OK, I had my first crash with my 550 last week. 
I was out looking for bluebonnet patches to film, even though it was a little early in the wildflower season here.
I ended up at an old historic site that has a remnant of a building with some tall pillars jutting up. I was flying around them filming, and it could have been that the sun was sort of in my eyes, or maybe the batteries were starting to be drained or a combo of both. Anyway, I was hovering above them preparing to float back down beside them, when all of a sudden I began to quickly lose altitude and bumped onto the top of one pretty hard. It knocked a part of my landing gear off and left it stranded on top of the pillar, and the 550 tumbled maybe 20-25 feet to the ground. It hit fairly hard, but fortunately it is a grassy area and didn't hurt it really, just knocked the cable from the zenmuse loose and dislodged most of the rubber dampeners on it's mount. I have a couple of them secured with zip ties through them for some insurance so the gimbal won't just go flying off on it's own in such an instance.
As it was coming down, I remembered reading some discussion on what to do in such instances and gunned the throttle all the way in an effort to help the craft regain some control. I don't know for sure if it helped in this case.
I found one part of my landing gear on the ground, and a gentleman who was there and witnessed what had happened pointed out to me that the other part was still on the top of the pillar. Well great, I thought, I guess that is lost and I need to order more landing gear.
Here is a shot of the pillars sticking up.
This shot shows my piece of landing gear barely sticking out over the edge of the pillar on the right.
Here is the footage from the 550. You can make out the one skid coming off and landing on top of the pillar, and the other one falling to the ground.
http://youtu.be/y-QuU6T2HK8
This is the video I ended up with for the day.
http://youtu.be/6jD9MjnsA3A
So I went back home wondering what to do about landing gear, and decided I would go back with some twine and something to tie on the end of the twine to toss up over the pillar to "fish" for it. The hope was that i could toss the fishing line over the plastic skid and drag it over the edge of the pillar and get it to fall back to the ground. I get back to the scene of the crime, and it had been a little breezier that day than the day before, and I found that the wind had blown my skid off of the top of the pillar. There it was already laying on the ground close by, no fishing necessary!
I was so relieved I wasn't going to have to look the fool trying to fish that thing off! I was just glad nobody had seen it before I got there and just thrown it away, although during the week it's not quite as busy as during weekends.
Since this incident, I have drilled a couple of holes in the cross brace of my gear and ran a couple of zip ties through it around the main skids to secure it better. What would this hobby be without zip ties! :lol:
If you have any crash stories, and I'm sure we all do, feel free to share with us!
I was out looking for bluebonnet patches to film, even though it was a little early in the wildflower season here. I ended up at an old historic site that has a remnant of a building with some tall pillars jutting up. I was flying around them filming, and it could have been that the sun was sort of in my eyes, or maybe the batteries were starting to be drained or a combo of both. Anyway, I was hovering above them preparing to float back down beside them, when all of a sudden I began to quickly lose altitude and bumped onto the top of one pretty hard. It knocked a part of my landing gear off and left it stranded on top of the pillar, and the 550 tumbled maybe 20-25 feet to the ground. It hit fairly hard, but fortunately it is a grassy area and didn't hurt it really, just knocked the cable from the zenmuse loose and dislodged most of the rubber dampeners on it's mount. I have a couple of them secured with zip ties through them for some insurance so the gimbal won't just go flying off on it's own in such an instance.
As it was coming down, I remembered reading some discussion on what to do in such instances and gunned the throttle all the way in an effort to help the craft regain some control. I don't know for sure if it helped in this case.
I found one part of my landing gear on the ground, and a gentleman who was there and witnessed what had happened pointed out to me that the other part was still on the top of the pillar. Well great, I thought, I guess that is lost and I need to order more landing gear.
Here is a shot of the pillars sticking up.
This shot shows my piece of landing gear barely sticking out over the edge of the pillar on the right.
Here is the footage from the 550. You can make out the one skid coming off and landing on top of the pillar, and the other one falling to the ground.
http://youtu.be/y-QuU6T2HK8
This is the video I ended up with for the day.
http://youtu.be/6jD9MjnsA3A
So I went back home wondering what to do about landing gear, and decided I would go back with some twine and something to tie on the end of the twine to toss up over the pillar to "fish" for it. The hope was that i could toss the fishing line over the plastic skid and drag it over the edge of the pillar and get it to fall back to the ground. I get back to the scene of the crime, and it had been a little breezier that day than the day before, and I found that the wind had blown my skid off of the top of the pillar. There it was already laying on the ground close by, no fishing necessary!
I was so relieved I wasn't going to have to look the fool trying to fish that thing off! I was just glad nobody had seen it before I got there and just thrown it away, although during the week it's not quite as busy as during weekends.Since this incident, I have drilled a couple of holes in the cross brace of my gear and ran a couple of zip ties through it around the main skids to secure it better. What would this hobby be without zip ties! :lol:
If you have any crash stories, and I'm sure we all do, feel free to share with us!
