When drone flights go bad...

[Dan AISCF]

Over the past few years of owning drones, I had one client shoot where I crashed one of our P4P+'s, and then while getting footage for a product review on a Gulf Coast beach here in Florida, I had a bird strike that took out and drowned one of our drones last week.

Aside from owning a small media company in Orlando, I'm getting ready to work on an article that highlights some of the worst-case scenarios some of us in the drone community might have encountered with our drones- whether bird strikes, weather phenomena, hardware/software failure, angry bystanders (Karens and Kevins), etc.

I am wondering if anyone would care to share their stories/experiences in this regard, for me to include in the article. Full credit will of course go to anyone whose experience is used. If you'd rather not do it here, feel free to PM me

I also plan to outline the hazardous attitudes the FAA has identified in the Part 107 course, as well as a discussion on how to file warranty claims with Autel and DJI.

I appreciate any and all insights and fully appreciate the communities of Mavic, Phantom, Autel, Inspire, and Commercialpilots.com (those so far I have been privileged to be a part of). THANKS ALL!

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Over the past few years of owning drones, I had one client shoot where I crashed one of our P4P+'s, and then while getting footage for a product review on a Gulf Coast beach here in Florida, I had a bird strike that took out and drowned one of our drones last week.

Aside from owning a small media company in Orlando, I'm getting ready to work on an article that highlights some of the worst-case scenarios some of us in the drone community might have encountered with our drones- whether bird strikes, weather phenomena, hardware/software failure, angry bystanders (Karens and Kevins), etc.

I am wondering if anyone would care to share their stories/experiences in this regard, for me to include in the article. Full credit will of course go to anyone whose experience is used. If you'd rather not do it here, feel free to PM me

I also plan to outline the hazardous attitudes the FAA has identified in the Part 107 course, as well as a discussion on how to file warranty claims with Autel and DJI.

I appreciate any and all insights and fully appreciate the communities of Mavic, Phantom, Autel, Inspire, and Commercialpilots.com (those so far I have been privileged to be a part of). THANKS ALL!

Here is a personal experience. I lost an MPP that was found by another Mavic Pilot, and ended up gaining a friend (@Made2Phly). It may not exactly fit what you’re looking for, but take a look.

The loss…
Thread 'Free Mavic Pro Platinum'
Free Mavic Pro Platinum

The found…
Thread 'Would You Drive A Thousand Miles for a Free Mavic Pro?'
Would You Drive A Thousand Miles for a Free Mavic Pro?

 

[Dan AISCF]

Here is a personal experience. I lost an MPP that was found by another Mavic Pilot, and ended up gaining a friend (@Made2Phly). It may not exactly fit what you’re looking for, but take a look.

The loss…
Thread 'Free Mavic Pro Platinum'
Free Mavic Pro Platinum

The found…
Thread 'Would You Drive A Thousand Miles for a Free Mavic Pro?'
Would You Drive A Thousand Miles for a Free Mavic Pro?

This is actually awesome and would make a great "positive" addition to the article. Thank you much for sharing, it's appreciated.

 

[n2xwv]

well i am not sure what happened to my mavic mini which always worked fine and when i lost signal it always came home to my home point. but i did a update last week and moved out to fly, after about 5 minutes the screen on my ipad mini lost the camera ,then all control? it was around three hundred feet away?? so i watched it track about a mile and a half out to sea and that is the end of my mini, I will receive a new one in the mail hopefully friday! , you can bet i do a severe check of everything at a close low altitude before i do any normal flying ! so thats my storie, Please be careful and do a severe check before flying after any updates,. seeya, john

 

[Dan AISCF]

well i am not sure what happened to my mavic mini which always worked fine and when i lost signal it always came home to my home point. but i did a update last week and moved out to fly, after about 5 minutes the screen on my ipad mini lost the camera ,then all control? it was around three hundred feet away?? so i watched it track about a mile and a half out to sea and that is the end of my mini, I will receive a new one in the mail hopefully friday! , you can bet i do a severe check of everything at a close low altitude before i do any normal flying ! so thats my storie, Please be careful and do a severe check before flying after any updates,. seeya, john

John, this is great advice and something that we all need to remember. It seems lately that DJI and Autel have been pushing out updates as fast as Apple for the iPhone, lol. Thank you for chiming in and relaying your experience.

 

[Dan AISCF]

Thanks everyone for the input (on all the boards). I'll PM you all individually where to access the article when done end of September. THANK YOU.

Keep 'em coming...

 

[Walt P]

I think it is great when we share personal experiences involving our respective Drones, especially for relatively new members like me. I was particularly interested in reading about Dan AISCF's story about a bird strike. I recently had a similar experience which I will refer to as a bird ATTACK. While I was taking photos at an altitude of about 100 feet with my Mavic Air2s, I noticed one bird then two circling my Drone. When there were six birds moving in a tighter circle, I decided it was time to RAPIDLY DECEND! Is this a common practice with birds?

 

[Robert Prior]

When there were six birds moving in a tighter circle, I decided it was time to RAPIDLY DECEND! Is this a common practice with birds?

Depending on the bird, yes. Smaller birds will mob birds of prey (and other threats) to drive them away.

Mobbing: When Smaller Birds Join Forces to Fend Off Larger Birds

There’s strength in numbers, and many species have learned to work together to protect themselves.

www.audubon.org

 

[Dan AISCF]

I think it is great when we share personal experiences involving our respective Drones, especially for relatively new members like me. I was particularly interested in reading about Dan AISCF's story about a bird strike. I recently had a similar experience which I will refer to as a bird ATTACK. While I was taking photos at an altitude of about 100 feet with my Mavic Air2s, I noticed one bird then two circling my Drone. When there were six birds moving in a tighter circle, I decided it was time to RAPIDLY DECEND! Is this a common practice with birds?

Heya Walt. Here's a little more info on that strike (and attacks in general) last weekend.

Generally, when I fly near waterways, I scan for birds and then ascend about 30 ft or so. There I leave the drone in hover briefly. If no activity, I'll start flying or lining up my shots. I live in Florida and predator birds are the norm here (hawks, eagles, and ospreys). The ones that generally find interest in ME it seems, are ospreys.

When I'm doing real estate work, I'll oftentimes get targeted by these birds. The best way to avoid them once they target and harass you is to ascend, quickly. Birds can't ascend 90 degrees (but they CAN descend faster than us), so you'll generally leave them. Once they are out of the area, then using the Air 2S' superhuman descent speed is great.

With this particular bird over the gulf, I took the drone out, did my usual song and dance with the hover and wait. I didn't see or hear anything. So I began moving forward slowly, pulling in for a shot of the pier. The bird was waiting BEHIND me in a tree. No noise, nothing. Once the drone moved, it hit it. The bird was MOVING. I didn't even have time to react. Because I was only 30ft up or so, I didn't have the reaction time to even try and "stick pull diagonal in" to restart the motors...or even barely pull up on the left stick in case the motors were on.

So...a few seconds later I'm emptying my pockets, taking off my socks and shoes, and jumping into 20/30 feet of water, lol. After I retrieved the drone I saw a broken prop which is most likely where the bird struck. With prop damage that bad, I'm thinking I couldn't have saved the drone. If it was a hexacopter, it'd probably make it home.

 

[Trackerputnam]

Over the past few years of owning drones, I had one client shoot where I crashed one of our P4P+'s, and then while getting footage for a product review on a Gulf Coast beach here in Florida, I had a bird strike that took out and drowned one of our drones last week.

Aside from owning a small media company in Orlando, I'm getting ready to work on an article that highlights some of the worst-case scenarios some of us in the drone community might have encountered with our drones- whether bird strikes, weather phenomena, hardware/software failure, angry bystanders (Karens and Kevins), etc.

I am wondering if anyone would care to share their stories/experiences in this regard, for me to include in the article. Full credit will of course go to anyone whose experience is used. If you'd rather not do it here, feel free to PM me

I also plan to outline the hazardous attitudes the FAA has identified in the Part 107 course, as well as a discussion on how to file warranty claims with Autel and DJI.

I appreciate any and all insights and fully appreciate the communities of Mavic, Phantom, Autel, Inspire, and Commercialpilots.com (those so far I have been privileged to be a part of). THANKS ALL!

Red tailed hawk attacked my mavic two pro 400’ high over a remote Colorado Mesa! Still flying that drone but the red tail sustained a fatal laceration to the neck and plummeted to the ground. At first thought it was the drone because the feed quit but after falling about 200’ the drone righted itself and the picture came back on. Hawk though kept falling.

 

[Dan AISCF]

Red tailed hawk attacked my mavic two pro 400’ high over a remote Colorado Mesa! Still flying that drone but the red tail sustained a fatal laceration to the neck and plummeted to the ground. At first thought it was the drone because the feed quit but after falling about 200’ the drone righted itself and the picture came back on. Hawk though kept falling.

Whoa, that's something else. I'm glad your drone survived, but pretty bummed the hawk died. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Trackerputnam]

Whoa, that's something else. I'm glad your drone survived, but pretty bummed the hawk died. Thanks for sharing.

Just luck on both sides! Bad on one hand and good on the other.

 

[MS Coast]

I think it is great when we share personal experiences involving our respective Drones, especially for relatively new members like me. I was particularly interested in reading about Dan AISCF's story about a bird strike. I recently had a similar experience which I will refer to as a bird ATTACK. While I was taking photos at an altitude of about 100 feet with my Mavic Air2s, I noticed one bird then two circling my Drone. When there were six birds moving in a tighter circle, I decided it was time to RAPIDLY DECEND! Is this a common practice with birds?

Why call it an attack if they just flew around the drone?

That's a common behavior with swallows and martins. There have been several posts about during the past couple of weeks.

 

[Zbip57]

My most embarrassing crash occurred with my old Phantom-1. The original controller didn't have a self-centring throttle stick. It was on a ratchet that would stick at whichever position it was set to, so it was sometimes difficult to find the exact mid-point to hold a constant altitude. Another contributing factor was the GoPro camera stabilized on a Zenmuse H3-2D gimbal. The GoPro has quite a fisheye lens, so it's difficult to gauge how close one is actually to any obstacle.

I was doing a video of my friend's model sailboat. Looking just at the video monitor to frame the shots, it was difficult to tell whether the drone was sinking or just how close the drone was to touching the water. So I had to look up frequently to check if it was still high enough. But with direct line-of-sight, it's difficult to judge distance. Is the drone behind or on this side of the boat?

At one of those moments when I was switching between watching the monitor or direct line-of-sight, I managed to fly my Phantom smack into his model sailboat! Eeeek!

Here's the video:

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[timinator]

All of my flights have been pretty uneventful except for my last flight on Tuesday night. I have been shooting a pair of 60 storey buildings that are under construction near me and was there to photograph the pouring of the roof slab on Tower1. Tower 2 is a handful of storeys behind.

I did my preflight and everything checked out. Ever since I started filming this project around the 20th storey the crane for tower one has always been taller than tower two's crane. Getting ready to do my orbit, I set my minimum safe height to be above the crane of tower 1 so I wouldn't strike it.

Screen capture of the video:

Well, for the first time, the crane for tower 2 was taller than tower 1. I don't know exactly how far I was from the area right below the operator's cab but I did check the front props on my Mini2 for scrapes after I landed!

Here is the full video for those interested. I think the incident occurs at the 56second mark:

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Here is the overall site for context:

 

[Dan AISCF]

My most embarrassing crash occurred with my old Phantom-1. The original controller didn't have a self-centring throttle stick. It was on a ratchet that would stick at whichever position it was set to, so it was sometimes difficult to find the exact mid-point to hold a constant altitude. Another contributing factor was the GoPro camera stabilized on a Zenmuse H3-2D gimbal. The GoPro has quite a fisheye lens, so it's difficult to gauge how close one is actually to any obstacle.
...

Thank you for sharing and providing the flight footage. I can't imagine how hard it must've been to fly back then. Glad to see your drone made it back home...all without a gator attack

 

[Dan AISCF]

All of my flights have been pretty uneventful except for my last flight on Tuesday night. I have been shooting a pair of 60 storey buildings that are under construction near me and was there to photograph the pouring of the roof slab on Tower1. Tower 2 is a handful of storeys behind.
...

Thanks for sharing the vid and site. Great parallax, even though it was a super close call. whew. It's amazing that, as small as drones are, they always manage to hit or almost hit something out there, lol...

 

[Walt P]

Thank you, everyone for your response to my "six birds circling the wagons" experience. Your collective comments and explanations were much appreciated by this rookie.

 

[Droniac]

I think it is great when we share personal experiences involving our respective Drones, especially for relatively new members like me. I was particularly interested in reading about Dan AISCF's story about a bird strike. I recently had a similar experience which I will refer to as a bird ATTACK. While I was taking photos at an altitude of about 100 feet with my Mavic Air2s, I noticed one bird then two circling my Drone. When there were six birds moving in a tighter circle, I decided it was time to RAPIDLY DECEND! Is this a common practice with birds?

I usually ascend in this situation. If it’s a bird of pray (not Klingon) they would more likely chase you descending. I ascend. It appears that gaining altitude quickly straight up works for me. They disengage, lose interest, idk. Until once … it didn’t.