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Crashed and lost my drone today, Air 2

A.O.

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So, doing my thing today, flying through the woods instead of over them (video coming) (video here Air 2 - Off Road (here I go again)) , got through a new deep part of my woods I hadn't flown before , no roads or paths or anything and out to the other side and the road no problems. Flying back along the road 5-10 feet high and I must have clipped a branch I had not seen! Dang! Camera shows it flinging around for lack of better terms and down. So I start walking, I know right where it is right? Well not quite maybe. Could not find it anywhere, then I remembered it has a "find my drone" feature, so I turned it on.. nothing, I hear no beeping anywhere, and the ma makes no sense.. tells about where the drone is but not the controller!! If I am wrong on this I would love someone to explain it to me. Anyway.. searched for a while but its working on getting dark so I thought I'd go get the truck and a big flashlight (2900 lumens!) and see what I could do.. kept thinking if it were only beeping I'd be good but maybe it dumped the battery or something. So 100 yards down the road on my way home I think I hear beeping!! cool!! sure enough a ways further there it is burried in some tall grass! YAY Thank God!!
Looked fine, I set it on the path and it says ok to take off or something like that, took off hovered fine and says battery about dead forced landing in 10 seconds.. so I just landed it!

So good ending, every thing seems fine I will give it a thorough inspection here in a bit and see how it does tomorrow!!

Heres the video..

 
Last edited:
So, doing my thing today, flying through the woods instead of over them (video coming) , got through a new deep part of my woods I hadn't flown before , no roads or paths or anything and out to the other side and the road no problems. Flying back along the road 5-10 feet high and I must have clipped a branch I had not seen! Dang! Camera shows it flinging around for lack of better terms and down. So I start walking, I know right where it is right? Well not quite maybe. Could not find it anywhere, then I remembered it has a "find my drone" feature, so I turned it on.. nothing, I hear no beeping anywhere, and the ma makes no sense.. tells about where the drone is but not the controller!! If I am wrong on this I would love someone to explain it to me. Anyway.. searched for a while but its working on getting dark so I thought I'd go get the truck and a big flashlight (2900 lumens!) and see what I could do.. kept thinking if it were only beeping I'd be good but maybe it dumped the battery or something. So 100 yards down the road on my way home I think I hear beeping!! cool!! sure enough a ways further there it is burried in some tall grass! YAY Thank God!!
Looked fine, I set it on the path and it says ok to take off or something like that, took off hovered fine and says battery about dead forced landing in 10 seconds.. so I just landed it!

So good ending, every thing seems fine I will give it a thorough inspection here in a bit and see how it does tomorrow!!
Good news! Glad you found it! Fly safe!
 
Your not having much luck at the moment.......least you found it
thats the main thing, hopefully everything's ok with it ????
 
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glad you found it ,i think you are just beginning to find out how hard it is to judge the position of your drone just by looking at the screen ,and the distance it is from objects as it flies ,i hope it has not sustained any lasting damage
 
glad you found it ,i think you are just beginning to find out how hard it is to judge the position of your drone just by looking at the screen ,and the distance it is from objects as it flies ,i hope it has not sustained any lasting damage
It does not look like it did, will tell more tomorrow. And it is hard to tell position sometimes, but this was something I never saw.. just tooling down a little woods road and BLAM!! It got me!! I think its ok though! But thanks!
 
So glad you found it and were able to hover, thanks for sharing this event, for newbs like me to keep learning.
I have a lot of posts, mostly cause I'm mouthy.. but I am just a newb as well! The main thing I learned was to turn on that "find my drone" as soon as it went down, I would have saved about 1/2 hour looking through the woods as I passed it on the way.. with in about 6 ft, I would have heard it for sure!
 
Just as a side note, for lost drone assistance.

The firehouse technology arc XL strobe LED has LAND technology. Basically if it doesn’t sense any movement for 3 minutes it will start a loud beeping noise. Beauty is it runs on a separate battery to the drone. Plus the flashing strobe too.

Mind you a strobe through a forest might make a disco forest type of your video. I would mount on the rear to counter that. I use aerial-pixel 3d printed mounts for mine. no advertising it’s just a bit of kit I like for that extra security also helps a ton with VLOS.
 
> Could not find it anywhere, then I remembered it has a "find my drone" feature, so I turned it on.. nothing, I hear no beeping anywhere, and the map makes no sense.. tells about where the drone is but not the controller!! If I am wrong on this I would love someone to explain it to me.
Why do you need to know where the controller is? It should be in your hands! Oh wait, I see, probably so you can judge the relative distance from where you are? When I went though something similar, I'm sure it showed how far away my Phantom was. If you had an internet connection when you took off, you would have a map of the area, and it would show where both you and your drone was. That would help immensely. Of course, that only works if you have a Smart phone/pad/tablet with GPS. It is hard to see due to the bright sun, but check out my video:
It does show the distance away, 931 feet. But it seemed to show that even when I walked up to the drone.

So good ending, every thing seems fine I will give it a thorough inspection here in a bit and see how it does tomorrow!!
Yay!
 
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I am feeling my neck muscle getting stronger because of my head shaking.
Glad you got it back but VLOS works but not when you are in the middle of the forest.
I use this a lot and cannot help myself... Dr. Phil called and ask .... "How's that working for you?"
I am glad you already gave us the answer. Great story and cannot wait for the next one.
 
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Why do you need to know where the controller is? It should be in your hands! Oh wait, I see, probably so you can judge the relative distance from where you are? When I went though something similar, I'm sure it showed how far away my Phantom was. If you had an internet connection when you took off, you would have a map of the area, and it would show where both you and your drone was. That would help immensely. Of course, that only works if you have a Smart phone/pad/tablet with GPS. It is hard to see due to the bright sun, but check out my video:
It does show the distance away, 931 feet. But it seemed to show that even when I walked up to the drone.


Yay!
So when I'm flying I can pull up the map and fly the drone straight to me, I can see its distance direction etc... Why would not that work the other way around? Should show me as I was walking and direction... but I guess not.
 
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I am feeling my neck muscle getting stronger because of my head shaking.
Glad you got it back but VLOS works but not when you are in the middle of the forest.
I use this a lot and cannot help myself... Dr. Phil called and ask .... "How's that working for you?"
I am glad you already gave us the answer. Great story and cannot wait for the next one.
So why is your head shaking so much?? Windy where you are at??:D
I'm sure there will be a next one, this is one of the reasons I wanted a drone.. to fly through my woods and have a look around on occasion. More satisfying to me than flying over everything in nice clean air... And missing all the good stuff!
But that's me...
 
Good luck and like I said... cannot wait for the next one.
 
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So, doing my thing today, flying through the woods instead of over them (video coming) (video here Air 2 - Off Road (here I go again)) , got through a new deep part of my woods I hadn't flown before , no roads or paths or anything and out to the other side and the road no problems. Flying back along the road 5-10 feet high and I must have clipped a branch I had not seen! Dang! Camera shows it flinging around for lack of better terms and down. So I start walking, I know right where it is right? Well not quite maybe. Could not find it anywhere, then I remembered it has a "find my drone" feature, so I turned it on.. nothing, I hear no beeping anywhere, and the ma makes no sense.. tells about where the drone is but not the controller!! If I am wrong on this I would love someone to explain it to me. Anyway.. searched for a while but its working on getting dark so I thought I'd go get the truck and a big flashlight (2900 lumens!) and see what I could do.. kept thinking if it were only beeping I'd be good but maybe it dumped the battery or something. So 100 yards down the road on my way home I think I hear beeping!! cool!! sure enough a ways further there it is burried in some tall grass! YAY Thank God!!
Looked fine, I set it on the path and it says ok to take off or something like that, took off hovered fine and says battery about dead forced landing in 10 seconds.. so I just landed it!

So good ending, every thing seems fine I will give it a thorough inspection here in a bit and see how it does tomorrow!!

These drones are pretty tough. Have hit a "few" tree limbs and it recovered very well - NO CRASH. Have also hit the side of my house with it as I was practicing going thru a narrow area between house and pergola. My depth perception is not super great and thought I had enough clearance. DID NOT. Only about 4 feet above the ground too. Replaced blades as they are nicked pretty good, but all else seems good. Flown it a few times waterfalling since and no issues. One tough little bird.

Now to source some more props and other things like controller sticks to have as extra's.
 
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These drones are pretty tough. Have hit a "few" tree limbs and it recovered very well - NO CRASH. Have also hit the side of my house with it as I was practicing going thru a narrow area between house and pergola. My depth perception is not super great and thought I had enough clearance. DID NOT. Only about 4 feet above the ground too. Replaced blades as they are nicked pretty good, but all else seems good. Flown it a few times waterfalling since and no issues. One tough little bird.

Now to source some more props and other things like controller sticks to have as extra's.
What is waterfalling?
 
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