Your very first Uh-Oh Moment

[silverdragon]

My first RUSH OF PANIC, FELT FLUSHED, MY STOMACH SPAZED INTO INSTANT PAIN. In the end, The RTH got me, but in a good way.... The Mavic Pro Platinum ascended 200 feet up, 1000 feet out and the drone went into AUTOLAND, 96% on battery. I cancelled RTH and a approximately 10 seconds later. RTH Again... I hit cancel again and this time it would not cancel so it hit me 200 feet up and 1000 feet out.. I'm so screwed because it was woods all around me. I rushed out in the direction of where I flew the drone and I looked for hours, 4 to 5 to be exact. I'm bumming... 2nd flight, paid 1000+... how am I going to explain it to the wife. I'm done... I started to walk home slowly, I'm never going to do that to myself again... i keep looking at the RC in hand.. well i can sell that, make some money back. So as i rounded the back of my house.... guess what was sitting patiently on the landing/takeoff pad... The Mavic Pro Platinum....... still blinking... keep in mind, this was new to me and the experience I have now is 10 fold...

 

[Dbez1]

My first RUSH OF PANIC, FELT FLUSHED, MY STOMACH SPAZED INTO INSTANT PAIN. In the end, The RTH got me, but in a good way.... The Mavic Pro Platinum ascended 200 feet up, 1000 feet out and the drone went into AUTOLAND, 96% on battery. I cancelled RTH and a approximately 10 seconds later. RTH Again... I hit cancel again and this time it would not cancel so it hit me 200 feet up and 1000 feet out.. I'm so screwed because it was woods all around me. I rushed out in the direction of where I flew the drone and I looked for hours, 4 to 5 to be exact. I'm bumming... 2nd flight, paid 1000+... how am I going to explain it to the wife. I'm done... I started to walk home slowly, I'm never going to do that to myself again... i keep looking at the RC in hand.. well i can sell that, make some money back. So as i rounded the back of my house.... guess what was sitting patiently on the landing/takeoff pad... The Mavic Pro Platinum....... still blinking... keep in mind, this was new to me and the experience I have now is 10 fold...

Great story. I’m glad you got it back. ?

 

[hiflyer201]

What a story silver....I loved it!

 

[Grumpy old man]

Back when I built my first DJI drone a flamewheel 450 somehow got the esc wires 2 + 3 crossed when connecting to the Naza FC

Being in a rush to show it off and not checking prop rotation etc etc I started the motors and went to about 3/4 throttle only to have the drone jump up about 3 feet and then crash into the concrete and break 2 arms and all the props

Thankfully it was before I had fitted the GPS puck and mast so repair was cheap

live and learn and don't rush or show off

 

[Wild Drone Pilot]

Waaaaaay back in the day - my original DJI Phantom FC40
I was filming some paper kites at a stately home here in England and one of them broke free from its tether. This was a big kite, about twenty meters long and shaped like a Chinese dragon. I couldn’t get my phantom out of the way in time and it got swept up in the kite. Four miles that kite went. Four flipping miles. Luckily, no damage to the Phantom, just my pants.

Did you get some cool video you can share?

 

[Yemsky]

I don’t have any Mavic heart stopping stories yet, but before I spent a grand on that I bought a Parrot Anafi for half the price of the Mavic on eBay. It was new but approx. 10% below list price from a seller who had sold several units before...?
This being my first drone, I took it slowly to learn. I always did a good pre-flight check and for weeks only flew by myself to avoid getting distracted. ? Wife and kids as well as the grandparents were appreciative of the footage they saw. Then my dad came to visit and said “show me that drone you have”. Literally the first time I flew with somebody standing next to me I did a lift off, circled above the house and increased height to clear a huge oak tree at the end of the garden and just when I am above the tree my dad says something to me and I look at him and don’t notice that one tree branch that sticks out of the canopy.... ?
...drone crashes and one leg breaks. ?

Disappointed with myself I did a superglue repair of the leg and did some very careful testing without much altitude. Everything seemed fine and I get more courageous again. I think on my sixth or seventh flight after the DYI repair I climb to about 15m and the Anafi just falls out of the sky ?This time the body is cracked. There is nothing in the flight logs that give any hint to the cause and Parrot Tech Support pre-authorises a warranty repair/replacement but asks me to go to my point of purchase.... ... which unfortunately was the by now unresponsive eBay seller. I even involved Amex who I used to pay for the purchase in the dispute but to not avail. Parrot, not the fastest in communication, keeps telling me that I need to go back to the POP. After almost three months of arguing back and forth I reached the point where I don’t care anymore and buy a new Mavic Pro 2 Zoom directly from DJI. ?
A week later I have an unexpected email from Parrot with a return label and shipping instructions to their facilities. ??Another week later I have a brand new Anafi replacement drone standing next to my MP2Z ?
Domestically, I fly the Mavic more but when travelling I usually throw the Anafi in the backpack, which is sort of false economy as the drone itself is more compact but the remote with its non-removable sticks is bigger and more fragile than the DJI one. Anyway, this summer, I had the replacement Anafi with me while in Greece. After flying for half a mile over a bay I land the drone only to notice that I did not do a proper preflight check and had actually been super lucky as I hadn’t clipped the battery in properly ? Photo here:

"Photo Of The Day"

Just a picture of the weather here in Denmark 17 minutes over dinner today on July 14th. Unfortunately, the air temperature is only +19 degrees Censius. Regards, Leif.

parrotpilots.com

 

[Rchawks]

Excellent story line and use of Emojis!

 

[braddenton]

Here’s an impressive one for ya. I was in Norway getting some amazing fjord footage. Went to get in the car and got distracted. Somehow I left the drone on the roof of the car before we drove off. Drone fell off and was a total loss. Sheesh.

 

[Rchawks]

Here’s an impressive one for ya. I was in Norway getting some amazing fjord footage. Went to get in the car and got distracted. Somehow I left the drone on the roof of the car before we drove off. Drone fell off and was a total loss. Sheesh.

**** I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[EyesWideShut]

Eight years ago after learning on brushed quads. This was "early days" before the governments got involved with regulations and I built a big 8 engine Mikrokopter Okto XL to lift my studio camera, a Canon Mk II. The build included soldering the pins and connections between 5 plus circuit boards like GPS/FC/Compass/Power/OSD etc.
Had the copter straight up about 400 feet and it started an loud alarm and came straight down with props spinning. Didn't respond to my controls... or voice screaming STOP! STOP!

Turned out that a wire from the receiver broke from vibrations and lost the transmitter signal and because I hadn't understood or changed the complicated German RTH setup the kopter wasn't programmed to give enough power to support extra weight of the big studio camera and down she came. The force of the fall broke the four long legs, bent all eight aluminum arms up about 6 inches, destroyed a couple of boards, motors and a $300 lipo. The worst was that my MK II, lens and servo mount being on the bottom didn't survive.

I spend well over a thousand in repairs to the bird and replaced the camera but didn't fly much after that as the Canadian Government panicked and instituted almost emergency regs needing flight plans filed 5 weeks before flying etc etc. while they determined some more sensible regulations. I really enjoy the under 250 gram MM and the rock solid stability, flight time and performance when flown within it's capabilities along with the freedom to fly anytime almost anywhere.

 

[Rchawks]

I was flying at my Nephew's farm where he was building a new house taking pictures of the progress. The flight had been going very well and I'd covered a lot of ground from every angle I could think of.I had flown there several times before and knew the area very well. The weather was perfect and flight seemed to be going well when suddenly the aircraft went into a death spiral and I watched with no control or recourse to stop what I was witnessing. I watched my very modded aircraft plow straight into the earth. I couldn't believe it. I had been flying this plane for years and spent a great deal of time modding it just to watch it die, I was heartsick. After flying every chance I got for 25 plus years I couldn't bring myself to rebuild it and everything from the leading edge forward was a total loss. It wasn't my first ???moment, but it was the last. I stopped flying for 10 years until now. To add insult to injury I found out why it happened, the auto cut off for reserve radio power wasn't set properly. After many years of flight all it took was one time of inattention, and knowing this was my fault was probably why I hung up my hat for so long.

 

[Stercus Stercus]

Simple one from me. Got my first drone (MM) just before Christmas in time for a pre Christmas holiday. My first flight was over a lake because I knew no better. This flight went well. Later that day I went to a castle ruin, intending to fly up and over the outer wall. I took off at a corner and rose to wall height and turned to yaw along the wall. Rookie mistake I was flying fully by looking at the screen instead of VLOS. I didn’t realise I wasn’t straight with the wall and yawed straight into a tree.

I got the drone back with the aid of a stick. No damage but I never found the battery. I’m now (weather permitting) learning to fly in a local field before my next trip.

 

[ThorDar]

My first drone was a 3DR Solo back in 2015 and for the first few months I only knew how to fly with GPS and RTH. One day, I was flying between two long rows of buildings and I lost the GPS lock. The drone began drifting away with the wind and at first I panicked and didn't know what to do but then decided I had nothing to lose to try to fly it without GPS. It wasn't a very pretty flight and my heart was pounding the whole time but I managed to get it back without hitting anything then did my first hand landing by grabbing one of the legs as I brought it down.

That incident triggered a deep interest in learning how GPS in general actually works and I've found out I had a lot of misconceptions. It's a fascinating subject if you're into learning about that sort of thing.

 

[iFly4U]

I had my first brown trouser moment on Friday 13 March/ It was the first perfect sunny day for more than a week. I wanted to go shoot some stock footage of some sandstone cliffs along the river, follow some boats - the usual saleable picture postcard stuff.

Took off, flew about 130 metres (400-ish ft) across the river at about 40m altitude, lined up the shot and noticed the screen had frozen. Maneuvered the aircraft, and no change on the screen. I figured the app on the SC had frozen, so tried to just fly VLOS to bring her home. No response. I don't use auto-home, but hit it just in case. Sure, it was doing auto-home... straight down into the river! I cancelled it, gained altitude to 50 metres and flew it back to me. The screen was still showing the same image until it was about ten metres away.

I'm not one to be fearful, but I was shaking - actually physically shaking, racing heart, the whole nine yards.

After a few minutes, I calmed down, changed to a new battery and set off again. The test produced the same result of locked-up camera view, but less fight-or-flight response from me and normal response from the SC, and brought 'er home manually.

There are some 60kV or 120kV overhead wires about 50 metres away, but that's not likely to interfere with signal transmission, only EMF interference which stuffs up the compass. I think there may be a cell tower that I didn't notice? Not sure, but am definitely not flying there again.

I did fly about 100 metres east of there a couple of weeks ago and there was no problem. Go figure.

On the way home, I tested at a nearby football/cricket oval. It has enormous 60kV towers across it. No ill effect in any mode.

It's a confidence builder, but the thought of dropping an M2P in the drink is chilling.

Cheers - i.

 

[Dronernator]

My wife had a tiny space under the stairs made into a smart downstairs loo. I waited until she was out and, for a joke, decided to make a video of the new loo. I've only got the mini so that wouldn't be a problem, so I thought.

Damned thing must have caused some sort of crazy airflow in the tiny space, bouncing from ceiling to wall. Good job I'd used the fly-more cage ?