 3DR but once I replaced the GPS module in my Solo, it no longer required frequent GPS re-calibrations. My Bebop also needs to be re-calibrated frequently. Heck, when I installed the GPS mod in my AR Drone, I had to fuss with it all the time. You shouldn"t have to do that with a modern drone and with the Mavic I don't. Pure and simple.
We all got suckered into buying a first gen, rushed to market product with a lot of problems. There's no doubt in my mind that Go Pro is well aware of this and if they had any integrity, they would recall them again and go back to the drawing board. At least offer an inexpensive upgrade to ditch the single system GPS for a dual one and address the signal loss problem. All the dancing in the park in the world won't solve that issue buddy! Mine would lose signal within 500'. I go to the same exact locations with my Mavic (and also with my Solo) with no such signal losses. Do you have a calibration for that? Some of you seem to be mistaking kit drones and rc for ready to go flying toys. If I walk into Toys R Us and buy a RC truck, I don't expect to have to mess with it. However, if I buy a RC truck kit at the hobby shop, that's a different story. These drones are marketed as ready to fly. The Karma is especially touted as a beginner drone. Now it's incumbent on the consumer to deal with it's shortcomings? Please. Maybe all the people with faulty air bags should just wrap duct tape around their steering wheels, right?
Last edited: