Hey guys,
This is my first post here after some time lurking and I didn't expect it to be a funny story like this. I'm relatively new to drones and decided today to go out and get some practice (mainly to actually set the camera up properly) and decided a good safe place would be from a lookout that paragliders launch from near my house. I live in Alpine Victoria in Australia and we have some amazing scenery out here so I figured getting to a nice high point on one side of the valley would be a great place to safely launch and fly my mavic as well as capturing some of the incredible scenery. One thing, which has crossed my mind before, but never really worried me was birds. Well boy did I get a close call.
So I have taken off and started to head to the airspace above the town I live in, flying straight out from my location would have put me a good 300-400m above ground level over the town and 0m above the RC. It was a beautiful clear day, heaps of vis and no paragliders (I obviously wouldn't have launched if there were parachutes around!). I flew around and about a kilometre out and got some average over-exposed shots then at about 35% battery decided to head back. With about 200m to go just as the drone comes into clear sight I see a MASSIVE Wedge-Tailed Eagle (largest eagle species in Australia) diving relatively slowly towards the drone. He came out of absolutely nowhere! I could see the entire valley and somehow this eagle had stayed out of my sight but somehow spotted my drone below. From the time I first saw the eagle start to dive to the time he had gotten to it would have been about 2 seconds, in that time I violently adjusted the yaw and tried desperately to kill some altitude.
By some miracle this eagle pulled out at the last minute, I'm talking he was close enough that I was sure he got it but for some reason he pulled out, possibly because my rotors picked up heaps of rpm at the last minute and maybe freaked the eagle out a bit. So at this point the mavic is about 150m away from me, at my level, but still at least 100m above the ground below it, and then I see the eagle gain altitude on the thermal to get ready to have another go at it, its at this point that I've picked my jaw up the floor and composed myself enough to hit sports mode, dive the drone and flatten it towards me, in my panic I almost over did it and got a bit close to the hill below me but then controlled the mavic up the hill close to the terrain and back to my grateful hands! After I had the mavic I looked back up and saw the eagle and its mate circling high on the thermals and while I wouldn't feel the same way had it gotten the mavic they were absolutely beautiful and majestic, even watching this thing gracefully dive after my panic-ridden drone was an amazingly beautiful sight. After I turned off and packed away the mavic I sat there and watched them for a while, amazing birds and a really cool albeit terrifying experience! I wish I was filming at the time but wasn't and have no footage of the incident :/
This is my first post here after some time lurking and I didn't expect it to be a funny story like this. I'm relatively new to drones and decided today to go out and get some practice (mainly to actually set the camera up properly) and decided a good safe place would be from a lookout that paragliders launch from near my house. I live in Alpine Victoria in Australia and we have some amazing scenery out here so I figured getting to a nice high point on one side of the valley would be a great place to safely launch and fly my mavic as well as capturing some of the incredible scenery. One thing, which has crossed my mind before, but never really worried me was birds. Well boy did I get a close call.
So I have taken off and started to head to the airspace above the town I live in, flying straight out from my location would have put me a good 300-400m above ground level over the town and 0m above the RC. It was a beautiful clear day, heaps of vis and no paragliders (I obviously wouldn't have launched if there were parachutes around!). I flew around and about a kilometre out and got some average over-exposed shots then at about 35% battery decided to head back. With about 200m to go just as the drone comes into clear sight I see a MASSIVE Wedge-Tailed Eagle (largest eagle species in Australia) diving relatively slowly towards the drone. He came out of absolutely nowhere! I could see the entire valley and somehow this eagle had stayed out of my sight but somehow spotted my drone below. From the time I first saw the eagle start to dive to the time he had gotten to it would have been about 2 seconds, in that time I violently adjusted the yaw and tried desperately to kill some altitude.
By some miracle this eagle pulled out at the last minute, I'm talking he was close enough that I was sure he got it but for some reason he pulled out, possibly because my rotors picked up heaps of rpm at the last minute and maybe freaked the eagle out a bit. So at this point the mavic is about 150m away from me, at my level, but still at least 100m above the ground below it, and then I see the eagle gain altitude on the thermal to get ready to have another go at it, its at this point that I've picked my jaw up the floor and composed myself enough to hit sports mode, dive the drone and flatten it towards me, in my panic I almost over did it and got a bit close to the hill below me but then controlled the mavic up the hill close to the terrain and back to my grateful hands! After I had the mavic I looked back up and saw the eagle and its mate circling high on the thermals and while I wouldn't feel the same way had it gotten the mavic they were absolutely beautiful and majestic, even watching this thing gracefully dive after my panic-ridden drone was an amazingly beautiful sight. After I turned off and packed away the mavic I sat there and watched them for a while, amazing birds and a really cool albeit terrifying experience! I wish I was filming at the time but wasn't and have no footage of the incident :/
