Opposing Drone emitted a bright white flash right...any ideas?

[Iamthecaptainnow]

Hey guys,
New to the game and this is my first post. I was flying my mavic about a week ago at night. While up in the air I was approached by another drone that was off in the distance. Once it got fairly close (hard to tell how close) there were 2 white strobes alternating on each of the front wings. It then emitted a bright light from both lights simultaneously. I immediately lost control of my aircraft. It was no li ger responding. My controller wouldn't respond, and I had no camera feed. I thought it was gone forever. A few minutes later it returned to home and landed. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this. Im not sure how and why this happened but it scared me enough to contemplate returning the thing.

Any helftor advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Arrrgh cap'n, welcome to the forum.

While many here have flown in big groups, with other nearby drone pilots all flying together ok, I have had 2 instances where flying near another pilot (at least) caused issues.

Now this other drone was only nearby to your drone, so this might not be relevant as it was to me, but when I flew near my sons P3, and another time near my brother in laws MA, they both had control issues, in fact my sons P3 came down rather hard and broke a prop landing side on incontrollable.

Mine is an M1P, you don't say what Mavic you own.

In both cases, we can fly ok if standing maybe 10 - 15m apart, so as said this might not be something that should affect your flight as the other pilot was obviously somewhere further afield and just came over to check you out.

I doubt it was any sort of drone affecting anti drone device etc, as in purposely stopping another drone flight.
This other drone nearby could have had some sort of signal interference, that's about all I could put it down to.

 

[sar104]

 

[Iamthecaptainnow]

Thanks for the reply. It's an Air2s. What makes me think it was a hack/jamming situation is the fact it emitted a bright white flash right before this happened. Who knows but it freaked me out a little.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

It is very likely that your sensors were reacting to the other drone and you were in that Frozen moment where the drone was just not able to move for a bit , and you might have panicked as a lot was going on. .

One the drone was gone the drone should have been fine to carry on with the mission.

We fly two drones side by side and on top of each other and have tested every possible angle, never had any problems with signals or control except for Prop wash which is normal being the drones are on top of each other .

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

View attachment 135502

So unlike your analytical mind !! ?

 

[JohnnyD913]

I wish u had recorded that..
I’m unaware of any drone capable of emitting a bright flash
And therefore rendering urs helpless.
I’m gonna say u had an encounter with “Something “ not of
Here…
I mean if it were the military then why lil ole u?
Doesn’t military have more pressing issues than messing
With drones?

 

[CaseyK]

I'm not very experienced but I did encounter what might be an answer. I was out at night and was guiding my drone ( Air 2) visually. When crossing over my house electrical wire, my landing lights came on. As soon as I was past the wire the light turned off. There is a setting you can make for the light to be (Auto) which will turn on the light when an object is detected below the AC. Try it at night.

 

[Cymruflyer]

It is very likely that your sensors were reacting to the other drone and you were in that Frozen moment where the drone was just not able to move for a bit , and you might have panicked as a lot was going on. .

One the drone was gone the drone should have been fine to carry on with the mission.

We fly two drones side by side and on top of each other and have tested every possible angle, never had any problems with signals or control except for Prop wash which is normal being the drones are on top of each other .

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.

When you fly on top of each other as long as the lower drone can fly just ahead of the upper drone, you will never have a rotor/prop wash issue.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Hey guys,
New to the game and this is my first post. I was flying my mavic about a week ago at night. While up in the air I was approached by another drone that was off in the distance. Once it got fairly close (hard to tell how close) there were 2 white strobes alternating on each of the front wings. It then emitted a bright light from both lights simultaneously. I immediately lost control of my aircraft. It was no li ger responding. My controller wouldn't respond, and I had no camera feed. I thought it was gone forever. A few minutes later it returned to home and landed. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this. Im not sure how and why this happened but it scared me enough to contemplate returning the thing.

Any helftor advice would be greatly appreciated.

Had you seen the other drone when you took off, or prior to this incident during your flight? How high were you at the time and over anything sensitive possibly? How large was the other drone? If it was at night, how were you able to tell it was another drone? How were you even able to see anything in the dark sky? What time was it? Lot's of questions.

 

[sar104]

So unlike your analytical mind !! ?

Incredible stories require incredible explanations.

 

[Iamthecaptainnow]

I was screen recording when it happened. Ill post here shortly and tell me if you still think I'm full of it.

 

[Flycaster]

Lume Cubes?

 

[eEridani]

If I were a rogue drone or alien drone shooting other drones out of the sky - the last thing I'd have on is anti-collision lights. I'd be dark right up until the time the target drone fell out of the sky.

 

[Martyc6]

We need data to help identify what you came close to?
Patiently waiting for the video..
Be glad it wasn't this that you ran into!

Video Sep 09, 2 20 18 PM.mp4

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[JoeyThePilot56]

We need data to help identify what you came close to?
Patiently waiting for the video..
Be glad it wasn't this that you ran into!

Video Sep 09, 2 20 18 PM.mp4

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

WTF was that ????

 

[Cymruflyer]

Looks like it was some sort of tethered drone and the big one ran into the string and flipped it. You can see it is now hanging from some sort of cable that got stuck into the big drone. They have made tethered drones that run off a power source on the ground, via a cable, to keep them up there for a long time.

 

[JoeyThePilot56]

Looks like it was some sort of tethered drone and the big one ran into the string and flipped it. You can see it is now hanging from some sort of cable that got stuck into the big drone. They have made tethered drones that run off a power source on the ground, via a cable, to keep them up there for a long time.

Wow, very interesting. I though for a minute that the big drone shot out a web of some kind (like spiderman) and captured the smaller drone. Thanks for the explanation, lol.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Wow, very interesting. I though for a minute that the big drone shot out a web of some kind (like spiderman) and captured the smaller drone. Thanks for the explanation, lol.

Well that could well be. I forgot about that technology, you may well be correct on that one. It has that sort of feel to it. Probably a better choice than mine. LOL

I was seeing it on a small phone screen and could not see any detail. Now looking on a larger screen it's easy to see that.

 

[CaseyK]

The authorities have the ability to fire a net to the drone and capture it and take it to wherever they are from. I have seen that on the news .