Starfighter
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2017
- Messages
- 60
- Reactions
- 16
- Age
- 70
It's funny, but I live in a trailer park, and have had nearly the opposite reaction. My typical flight, if I fly from my house, to climb up 20', let the thing look at its takeoff area, and since my trailer is near the edge of the park, I climb up and out from over the park. If I'm inspecting my roof or something I'll be over my house, otherwise I'll be up a couple of hundred feet where it's hard to notice me.
I don't care about keeping the drone in LOS, so I just go fly nearby. Everytime someone notices me, I come over with the remote, show them where it is and we are, via the map, and then the FPV and then they'll usually want to see it, and I'll bring it home. When they see it coming their eyes light up, and I'll frame us and take a picture. They love it and I've made friends.
BUT YES IT WILL HAPPEN. I was flying over the beach in a condo I used to rent in a Phantom 3 Pro. Luckily with the video on and being cached to my phone. I'm still embarrassed, but I had put props on the night before and didn't tighten them even a little. Still the self tightening worked, pretty well, until after 10 minutes I got red warning messages about a motor seized, at idle, and I figured I should get it on the ground. I had planned to stay well clear of the condo for sensitive neighbour consideration, but I decided to plop it down in the grass between the Ocean and condo and was outside these people's condo for 30 seconds before i put it down and out ended up in the bushes. I was flying LOS.
I came up the walkway, and found it GONE. My GPS saw the condo it was in. I went and politely asked about it and got swore at for spying, they said it landed on their balcony, "almost in our bedroom", and they would return it to the president of the board of directors the next morning. And slammed the door in my face. I'd lived there for 15 years and the president was my friendly next door neighbor. But suppose I had just moved in?
Anyway, when I saw the recording on my phone, which was near dusk and spectacular, I knew I had it made. The camera was running, caught them takin it from the bushes, even transmitted from the elevator, and got them taking it into their condo. I gave them another chance. They wouldn't answer the door, I said I was calling the police, and they still wouldn't answer the door. Then they arrogantly went out to dinner. A deputy arrived and after he saw the video, no spying, saw the grand theft, he got agitated. When he heard they had left for dinner he got more steamed. When my friend the president said we'd work it out. He said, "Oh no, they're going to jail on grand theft charges. I thought that was a bit severe, said I had lost my temper when I said I wanted to press charges, he said, "OK, but I want to talk to them first, ANDvIT BETTER GO WELL."
Then they weren't picking up his calls at the restaurant. "RESTRICTED" They knew. Finally the F bomb dropper answered, and one off his first sentences was, "LISTEN, IT LANDED ON OUR BALCONY, and..." And the deputy said, "NO YOU LISTEN. YOU'VE JUST ADDED LYING TO A POLICE OFFICER TO YOUR GRAND THEFT CHARGES. YOU ALL AREN'T GOING BACK TO TEXAS ANY TIME SOON. I just saw the entire video, there was no spying, and it didn't land on your balcony!" Boy did that take the air out of the guy. They agreed to bring it back and apologize.
The deputies last words were, "They're lucky they werent here in person, I don't think that would have gone very well." LOL
I felt like an idiot for not tightening the props. I had it idling on my coffee table and it started violently vibrating. Resonance. I grabbed it and it stopped. THEN I checked the props and knew. All that drama because I didn't do a good preflight! But they were paranoid anti - drone fanatics all ready to make a drink over nothing.
I forgot to mention the one BAD experience in the park. I had gotten some big head tracking goggles, but no DGI GO info was shown anywhere. So I was letting people try the goggles, and flying strictly by LOS, and it's not really my strong point, so I stayed very close, an inadvertently spent to much time over this one house. She didn't realize the view from the air was a sea of mobile homes. To even see hers, you'd have to Gimble the camera straight down. But she thought her privacy wss being violated, and came over, and if alone, I would have schmoozed her, for the sake of the hobby, plus I'm generally nice. But the 4 people I was instantly ganged up on her. With my sister using her golden tongue, "We've seen you naked, and you're ugly!" I asked if she wanted to see through the goggles, which would have defused the situation, but it was too late. My sister did feel bad, and walking around the park, saw her during a family get together and apologized. She ssid we weren't even aware of her house but should have been polite, and addressed her concerns. Then she said I'm sorry I said we saw you naked. Her family loved it and howled with laughter, and my sister said she was really nice.