Hi All!
New pilot hailing from SW Washington.
Last September, I decided to learn to fly FPV and to not break my wallet, so I bought a $200 Tinyhawk II. Loads of fun and not easy to learn. I did quickly tire of swapping out batteries every 4-5 minutes of flight. Along this same time frame, I decided to study and get my Part 107, which I probably spent 4-5 weeks studying off and on, as I wasn't in any hurry to take the test. I took it on Feb 5th and passed. Then it took me another month to settle on which drone to invest in. After watching a lot of reviews, I purchased a Mavic 2 Pro. I almost bought the Zoom, but I thought the Hasselblad 1" sensor would be better, than the Zoom's camera. I have my opinion on that, but for a later post.
So in a month (4hrs total flying), I've managed to tangle with a small apple tree (didn't crash, but ruined 3 props). Ran into a flock of geese. They actually ran into me and all I saw on my screen was something akin to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" attack scene. Again, no crash and lucky too, because I was over water when the flock turned into my flight path. The goose that hit my drone did crack a prop and I have no idea what happened the goose. I didn't see it floating dead on the water, so I imagine it has a story to tell its buddies. And the 3rd happened during an indoor warehouse flight, when I lost GPS signal and lost all flight control (I know, I know...I see all your eyes rolling) and the M2P started moving towards a wall at 4ft elevation. I tried to land it and fly it away from the wall, but it didn't respond and hit the wall. That crash did more than ruin some props. The impact and fall to the floor popped out a proximity sensor on one of the landing legs, which popped back into to place and cracked another leg. These are really tough machines, actually. Nothing seriously broken and the drone flies fine. I used it the next day on a real estate photo shoot and all is well. I guess I should have quickly looked online to see if flying indoors might affect the GPS, but it was an in-the-moment decision to show a friend of mine, as it had started raining outside. Live and learn. So now, I'm all about actually learning what all can happen in various scenarios with this drone and what the best solution to resolve the issue. It's actually a bit unnerving to see how many pilots (especially skilled) have lost or crashed their drones, even after taking proper measures to recover from lost signal or other events. Personally, I'm into this drone about $3200, so I think I'd better start being more careful.
Oh...major bummer on the video from the "Goose that almost cooked my Bird"...I was filming that entire event, but apparently, I had my cache settings too low or set to the wrong device, I'm still not certain what happened exactly, but it didn't save the video because the cache was full? At any rate, I'm still not sure how to handle the SD cards. I have two 128GB U3 cards. One is in the bird, the other is in the Smart Controller. I noticed recently that video filmed directly to the SD card on the bird came out jerky and was pixelating, but the Smart Controller video was smooth, exactly how it was filmed. If someone can school me up on the proper way to handle the SD card situation, I'd appreciate it.
Anyway, glad to have found this forum. If I'd have started here a month ago, I bet my M2P would still be all pristine.
Here's the damage done to the leg. I'm pretty lucky.
New pilot hailing from SW Washington.
Last September, I decided to learn to fly FPV and to not break my wallet, so I bought a $200 Tinyhawk II. Loads of fun and not easy to learn. I did quickly tire of swapping out batteries every 4-5 minutes of flight. Along this same time frame, I decided to study and get my Part 107, which I probably spent 4-5 weeks studying off and on, as I wasn't in any hurry to take the test. I took it on Feb 5th and passed. Then it took me another month to settle on which drone to invest in. After watching a lot of reviews, I purchased a Mavic 2 Pro. I almost bought the Zoom, but I thought the Hasselblad 1" sensor would be better, than the Zoom's camera. I have my opinion on that, but for a later post.
So in a month (4hrs total flying), I've managed to tangle with a small apple tree (didn't crash, but ruined 3 props). Ran into a flock of geese. They actually ran into me and all I saw on my screen was something akin to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" attack scene. Again, no crash and lucky too, because I was over water when the flock turned into my flight path. The goose that hit my drone did crack a prop and I have no idea what happened the goose. I didn't see it floating dead on the water, so I imagine it has a story to tell its buddies. And the 3rd happened during an indoor warehouse flight, when I lost GPS signal and lost all flight control (I know, I know...I see all your eyes rolling) and the M2P started moving towards a wall at 4ft elevation. I tried to land it and fly it away from the wall, but it didn't respond and hit the wall. That crash did more than ruin some props. The impact and fall to the floor popped out a proximity sensor on one of the landing legs, which popped back into to place and cracked another leg. These are really tough machines, actually. Nothing seriously broken and the drone flies fine. I used it the next day on a real estate photo shoot and all is well. I guess I should have quickly looked online to see if flying indoors might affect the GPS, but it was an in-the-moment decision to show a friend of mine, as it had started raining outside. Live and learn. So now, I'm all about actually learning what all can happen in various scenarios with this drone and what the best solution to resolve the issue. It's actually a bit unnerving to see how many pilots (especially skilled) have lost or crashed their drones, even after taking proper measures to recover from lost signal or other events. Personally, I'm into this drone about $3200, so I think I'd better start being more careful.
Oh...major bummer on the video from the "Goose that almost cooked my Bird"...I was filming that entire event, but apparently, I had my cache settings too low or set to the wrong device, I'm still not certain what happened exactly, but it didn't save the video because the cache was full? At any rate, I'm still not sure how to handle the SD cards. I have two 128GB U3 cards. One is in the bird, the other is in the Smart Controller. I noticed recently that video filmed directly to the SD card on the bird came out jerky and was pixelating, but the Smart Controller video was smooth, exactly how it was filmed. If someone can school me up on the proper way to handle the SD card situation, I'd appreciate it.
Anyway, glad to have found this forum. If I'd have started here a month ago, I bet my M2P would still be all pristine.
Here's the damage done to the leg. I'm pretty lucky.
