Thanks for the interest.
Current status: Still lost.
SAR104's calculated trajectory puts it into the trees and I believe that I have identified the particular tree. Unfortunately, it is an oak tree which is very heavily leafed out. If I was certain which tree it was in, I would hire a tree trimmer I know to climb up, locate it and recover it. However since I am not positive I am right, I hesitate to bring him out there to climb up a bunch of different trees trying to locate it.
I have gone out and carefully searched the ground in the wooded area a total of 8 times. The last few were after times when we got winds gusting over 50 mph. I had hoped that the strong winds would cause enough movement in the branches to shake it loose. It didn't fall.
It is next to impossible to go out there, look up and carefully scan the branches above. SO instead of doing a visual search on site, I went out with my camera and took over 300 photos of the branches and leaves of the canopy.. I started by photographing the base of the tree so I could locate it and then moved up taking photos into the canopy. I then brought the photos home and downloaded them onto my computer and looked at each individually blown up as far as I could on my computer and then doing a careful search pattern through each photo. Unfortunately, the leaves were so heavy that I could not locate the Mavic.
I had hoped that as fall and winter came, that the tree would lose all its leaves. While almost every other tree has lost its leaves, this type of oak loses its leaves later than most oak and other trees in the area. Right now it has lost some of its leaves, but probably still has about 30-40% of its leaves.
I am waiting until it loses some more leaves, hopefully within the next few weeks and do another photo search. I'm just happy it is not a pin oak which doesn't lose its leaves until spring. I bought a used Mavic pro from Thunderdrones - he has great prices - and will also do a Drone Deploy map at low altitude and search through all those pictures too.
I am confident that I will be able to find it and once I do will hire the tree trimmer too limb up and recover it.
I made a refresh claim with DJI but of course they denied it because I couldn't send in the old one, and even though they determined that there was no pilot error. The best they could do was offer me a discount on a rebuilt drone but Thunderdrone's price was cheaper. And also by not settling the Refresh claim that way, when I actually do fund the drone, I will send it into DJI and get a rebuilt one and then sell that.
So that's what the current status is. I am hoping to be able to go out with the next couple of weeks for another round of ground and air photos.
Jack
