Mavic Pro 2 Recovery

[DanMan32]

Eagles, hawks, etc. Not talking about robins and sparrows.

Avian-Friendly Power Lines

 

[lolo780]

Kevlar Thread - Size 46 / Tex 40 / Govt. B

A P4 with V2 props will lift your M2 and 200ft of Kevlar thread. Pull a loop up and catch the rear arm then pull downwards to free the M2 gimbal. P4 can then lift the whole works up. Use a small weight on the end of the line to prevent it from tangling in the P4 props.

Consider a payload fail safe as well.
https://www.droneskyhook.com/product-page/Fail-Safe-Drop-Cord

 

[DanMan32]

Problem is that the gimbal flipped backwards clamping onto the wire. It's not easy to flip the gimbal back when you have it in your hands so I doubt grabbing it with a lasso will work. You'd probably have to yank it real hard to yank it free. Probably will break the pitch motor or the mount in the process.

 

[AMann]

Sorry Paul, but 200 ft up? It’s probably at least a 60KV line. Don’t bother with it, the power company will do it, but don’t be surprised if they want to charge you a lot. I’d definitely let them know though, dont let them be the ones that call first.

 

[lolo780]

Problem is that the gimbal flipped backwards clamping onto the wire. It's not easy to flip the gimbal back when you have it in your hands so I doubt grabbing it with a lasso will work. You'd probably have to yank it real hard to yank it free. Probably will break the pitch motor or the mount in the process.

Your gimbal already looks bent and you can see the gap on the side of the camera. That'll work in your favor and the roll joint has some flex to it. I bent mine back by hand after a crash.

The way the cable will push the joint gives plenty of leverage to free it. A 14lb test line should do the job. Or pull the rear arm right off.

Assuming you're pointing the camera down, a simple release could be made by using the gimbal pitch upwards to pull something.

 

[choo choo]

Look around for a utility truck.Have $50 or better yet $100 bill ready and ask for advice.Hope they advise you to trade the $100 for getting the drone down.

Are you bonkers? The voltages carried in those lines can jump a gap of up to 9 feet. Asking someone without the required knowledge of working near high voltage is asking for trouble.

 

[AMann]

Are you bonkers? The voltages carried in those lines can jump a gap of up to 9 feet. Asking someone without the required knowledge of working near high voltage is asking for trouble.

There are a lot of power line arcing videos online, just watching those makes you realize its a very bad thing to mess around with power lines. I also have personal experience with arcing a high boltage transmission line- actually by accidentally causing it when I was a kid. We were flying a long tailed dragon mylar kite at a soccer field, and it lay down across the top of the line. Man, it glowed green and made a huge buzzing noise, but the weirdest part was seeing a blue arc traveling down the line. There was no kite left except a smoking spot on the wires where it touched. We caused a temporary power brownout that even affected the police station, and the power company had to repair the parts of the cables where the kite touched. It was a long time ago, when mylar kites were rather new, so the power company wasn’t really up on pursuing people who caused line accidents yet. I imagine that’s changed now.

 

[Kilrah]

My take is you can basically forget about it, you certainly would want to have the power company go fetch it, but since that would involve either a helicopter or shutting down a line this will cost you 10x the price of the Mavic.

 

[scumface]

Any ideas on how to recover the bird? (It is about 200 ft. up hanging in the power lines).

Call the power company ? Let me know if you get it down

 

[AMann]

What a sad ending, I do feel bad for him. I’ve seen dead hawks hanging from power lines after their feet got fried onto them, and that Mavic looks like a dead bird hanging like that too.

Hope he will get lucky and a lineman will recover it and just not say anything... or it’s an expensive loss but not as much as it would have been paying for a crew to fo go recover it.

 

[choo choo]

What a sad ending, I do feel bad for him. I’ve seen dead hawks hanging from power lines after their feet got fried onto them, and that Mavic looks like a dead bird hanging like that too.

Hope he will get lucky and a lineman will recover it and just not say anything... or it’s an expensive loss but not as much as it would have been paying for a crew to fo go recover it.

Same here. I hope he gets it back.

 

[choo choo]

There are a lot of power line arcing videos online, just watching those makes you realize its a very bad thing to mess around with power lines. I also have personal experience with arcing a high boltage transmission line- actually by accidentally causing it when I was a kid. We were flying a long tailed dragon mylar kite at a soccer field, and it lay down across the top of the line. Man, it glowed green and made a huge buzzing noise, but the weirdest part was seeing a blue arc traveling down the line. There was no kite left except a smoking spot on the wires where it touched. We caused a temporary power brownout that even affected the police station, and the power company had to repair the parts of the cables where the kite touched. It was a long time ago, when mylar kites were rather new, so the power company wasn’t really up on pursuing people who caused line accidents yet. I imagine that’s changed now.

We get a lot of calls to those damned foil balloons and Chinese lanterns on the railway overhead wires, and ours carry 25k volts.
The foil balloons short everything out and bring electric trains to a stop. The ordinary balloons and Chinese lanterns wrap around the pantograph (the bit from the top of the train that touches the wire to gain power) and force it off the wires. Worse case scenario is if the wires are ripped down and wrapped around the train.

 

[lolo780]

When you don't see the wire:

 

[ROBERTNCREST]

How about zip tying a broom stick to another drone and trying the ol' wack-a-mole trick. you'd have to turn off the down sensors and you would have little visibility out the camera. Just thronging out ideas.
be sure to have some guys waiting underneath with a bed sheet to catch it.

 

[CarlStarke]

When you don't see the wire:

**** that is the funnest drone footage I have seen!

 

[AMann]

How about zip tying a broom stick to another drone and trying the ol' wack-a-mole trick. you'd have to turn off the down sensors and you would have little visibility out the camera. Just thronging out ideas.
be sure to have some guys waiting underneath with a bed sheet to catch it.

We call it “piñata” out here...

 

[Bigbird48]

yep

 

[ac0j]

Screwed. It will cost (as said a couple times before) WAAAY more to have it recovered than it is worth. The Mavic probably has $100 worth of damage minimum right now as it hangs.
IF it somehow manages to cause A problem for the power company, you had better hope that they cannot connect that drone to you, because simple maintenance on lines of that magnitude are expensive, and RARELY is there a need to get to the wire between the towers. A specialized Helicopter crew will HAVE to be dispatched to do that recovery safely.
This is 200 feet of the ground, and super high voltage. NOT your normal neighborhood power lines.
Whistle and walk away. Unless you have registration numbers and your ID on the craft, then you best call the power company ASAP!

 

[MobiosOne]

1. buy a ****** drone
2. get 4 people and a bed sheet
3. position the 4 friends with the bed sheet under the MP2
4. dump the **** drone against the MP2 until you dislodge it
5. catch the MP2 with the sheet

 

[BD0G]

You hear that?
Off in the distance...

Its the sounds of a lineman with a smile on his face and a new Mavic 2 Drone and the barely audible sounds of his muttering "Man I cant wait to fly this thing"