Not a good day flying yesterday. Lost my drone. Have flown a Mavic2 Pro for about 15 months with many dozens of safe flights. Decent pilot. No previous issues with drone. Flying at a remote country park (Painted Desert Rim Drive about 8 miles NE of Winslow, AZ). Gorgeous Triassic badlands. I have flown there before with no issues. Standing on cliff. Start flight out over badlands with fresh battery and having calibrated compass. Flying with my smart controller. No telephone poles or high voltage lines nearby. One tall microwave tower 0.5 to 0.8mile away. Never flying toward the tower, always away from it. Last flight of the morning. Not much wind 5 - 10mph. I'm hovering in place at 100 ft. AGL making camera adjustments. Drone is 700 feet out from me. With no previous signal strength warning, there are two red alerts that the aircraft signal has disconnected from the smart controller. I was a bit panicked. Tried using the RTH button (did not work) and going in and out of the DJI Go app several times. Nothing. Signal never reconnected. I was hoping that the emergency setting for RTH when the battery gets too low would bring my bird home. It didn't work. Must have hovered until power gone and then crashed. This is a very treacherous area and would be looking for a needle in a haystack. Won't attempt it. For curiosity, I will try to examine the flight log in the archive folder on my smart controller.
I am attaching a closeup of the microwave tower (I drove there after the
crash, did not fly there). I hear cell phone towers are less of an issue than
microwave towers. Still, thought I was plenty far enough away from it to have caused any complications.
I will be replacing my drone in a couple weeks. Too much recreational fun for aerial photography and I also use it to collect data for my native bee research. Does anyone know IF the signal boosters (parabolic or other configuration) for the antennae on the controller really work? Can anyone please suggest a make/model to get? Would that have saved me from losing my Mavic2?
thanks for any advice!
Best,
Steve
Tucson, AZ
I am attaching a closeup of the microwave tower (I drove there after the
crash, did not fly there). I hear cell phone towers are less of an issue than
microwave towers. Still, thought I was plenty far enough away from it to have caused any complications.
I will be replacing my drone in a couple weeks. Too much recreational fun for aerial photography and I also use it to collect data for my native bee research. Does anyone know IF the signal boosters (parabolic or other configuration) for the antennae on the controller really work? Can anyone please suggest a make/model to get? Would that have saved me from losing my Mavic2?
thanks for any advice!
Best,
Steve
Tucson, AZ