I am an idiot (First Crash)

Slade · Nov 25, 2019

mrgolf30 said:
I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

I think all trees should be removed for a ten mile radius? seriously, I’m sorry you crashed your MP. Those puppies aren’t cheap.

CallSignShadow · Nov 25, 2019

JAW said:
Go out and buy some lottery tickets. The Force is with you!

Found the Jedi!!

Drbobk · Nov 25, 2019

Smokieflies said:
Very lucky. I might suggesting replacing the props just to be sure, since that apparently took some of the impact. Don't want a future prop failure bring your drone down.

Don’t forget to take the props off to inspect them. The lugs that hold the prop to the motor can fail (or be sheared off by impact). I removed a barely visibly damaged prop (hairline crack at the trailing edge of the end of the prop), and then discovered that one of the lugs was gone. So I removed all of them for inspection, and it’s part of my maintenance routine now.

allenface · Nov 25, 2019

Viking said:
She? Yes drones can behave like women sometimes.??

I always refer to my boats, cars and now my drone as "she". Gotta make it gender specific and "she" seems appropriate. They need to be handled gently but firmly. They need to be respected and heeded. And one needs to know that on any given moment she(it) can go off on an unexpected tangent. So yes...she is most appropriate.

DanMan32 · Nov 25, 2019

Doppler said:
I forgot to mention THAT time when I mistook the left stick for the right stick. AC was around 900m out and 80m high over a lake. In my head, I was bringing it back. But in reality I was decending. I caught my mistake as the AC was approaching 10m. A few seconds more and I would have landed it on the water. I have never felt as stupid as that day.

I've done that more than afew times, but usually I catch my error rather quickly.

DanMan32 · Nov 25, 2019

Joe4flight said:
As I read your story, it reminded me of a similar incident I experienced a year or so ago. But my drone suffered significant damage which I used my Care Refresh Plan to get a replacement MPP. Here’s what happened. It was a nice fall day. I took my MPP to a local forest preserve. When I activated the RC and drone, I received some kind of interference message on the RC preventing me from taking off. So I powered everything down and moved to another area of the forest preserve where I found a picnic table. I placed the drone on the picnic table, powered it up and also powered up the RC. The drones props were spinning, but not fast enough to get airborne. At that moment, a guy approached me to talk. That was fine. He was interested in what I was doing. As I’m taking to him I noticed the same interference message on the RC. So I powered the RC down while my drone was still sitting on the picnic table with the props spinning. At that moment, the drone went straight up into the air and crashed into several large tree branches. It immediately crashed to the ground. It was destroyed. I learned a valuable and painful lesson. Always power down the drone before powering down the RC.

They should have it where signal loss response doesn't apply if it's just idling. It does know the difference between motors on but still on the ground versus in the air.

Deleted member 93449 · Nov 25, 2019

I watched a guy on YT intentionally crash a MM into a tree three or four times from about five feet away full blast in camera mode. The thing restarted and kept flying like nothing happened. He tried it again in sport mode and wasn't so lucky.

Paulf10 · Nov 25, 2019

mrgolf30 said:
I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

YES!
In fact I just did it about two hours ago!
1. I didn’t do a preflight check! Why? Because I’m just that f’ing stupid.
2. Once in the air I realized I had no gimbal control. Reason currently unknown.
3. Tried landing in a very small area on my deck where I usually hand catch because it’s such a small area. However this time I choose not to! Why? Again, because I’m an idiot.!

Results...... broken landing leg and wire. Entirely operator error and entirely avoidable.

Rick0504N · Nov 25, 2019

Two things here - I don’t think I would ever shut down while it’s still in air (I hope) but not sure if I would have recovered in time and thought to re-start controller and app. I think I would just be watching it bounce amongst tree and hope for the best! Good job on your part.

ob1quixote · Nov 25, 2019

CallSignShadow said:
Found the Jedi!!

I'll be the judge of that, thank you...!

LOL!

Teck · Nov 25, 2019

Lucky you, your bird is ok. Panic lesson.

Bobvt · Nov 25, 2019

Bigbird48 said:
Dasher once went into RTH while under tree's. My fault and the result was the same , up into the branches 6 times before I got control. Dasher was fine me on the other hand SMP

Smp- ha ha ha,oops

Drbobk · Nov 25, 2019

Bobvt said:
Smp- ha ha ha,oops

Thanks for that - helped me figure out SMP!

DanMan32 · Nov 25, 2019

Rick0504N said:
Two things here - I don’t think I would ever shut down while it’s still in air (I hope) but not sure if I would have recovered in time and thought to re-start controller and app. I think I would just be watching it bounce amongst tree and hope for the best! Good job on your part.

In a controlled setting, like a ball field, for testing responses is fine. That way when you do blunder, you know exactly what the behavior is and how to deal with it.

DanMan32 · Nov 25, 2019

2edgesword said:
I watched a guy on YT intentionally crash a MM into a tree three or four times from about five feet away full blast in camera mode. The thing restarted and kept flying like nothing happened. He tried it again in sport mode and wasn't so lucky.

Was that with or without prop cage installed?

Mavic Air Head · Nov 26, 2019

I can honestly say I haven't done that, but I have done many much stupider things that I will never confess (and that doesn't include things that don't require a drone). Nice to know there are more options than the ones I've discovered. Great story, thanks for sharing!

Jet skier · Nov 30, 2019

mrgolf30 said:
I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

Yes almost, I was flying my drone and ended up in a little cluster of trees very small trees I lost orientation of the drone temporarily and had the short panic and hit the right stick forward hit a small tree and it dropped in the water. Drone totaled. This happened after about four months of drone flying experience, Don’t feel too bad

Rusty in Bend · Nov 30, 2019

mrgolf30 said:
Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

I landed my Mavic 2 Zoom on a piece of plywood sitting on two saw-horses. I had a whole 4x8 feet of space to land, but I (lazily) didn't want to have to lean over to reach it, so I landed on the edge and "missed" with half the landing gear, and watched in horror as it dropped to the ground. Luckily, the only casualty was one propeller ... could have been much worse. So "Yes" ... is my answer. You are not alone.