- Joined
- Mar 29, 2018
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So I'm traveling in Sri Lanka, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and this morning I decided to fly over the Lion Rock (one of the main important sights in this country). Found a spot around 500 meters from the rock and started flying. Everything was working just fine, awesome landscape, the rock in the background... Astonishing. Then I decided to pass the rock through its left side... And then it started.
The rock is so huge that it creates really strong wind currents, and my drone started to fly away at a speed of 2 meters per second even though I was in sport mode trying to fly in the other direction. And it was not flying straight but following the shape of the huge rock. In a desperate attempt I tried to gain some altitude but after reaching the top of the rock it was even worst. The battery drained really fast, in less than 10 minutes it was over (guess because of the drone efforts to recover control).
Somehow I managed to leave the air current and start heading back to where I was, but then RTH asked if I wanted to use it. I had to cancel it as going back straight implied crossing the 200 meter high rock again... So I started looking for a safe place to land the aircraft. This is the jungle, so I started to assume that in the best scenario I'd have to climb a tree or something to recover it, if the monkeys didn't find it before! Then I lost the signal as I was just 50mt height and still 800mt from where I was. In the meanwhile some ants were bitting my feet really hard as I was stepping in their anthill, and I didn't even feel them as I was panicking trying to save the drone.
I started running to the closest entrance of this Unesco monument. There I found two guys that sent me to the police station, the polices told me to ask in the entrance, and there I was told to buy a ticket in the museum. In the museum the cashier told me to go to an ATM and withdrawn the 30$ that costs the entrance... So yeah, 40 minutes after losing my drone I was entering in the Lion Rock area, handing my controller and phone with the last position of the drone. And then I saw two Sri Lankan women standing on top of a rock like guarding something. I climbed it, and there it was! Like in a **** dji advertisement, standing in the rock perfectly landed and safe. I couldn't believed it, there were trees everywhere around and this little thing had find, somehow, a way to land in there. After saying thanks to the women in Sinhala, I went to recover the sugar I lost in the last hour, and spent the rest of the morning visiting this awesome place.
From this I learned to trust the 'high strong wind land asp' signal. Also not to get too close to big structures like this rock as they may hide crazy wind currents. I was also lucky because last night I decided to download the map of this area (where there's almost no cell signal) because without it I'd have never find the drone. And also not to visit the places before flying over them as you'll probably need to get a new and expensive ticket. In my case I was lucky because I hadn't visit the rock yet. Otherwise I'd have lost 30$. And the last thing: to relax when this things happens. At some point my screen was covered by error and warning signals, and I was still able to more or less control this flying wallet far from water and rocks: take a tea before flying.
I hope this experience helps people not to send their devices into strong wind, as the air is really light and will just fly away... With the air, if the wind is strong enough.
The rock is so huge that it creates really strong wind currents, and my drone started to fly away at a speed of 2 meters per second even though I was in sport mode trying to fly in the other direction. And it was not flying straight but following the shape of the huge rock. In a desperate attempt I tried to gain some altitude but after reaching the top of the rock it was even worst. The battery drained really fast, in less than 10 minutes it was over (guess because of the drone efforts to recover control).
Somehow I managed to leave the air current and start heading back to where I was, but then RTH asked if I wanted to use it. I had to cancel it as going back straight implied crossing the 200 meter high rock again... So I started looking for a safe place to land the aircraft. This is the jungle, so I started to assume that in the best scenario I'd have to climb a tree or something to recover it, if the monkeys didn't find it before! Then I lost the signal as I was just 50mt height and still 800mt from where I was. In the meanwhile some ants were bitting my feet really hard as I was stepping in their anthill, and I didn't even feel them as I was panicking trying to save the drone.
I started running to the closest entrance of this Unesco monument. There I found two guys that sent me to the police station, the polices told me to ask in the entrance, and there I was told to buy a ticket in the museum. In the museum the cashier told me to go to an ATM and withdrawn the 30$ that costs the entrance... So yeah, 40 minutes after losing my drone I was entering in the Lion Rock area, handing my controller and phone with the last position of the drone. And then I saw two Sri Lankan women standing on top of a rock like guarding something. I climbed it, and there it was! Like in a **** dji advertisement, standing in the rock perfectly landed and safe. I couldn't believed it, there were trees everywhere around and this little thing had find, somehow, a way to land in there. After saying thanks to the women in Sinhala, I went to recover the sugar I lost in the last hour, and spent the rest of the morning visiting this awesome place.
From this I learned to trust the 'high strong wind land asp' signal. Also not to get too close to big structures like this rock as they may hide crazy wind currents. I was also lucky because last night I decided to download the map of this area (where there's almost no cell signal) because without it I'd have never find the drone. And also not to visit the places before flying over them as you'll probably need to get a new and expensive ticket. In my case I was lucky because I hadn't visit the rock yet. Otherwise I'd have lost 30$. And the last thing: to relax when this things happens. At some point my screen was covered by error and warning signals, and I was still able to more or less control this flying wallet far from water and rocks: take a tea before flying.
I hope this experience helps people not to send their devices into strong wind, as the air is really light and will just fly away... With the air, if the wind is strong enough.
