Nanjing TV Tower - Lost RC & Lost Drone

[drewdrones]

A positive recovery!

First of all, I can't thank this forum enough, but especially @sar104 - he's always been so helpful at helping figure things out!

They found the drone today at 3:00 PM exactly where he said it would be, on the second ring of the tower. From my understanding, it must have just clipped the building because the drone is pretty much intact, camera, gimbal all and all, everything is fine apart from that one broken arm.

Gladly for me, I live in China and have a few friends that work for DJI as repair tech's - so getting things fixed is quite simple and cheap! This bad boy will be back up and flying in no time!

Man, I don't know how to thank you enough @sar104 if you have a P.O Box or something (PM me), I want to send you some cookies, or whatever you want really!

 

[globetrotterdrone]

What a relief ...
Glad it ended so well.

 

[John MacAulay]

Great recovery! Glad you found your Air.
Sar104 to the rescue once again. His skills are legendary and such a great asset to drone operators here on the forum.
Well done!

 

[spamgnome]

Congrats! Was the video running during all of this? Would love to see that footage

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Sar104 needs to have a super hero name. What a guy!

 

[drewdrones]

Congrats! Was the video running during all of this? Would love to see that footage

It was running yes - once I get the bird back, I will try and post it on this thread!

Great recovery! Glad you found your Air.
Sar104 to the rescue once again. His skills are legendary and such a great asset to drone operators here on the forum.
Well done!

Its a mavic pro! But yes, @sar104 is a beast!

Sar104 needs to have a super hero name. What a guy!

Haha! I am sure he has been given one before!

 

[sar104]

A positive recovery!

First of all, I can't thank this forum enough, but especially @sar104 - he's always been so helpful at helping figure things out!

They found the drone today at 3:00 PM exactly where he said it would be, on the second ring of the tower. From my understanding, it must have just clipped the building because the drone is pretty much intact, camera, gimbal all and all, everything is fine apart from that one broken arm.

Gladly for me, I live in China and have a few friends that work for DJI as repair tech's - so getting things fixed is quite simple and cheap! This bad boy will be back up and flying in no time!

Man, I don't know how to thank you enough @sar104 if you have a P.O Box or something (PM me), I want to send you some cookies, or whatever you want really!

View attachment 82395

Glad to hear you retrieved it. And no cookies needed, but thanks for the offer. That was a simple case of simply extracting the subsequent location and elevation data from the DAT file. - nothing particularly clever involved at all.

 

[drewdrones]

Glad to hear you retrieved it. And no cookies needed, but thanks for the offer. That was a simple case of simply extracting the subsequent location and elevation data from the DAT file. - nothing particularly clever involved at all.

I know you do a lot more in-depth stuff with other lost drones (wind,altitude, etc.) but how did you analyze the .dat files? Do you use a specific program?

Thanks again 1000 times!

 

[sar104]

I know you do a lot more in-depth stuff with other lost drones (wind,altitude, etc.) but how did you analyze the .dat files? Do you use a specific program?

Thanks again 1000 times!

I use @BudWalker's DatCon program to convert them to csv files, and then open them in a scientific data analysis package (Igor Pro).

 

[old man mavic]

i am sure @sar104 that there is a lot more to analysing the data ,your expertise in the field is what really matters,i admire your pioty and the fact that you do this service on the forum not for praise or reward but to help others.

 

[drewdrones]

UPDATE:

I got my drone back in my hands today and pulled out the SD card.

I was wrong, I had set all my settings correctly (RTH sensors were on) but I guess I had miscalculated the total height of the tower (by a few meters).

I am not sure how to post videos on this forum, but if you have Instagram @drew.drones my story has the video, if not, I can share a Dropbox link of the last 2 minutes.

Basically, the drone lost connection, stopped, RTH activated and started flying straight towards the building. Stopped at what seems to be around 7M from the building, went up, paused for a second or two and then started flying back towards the building, barely missed a satellite dish, front left prop skimmed/clipped the building, it went up some more and hovers, then footage stops. Sadly, I have no idea if the drone ran out of battery and then tried to land, or if it fell, but I am super happy I got it back in the condition it was in!

 

[Thomas B]

UPDATE:

I got my drone back in my hands today and pulled out the SD card.

I was wrong, I had set all my settings correctly (RTH sensors were on) but I guess I had miscalculated the total height of the tower (by a few meters).

I am not sure how to post videos on this forum, but if you have Instagram @drew.drones my story has the video, if not, I can share a Dropbox link of the last 2 minutes.

Basically, the drone lost connection, stopped, RTH activated and started flying straight towards the building. Stopped at what seems to be around 7M from the building, went up, paused for a second or two and then started flying back towards the building, barely missed a satellite dish, front left prop skimmed/clipped the building, it went up some more and hovers, then footage stops. Sadly, I have no idea if the drone ran out of battery and then tried to land, or if it fell, but I am super happy I got it back in the condition it was in!

@drewdrones .... Upload YouTube. Get the share link. Post that link here as regular text. Then it will have link here with preview.

 

[drewdrones]

Here’s the video!

 

[Deleted member 94047]

It really tried hard to find a way. Thanks for posting the video.

 

[globetrotterdrone]

Wow, brave little drone, luckily, only minor damage and no one was hurt.
Thank you for posting this video, it's also a good teaching lesson for proper RTH settings in the beginning.

 

[fr4nszzz]

OK - that clarifies the situation. It did not return to ground level – the last entry in the txt log is spurious. It continued to send good position and elevation data for some time after the motors shut down. The location is a little closer to the tower center (32.067706° N, 118.745261° E) at 222 m AMSL (728 ft) or 210 m (689 ft) above the takeoff location, so based on your earlier statement it's around 10 m above the level of the observation deck.

The image below shows the location, but pinned to ground level – there is no point elevating the pin in the angled 2-D image.

View attachment 82321

High class investigation.. cool bro

 

[GCMM2P]

A positive recovery!

First of all, I can't thank this forum enough, but especially @sar104 - he's always been so helpful at helping figure things out!

They found the drone today at 3:00 PM exactly where he said it would be, on the second ring of the tower. From my understanding, it must have just clipped the building because the drone is pretty much intact, camera, gimbal all and all, everything is fine apart from that one broken arm.

Gladly for me, I live in China and have a few friends that work for DJI as repair tech's - so getting things fixed is quite simple and cheap! This bad boy will be back up and flying in no time!

Man, I don't know how to thank you enough @sar104 if you have a P.O Box or something (PM me), I want to send you some cookies, or whatever you want really!

View attachment 82395

You shouldn’t need a repair tech. That’ll all buff out!

 

[drewdrones]

You shouldn’t need a repair tech. That’ll all buff out!

Sadly, the drone has already left to the drone hospital, I would have done the repairs myself but no one could ship me the parts before a week-long holiday here and since I'm off to a trip needed it done quick and easy.

Both the front sensors were broken, the gimbal also had a problem and the broken arm you see in the picture above