I'm sharing the story of my first (and almost last!) flight of my MP up in Algonquin area in Canada; more as a note to myself than a caution to others about what could go wrong and how to not repeat my stupidity.
Last weekend, my nephew and I went up a small hill near Halliburton, ON to test out my shiny new Mavic pro. As we drove up the hill, I remarked to him that the tower somewhere at the mid point on the hill, looked like something we need to worry about if, "it is facing the same direction as we will be." - BIG mistake! Anyway, I did my entire pre-flight check, and even made sure that I can't even see the tower from where the drone was taking off (the other side of the hill). Despite that, it happened.
I did auto take off, hit 'RTH, precise position" the drone took off about 50-60M and presumably took a photo of the place and recorded the exact coordinates. We were airborne no more than 3 minutes when the craft started drifting towards the other side of the hill - on it's own! Within seconds of that - I am sure it started picking up even more noise from the tower - it headed off clear across the entire town of Halliburton!
To say that I was disappointed would be mild. I think the entire town may have heard my curses as the thing rapidly turned into a dot and disappeared. Thankfully, my 20yr old nephew has better eyesight and he said that he could still see the craft. When I tried to pull it up, he said he could see it respond. By then I knew it was the cell phone tower that was causing the issue so I kept it at about 200M (all this while the RC was showing full signal) and at a distance of about 800M - 1000M I kept hitting RTH. Again, my nephew confirmed that the craft was headed towards us. Within minutes, it landed a few feet from where it took off.
Lesson learned - never ever take the drone out if there is anything resembling a tower anywhere in the area! Period!!
Last weekend, my nephew and I went up a small hill near Halliburton, ON to test out my shiny new Mavic pro. As we drove up the hill, I remarked to him that the tower somewhere at the mid point on the hill, looked like something we need to worry about if, "it is facing the same direction as we will be." - BIG mistake! Anyway, I did my entire pre-flight check, and even made sure that I can't even see the tower from where the drone was taking off (the other side of the hill). Despite that, it happened.
I did auto take off, hit 'RTH, precise position" the drone took off about 50-60M and presumably took a photo of the place and recorded the exact coordinates. We were airborne no more than 3 minutes when the craft started drifting towards the other side of the hill - on it's own! Within seconds of that - I am sure it started picking up even more noise from the tower - it headed off clear across the entire town of Halliburton!
To say that I was disappointed would be mild. I think the entire town may have heard my curses as the thing rapidly turned into a dot and disappeared. Thankfully, my 20yr old nephew has better eyesight and he said that he could still see the craft. When I tried to pull it up, he said he could see it respond. By then I knew it was the cell phone tower that was causing the issue so I kept it at about 200M (all this while the RC was showing full signal) and at a distance of about 800M - 1000M I kept hitting RTH. Again, my nephew confirmed that the craft was headed towards us. Within minutes, it landed a few feet from where it took off.
Lesson learned - never ever take the drone out if there is anything resembling a tower anywhere in the area! Period!!
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