After a week of family in town for Xmas I needed some alone time so I took my M2P out for a flight. Batteries charged and bag packed, jumped into the truck to find something interesting. Long story short: after flying around for about 15 min I stupidly switched into sport mode and did a vertical takeoff. After what I visually thought was an appropriate altitude for transition to forward flight, I promptly clipped a few branches of nearby trees and sent the acft sputtering and spinning into the treeline. It managed to hook itself on a branch by a front leg about 30’ off the ground. I tried everything I could think of, short of squirreling my non-tree-climbing butt up the side of a 40 ft cedar. No dice. Light fading and rain approaching, I had to leave it in the tree overnight. After reading a few things on this site I came up with my plans. Next morning I went to walmart to purchase:
Slingshot, weights, fishing line, 550 cord. Plan was to shoot a line into the tree then shake or pull to free the drone. By this point I figured the acft was toast but DJI needs the corpse in order to resurrect or replace.
Fishing line and 550 lines created with weights attached.
Made my way back out, and was quickly able to get the fishing line up and over the appropriate branch. A bit of shaking and pulling and the drone was free of the branch. As a bonus, it actually shook ONTO the fishing line so was able to safely lower it instead of sending it crashing down. Close inspection later in the day showed minimal superficial scratches and one cracked blade. The acft is resting comfortably in a ziploc bag with a cup of rice, just in case there was any water intrusion. Will give it a full systems check in a few days to see if it needs work or replacement. Needless to say, my drone kit now has a few more additions: Slingshot drone-recovery tools, and common sense.
Slingshot, weights, fishing line, 550 cord. Plan was to shoot a line into the tree then shake or pull to free the drone. By this point I figured the acft was toast but DJI needs the corpse in order to resurrect or replace.
Fishing line and 550 lines created with weights attached.
Made my way back out, and was quickly able to get the fishing line up and over the appropriate branch. A bit of shaking and pulling and the drone was free of the branch. As a bonus, it actually shook ONTO the fishing line so was able to safely lower it instead of sending it crashing down. Close inspection later in the day showed minimal superficial scratches and one cracked blade. The acft is resting comfortably in a ziploc bag with a cup of rice, just in case there was any water intrusion. Will give it a full systems check in a few days to see if it needs work or replacement. Needless to say, my drone kit now has a few more additions: Slingshot drone-recovery tools, and common sense.