Air 2 Sideways into the trees

[macfawlty]

That 'adventure' would certainly take the shine off what was meant to be a relaxing flight
As you say, recovery is key and hope not too much damage.

I had another occurrence where I was flying from a pontoon boat, crashed in a wooded area, realized I'd run out of video cache during the flight, so I didn't have the proxy footage on my tablet. There was no cell service in the area, so no satellite imagery to pinpoint location. I had to return the pontoon boat to the rental place, so no time for search and rescue and I had to check out of the rental house shortly after returning the boat and pack up for the 3 hour drive home. The ONE thing I did have was a photo I was able to take with the drone when it landed upside down in the underbrush... still running. The only visual clue in the photo as to location was a dead branch at an angle. So, we return the boat, pack up the luggage and consider whether to return to the general area for recovery. In the photo, there appeared to be a faint line that looked like a guardrail, so I drove to the area and there was a 100 yd section of guardrail, which gave me a densely wooded area about the size of 2 football fields to search. Of course I get to the area and there's a lot of dead branches around and an entire tree downed in the search area. See if you can spot the guardrail in this photo. Anyway, after and hour searching with my son, we found it. I subsequently bought ArcLight XL strobes w/ audible and AirTags to put on my drones. As I alluded, the way I fly (creatively), crashes are always a possibility. The key is recovery. You have to consider a variety of factors when flying, i.e; distance from home; time of day; mountainous terrain and woods; cell service; hiking/bushwacking required, etc. Typically, I'm more concerned with losing footage, so I remove/replace SD card after every flight. I also have State Farm insurance on all of my drones. Learn from failure and take measures.

 

[Mrktn]

@Geofff great tree close up ,i hope you went out and got a lottery ticket afterwards
tree (0) drone (1)
that doesn't happen very often

Exactly what I was thinking and going to write re lottery ticket before I read your reply

 

[Geofff]

I had another occurrence where I was flying from a pontoon boat, crashed in a wooded area, realized I'd run out of video cache during the flight, so I didn't have the proxy footage on my tablet. There was no cell service in the area, so no satellite imagery to pinpoint location. I had to return the pontoon boat to the rental place, so no time for search and rescue and I had to check out of the rental house shortly after returning the boat and pack up for the 3 hour drive home. The ONE thing I did have was a photo I was able to take with the drone when it landed upside down in the underbrush... still running. The only visual clue in the photo as to location was a dead branch at an angle. So, we return the boat, pack up the luggage and consider whether to return to the general area for recovery. In the photo, there appeared to be a faint line that looked like a guardrail, so I drove to the area and there was a 100 yd section of guardrail, which gave me a densely wooded area about the size of 2 football fields to search. Of course I get to the area and there's a lot of dead branches around and an entire tree downed in the search area. See if you can spot the guardrail in this photo. Anyway, after and hour searching with my son, we found it. I subsequently bought ArcLight XL strobes w/ audible and AirTags to put on my drones. As I alluded, the way I fly (creatively), crashes are always a possibility. The key is recovery. You have to consider a variety of factors when flying, i.e; distance from home; time of day; mountainous terrain and woods; cell service; hiking/bushwacking required, etc. Typically, I'm more concerned with losing footage, so I remove/replace SD card after every flight. I also have State Farm insurance on all of my drones. Learn from failure and take measures.

View attachment 165433

Wow. What perseverance which was rewarded. Were you able to initiate find my drone?

 

[macfawlty]

Wow. What perseverance which was rewarded. Were you able to initiate find my drone?

At the time, I didn’t happen to be carrying my bike and kayak with me. I had to plan and initiate the search and rescue mission the next day. Cell service is unreliable down by the river. That section of the Potomac River at Seneca Breaks has a myriad number of little islands, which makes for very interesting flying, but it changes continuously, appears different than the satellite imagery. Obviously, at river level, your viewpoint changes. I regretted not bringing the iPad I was using as a flight monitor. I had a screen capture of the last known location and a short clip of the moment of tree contact, which I knew was a sycamore (quite prevalent along rivers). I also wish I’d brought a machete. Apologies for hijacking this thread. I just want to impress upon others to have a variety of systems in place in the event of a crash and recovery. Sideways flight is the most risky. Here’s a clip of the river later in the year without leaves.

 

[ArthurC]

@Geoff Wow, super lucky! Is the camera ok? I ask because a landing foot becomes visible immediately after the event, as though the gimbal has been pulled out, even though the gimbal seems to be functioning.

Just curious. Thanks

Throughout my many hours of flying, I've managed to clip 3 trees in a similar fashion where the MA2 had to pretty much do a complete flip to stabilize itself, and each time, the gimbal was turned all the way in one direction. Hitting the "Recenter Gimbal" button, or turning off the drone fixed it each time, and the gimbal was fine after each incident. I think its just a result of the gimbal reaction to the drone flipping upside down.

 

[Prop Wash]

Nice recovery. Probably a good thing you took a beat, gathered your thoughts and flew out. Also probably a good thing it was a "silent" movie. Can only imagine the verbiage that would have been on the soundtrack!

 

[Geofff]

Throughout my many hours of flying, I've managed to clip 3 trees in a similar fashion where the MA2 had to pretty much do a complete flip to stabilize itself, and each time, the gimbal was turned all the way in one direction. Hitting the "Recenter Gimbal" button, or turning off the drone fixed it each time, and the gimbal was fine after each incident. I think its just a result of the gimbal reaction to the drone flipping upside down.

Thanks, I'll remember that for next time

 

[Geofff]

Nice recovery. Probably a good thing you took a beat, gathered your thoughts and flew out. Also probably a good thing it was a "silent" movie. Can only imagine the verbiage that would have been on the soundtrack!

Absolutely.

 

[craneguy]

This happened to me recently. I was filing after being on a job for 18 hours (don't fly tired people!) and I got distracted and flew my Air 2 sideways into trees. I saw the branches on the display and like an idiot, flew up to get out. The drone ended up stuck in the tree about 30 feet up. Then it started raining.

Fortunately, as it was a job site, they were good enough to bring a manlift over and take me up to get it. Coincidentally, I had just installed new, fancy, aftermarket blades after 2 years and they were the only thing damaged.