Distance between drone and RC when starting a mission

Help
1

My understanding of the sequence when running a mission is that

  1. Loading the mission downloads it from the internet to the phone
  2. Starting the mission uploads it from the phone to the drone.
    Is that right?
    If so, does the distance between the drone and the RC matter when initiating a new mission mid-flight (or picking up in the middle of a previous mission due to a battery change)?
    thanks
    Michael
2

It depends on the model of drone.

Older On-board waypoint drones get the mission loaded into them.

Newer VSC models get the mission loaded into the controller which in turn sends every movement to the drone.

As long as you have good controller to drone signal, loading a mission isn’t an issue.

Here’s a list of DJI models:

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3

On rare occasions when I feel daring, I ascend the ladder of a 60-foot water tower with my RC controller and iPad nestled in a shoulder bag, before having a friend power up the drone atop a plastic picnic table on the ground, preparatory to launch.

The drones always power up, take off, and depart on Litchi waypoint missions as they normally would despite the RC controller being 60 feet above the drone before takeoff.

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4

Thanks @Sam_G and @Mad_Pup,
My drone is an older model with on-board waypoint support and I meant distances of 100m or 200m.
Its the difference between bringing the drone back (say 20s) and descending from altitude (another 20s) then uploading the mission and then climbing to altitude (20s) and going back out to the first waypoint of the new mission (say 20s). So in total to bring the drone back in, change the mission then send it out again could take 1.5mins (which is a fair % of my available flight time if I am at 50% battery) compared to waiting for the mission to upload which seems to take a while at this distance (the couple of times I have tried it).

5

At those distances, you should have ample signal strength to pause the drone, quickly load a 2nd mission and fly it.

I have loaded 2nd and even 3rd missions using the same battery in my Mavic 2 Pro from similar distances (>300 ft horizontal and 400 ft altitude).

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6

Error due to misread.

7

Just to feed back my experience from today, despite good signal RC signal strength the mission would not upload a 200m away. I got an error message which I did not write down but may have been “error due to misread” which I think is what @Mad_Pup may be saying. I brought the drone back to 100m but still could not upload the mission or even to 10m - same error. In the end I landed and shut down the drone and re-started it and then the mission loaded fine.