Bird-strike yesterday. Mavic 2 pro

[Jondotgon]

Well, it happened at last. Bird did not survive the encounter, but the drone did.

I launched my Mavic 2 Pro yesterday and moved away out over farmland in prep of turning back to photo a house for sale. I weren’t watching the distance, but got the drone around 100m out when two shrieking Spur-winged Plovers went after it, coming in hard from off to the left. The drone was maybe 60m above the actual ground level in its location.

I’ve always maintained when chased by birds to go straight up, where they can’t follow you easily directly vertical, but when they’re moving fast and still a short way out they can swoop upwards to intercept pretty quick, and this happened. I think I reversed the upward flight when I weren’t getting away, and brought the drone down a metre or two. About then, the strike.

The drone got knocked, and looked to drop a metre, and moved left, left side down from where I were, but recovered. I was flicking my eyes from the drone to the screen, the gimbal was playing up, going off level and/or slow to re-level. It was then I noticed the bird,it was on its way straight down, no glide, just falling, and disappeared behind the slope in the paddock. The drone was hovering in a safe place out over farmland so I left it out for a bit to see how it was fairing before attempting to bring it back in over the buildings. The drones gimbal kept acting odd for maybe 15 seconds - I’m guessing here - but seemed to come right. I grabbed several photos and brought the drone in for inspection. All ok, - a small ding on the trailing edge of both blades of one prop was all I could see, no fractures. That seemed odd. No residue to show contact, but there certainly was one. The other bird had kept its distance after the loss if its mate.

I sent the drone out again after a once over, it behaved as it should. The other bird didn’t reappear. I used the drone to look for the injured plover, but it was swampy in between the hills and I couldn’t see it.

This is how I recall it, I haven’t looked at the flight data, never have done and I don’t know how!

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

To be honest I would have got the drone out of there, they may be able to match the drone's climb rate in a short burst but, especially if you switched to sports mode, I doubt they can match the drone's sustained climb rate. Pity about the bird.

 

[thispilothere]

Sometimes you do everything right and bad things still happen.

 

[MA2 317]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Now you have to paint a bird image on the M2P like the fighter pilots did on the fuselage of their planes indicating a kill.

Just kidding.

Here's a link that will explain how to retrieve the detailed flight logs and you can post a link back here if you wish others to view it and perhaps get more information.

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

.

 

[shb]

I notice birds like to fly close to my drones but I've never been hit. They seem to be smart enough to avoid contact, so far.

 

[Capt KO]

If it didn’t break it’s neck it might recover eventually..but with a severe headache. Wish prop guards weren’t such a pain to install and remove but I use them on my P4P at the beach..for seagulls, (sky rats) avoid McDonalds too. Also safer when kids nearby.
Thanks for the warning, it’s rare but does happen.