Hi Ken and thanks. I’ll try to be short, but it is a saga.
I’m a photographer who’s wanted to add aerial photo and video capability for some time. Thought a “flying Hasselblad“ sounded like a plan. Research, practice, blah, blah. Take it out for first serious flight to a nearby lake in the mountains with open farmland and a big ole lake. Flew for two hours and headed back. See a freight train chugging around mountain and decide to stop and shoot. Few seconds after launch, weak GPS signal warning, land it, recalibrate compass, “READY TO FLY GPS.” Take off and couple minutes later controller switches to “Opti” mode. No I had no clue what that was. Atti mode I knew, Opti mode not so much. I can tell by video that drone is not responding well to my input at all. Seconds later after a futile attempt to visually reorient the craft to fly back, it was less than a couple football fields away, total connection was lost. Wind must have caught it and away it goes.
Can‘t find it, and wherever it was would probably be inaccessible anyway. Figured I was screwed but since I had “refresh” I might as well have the incident looked into in case it wasn’t my fault, and to possibly learn what mistake I made. Opened case, cool, that’s that. It was Dec. 9th. Ordered a new
M2P from the car, got it the next day.
Christmas Day we got snow on Mt Baldy not far from my home. Drive up early, cold as hell, but way more beautiful. Flew for an hour and a half, getting uncomfortable, and batteries in drone and phone are suffering the cold temps. Pack up and head down. See fog settling on peaks right across from me and again, because I’m out of favor with the “take a hint gods” decide to stop and shoot. Take off, get the shots and footage in about three minutes, flying it back because fog is rolling in on me too and it’s snowing, this all changed, including visibility, in seconds.
I had filmed flying the drone laterally to my right, not very far at all, I could still hear it. As the conditions went south I was full stick back to the left at the same time, I could hear it again. Literally, just when I could see the fog blot out the video feed and before I could let go the stick and hit RTH, it crashed. 104 ft above me, at 35mph. Still had a picture and 67% battery, but was just irretrievable. Ordered ‘ORVILLE III” from the car, it’s arrival is imminent.
And guess what, there’s a lot more snow on Baldy and I plan to be filming it tomorrow morning. ? Thanks for being such a good listener.?
