I was recently at a friend's house near a major sporting event. It was a night event and there were probably 10-20k people at the event. The house was about 1/2 mile away and I was in the backyard showing the folks there the Mavic. I launched it straight up and we could easily see the venue. A few people asked me to fly closer. Now I wasn't planning on flying right over the arena, but I didn't see much harm flying a few hundred yards to the side of the arena. I was flying -- if I recall correctly -- about 250 feet in the air. As I was about to cross the major street which separates the residential area with the grounds of the venue, I could see on the phone screen a major shake. The camera view rotated about 30 degrees to the side. Since the gimbal is fixed in a straight position this could only mean (I think) that the drone itself was somehow was interfered with. I didn't see anything physical in the video, like a bird, so I do think that likely there was some type of RF jamming going on. I was able to quickly get back safely, but even in the some of the return footage and while I was landing straight down into the backyard I could see the shaking. I don't think there was any physical damage because I did do a 10 minute testflight when I returned home and I didn't notice anything unusual.
Have any of you heard of anything like this? I have done some google searching and did see that these rifle-like jammers do exist. But most of the ones I have seen just block the RF signal, and in most cases as long as the GPS still works the drone would engage RTH since it would just function as if the signal was lost. The fact that my drone was acting erratically is a bit different.
* I also realize that it was very stupid of me to even attempt to fly near a sporting event and I have also discovered, since this happened that there could be serious repercussions, including jail time, for flying above/near a sporting event. The articles I read discussed specific sports (the one I was at was not on this list) and venues with 30k + people, not the case here. At the time, it didn't seem very risky or dangerous -- I was very high, it was dark, I was not flying over the venue, etc., etc. In hindsight and after the shaking, it clearly was a dumb thing to do.
Have any of you heard of anything like this? I have done some google searching and did see that these rifle-like jammers do exist. But most of the ones I have seen just block the RF signal, and in most cases as long as the GPS still works the drone would engage RTH since it would just function as if the signal was lost. The fact that my drone was acting erratically is a bit different.
* I also realize that it was very stupid of me to even attempt to fly near a sporting event and I have also discovered, since this happened that there could be serious repercussions, including jail time, for flying above/near a sporting event. The articles I read discussed specific sports (the one I was at was not on this list) and venues with 30k + people, not the case here. At the time, it didn't seem very risky or dangerous -- I was very high, it was dark, I was not flying over the venue, etc., etc. In hindsight and after the shaking, it clearly was a dumb thing to do.
