Bird Strike? What Else?

Zeke · Oct 11, 2018

So I was flying the drone around a local lake, and something really strange happened. As I recall I was about 200' above the water, just heading to the end of the lake (away from me) and suddenly the image from the drone got all wonky... something appeared on the right side of the camera, and it actually spun the aircraft around. The recording stopped and I immediately hit RTH, and it came back with the props damaged as seen in the photo below. Now mind you, I'm over the middle of the lake - no trees, poles, wires, not even people. I've also included a link to the end of the video so you can see it yourself. Obviously this occurs at the end because it stops recording.

Anyone have any ideas? There are eagles and hawks in the area, and a buddy of mine thinks that's probably what it was.

WithTheBirds · Oct 11, 2018

More than likely a bird had a go at it.... Hope it isn't injured. Great you got back in one piece.

Try flying back next time (if there is one) rather than relying on RTH. It is better practice when you have a suspected issue with the UAV.

Zeke · Oct 11, 2018

Honestly, I was so freaked out by the whole thing all I could think of was RTH... But your suggestion makes solid sense.

Thanks much

Former Member · Oct 11, 2018

Zeke said:
Honestly, I was so freaked out by the whole thing all I could think of was RTH

Good instincts. RTH = Panic button (in a good way)

vjslof · Oct 12, 2018

I had something similar today but the drone was stable but the gimble freaked out suddenly for a few seconds.

Recording stopped just before the glitch but i presssed record again quickly so here's that part where it went wrong:

edit: the recording stopped because the filesize reached the 4 Gb. limit i guess. Normaly it would continue recording to a new file but it did not in my case and i started recording by hand so the last movie you see is the gimble resetting. Looks scary in the first place but everything was fine after that. So there might be some little bug at the end of the maximum filesize recording that triggerde the gimbal to react like this.