Crashed and destroyed my drone and the valuable lessons I learned.

BTW
People ask me where this was?

Rod
This was shot in Northfield MN. A small farming city where I grew up. It's about an hour south of Mpls. Northfield is a city of about 20K. But it's a home to two very prestigious and expensive colleges (St. Olaf and Carlton). IN fact, the wind turnbines are just blocks away from Carlton College.
 
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Don't you just love Google Earth! Little bit of detective work and .........

Screenshot 2019-11-20 at 18.40.04.jpg
 
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Don't you just love Google Earth! Little bit of detective work and .........

View attachment 115682
Yes sir. If you looked to the right of that turbine, behind the slender silver building, there's now a huge solar farm right there. Now if I would have seen this prior to going, I would have realize there's a dirt road that leads right to the Wind Turbine. I Would have taken it and parked right underneath. Instead, I parked near the intersection because I'd figure the road would go down to someone's house.
 
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You are lucky no one saw you run into it, and the blade was not damaged! Those things are only fibreglass... And pretty pricey to repair.
 
Like a Boeing 737 a little plastic drone is not going to make much impact, probably less than a bird strike!
 
Have you seen the blades on these things transferred on a flat bed of a semi? It's huge. And it's heavy. I doubt there's any damage at all on the blade. Probably not even a scratch. I can't say the same about my P3.
 
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They need to be refinished and repaired all the time... And thats just from turning in the air... By the looks of it, your drone took quite a whack to the head, near the tip of the blade... Very well could have caused a scratch or nick...
 
I do believe this thread has run it's course. We all know the circumstances and outcome. Can we move along please? I understand the OP's issues with the corrupted video. This has been taken care of.
 
I do believe this thread has run it's course. We all know the circumstances and outcome. Can we move along please? I understand the OP's issues with the corrupted video. This has been taken care of.

@Fly Dawg,
Really?

You have never posted on this thread, so it shouldn't have been on your watch list.

You have the option to watch or un-watch the thread, the OP is still participating.
Whats is the problem?

You left this guy hanging!
P3P Waypoint Weirdness

Rod
 
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You have never posted on this thread, so it shouldn't have been on your watch list.
Agreed. I do however look at other unwatched threads without comment. And as far as your link goes. The OP, never replied directly, and the fact that the thread is almost 6 months old. At the time, I most likely did look at the info. All the Op needed to do was ask for additional info. Did not happen. I keep data for 1 month. Then it's move along. And as far as "Left this guy hanging" goes. See the above. I cant monitor everything. I do have a life outside of the forums....:eek::eek:
 
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FLY OVER 400 ft? hear is the FAA ruling in the US......

In this video, from the FAA, it says....( time stamp 2:20 )

"if you want to fly higher than 400ft, you may do so, as long as you remain within a 400ft radius of a structure, and fly no higher than 400ft, above the upper most limit of that structure"

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Joelet is correct .... Just saying......
I believe this is for part 107 flights only. Unless it’s changing with the new regs.
 
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In Canada, with the new regulations, you are allowed to fly 100 feet over a tall tower or building. You just can not ascend until you are 200 feet away from it.
 
My 4 year old is enamored with Wind Turbine (I think you know where I'm going with this). She saw a wind farm during our road trip and just loves to see them. So I promised her I'd fly my drone over one. We found one and parked the car about a 300 yards away (Mistake 1). I should have been underneath it. I did my usual checks and made sure it was GTG. Flight temp was about 30 degrees. I got up and start flying. As I got nearer, I wanted to do a full orbit flight. There was a lot of glare on my phone as it was a sunny day (Mistake 2-should have used my sun shield). I'm looking at the phone, and it looks like the drone was right next to the wind turbine. But when I looked at the sky, the drone was a small blip far in the distance. It looks like it was at least 100 feet or more away from the structure. So I continue to orbit until I was behind it, when I heard a thud. Like a hollow object getting hit with a golf ball. I looked at the screen and the battery showed zero and blinking red. I looked up and the drone was gone. My heart sunk. I was at least 300 feet up above a cut corn field. The ground was pretty hard as it's been in the 20s the whole week.

So my daughter and I walked up to the Wind turbine. We found it. Broken into multiple pieces. The camera is no where to be found. The base (with SD card) was about 4 feet away. 3 props were missing. 2 Prop guards were missing. The battery was laying about 2 feet away. One of the 'arms was sheered off. I was devastated as I knew this couldn't be fixed.

The worst part is, I have a 1gig MOV file that seems to be corrupted. I can't even play it. I tried doing multiple fix and conversions, but the file itself seems corrupted. The card is undamaged. i have other footage that I can play on the card. But that footage from the wind turbine cannot play. I would be grateful if anyone can show me a way to recover the files. Again, on the card, it shows a .MOV file that's over 1 gig. But Itried playing through VLC and others and nothing starts.

So the most valuable lesson is this. For Wind turbines, you have to realize how big the structure is. So the drone in comparison was a dot. I saw the dot next to it and thought it was much further behind when it was literally next to it. I moved it into the blade and it literally decapitated my Phantom 3A. Lesson 3- If you're going to fly it over a wind turbine, be underneath it, so you can see how far the drone is away from the blades.

It was stupid. I've always wanted a drone shot of a wind turbine. but I've always been weary because of what can happen if it drifts into it. Yesterday was that day. Now I have to figure out what to do. I love video shots from the air. I've done multiple YT videos of drone shots from the air. I just got back from Colorado last month where I few multiple flights over mountains and lakes. Time to save some money.
Sorry for late response but by any chance do you still have the busted bird in your possession?

would love to get it airborne again
 
I do have it. One of the arms is sheered off. One wire is holding it together. Camera is gone. No options for repair. She's gone.
 
No drone is ever gone. Comes down to the basic question...is it economical to repair
A broken arm is a cake walk for us
Click here for a free label and you can ultimately make a more educated decision
Now the gimbal is one of the more pricey parts
what phantom is it so at least I can quote the gimbal
 
The first part of your post is FALSE. Sometimes drones are gone, like you crash in the ocean and it gets carried away. That's gone.
No drone is ever gone. Comes down to the basic question...is it economical to repair
A broken arm is a cake walk for us
Click here for a free label and you can ultimately make a more educated decision
Now the gimbal is one of the more pricey parts
what phantom is it so at least I can quote the gimbal
 
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The first part of your post is FALSE. Sometimes drones are gone, like you crash in the ocean and it gets carried away. That's gone.
Lol
Def true what I meant was as long as it’s in your possession can always be fixed
Now water damage is not an economical repair as all u can salvage is the shell but technically is fixable if u replace every electrical component though will be cheaper to buy a new 1
 
UK fliers beware! After reading this I wanted the situation here clarified so checked with the CAA and they replied:
Thank you for your email.
The limit is 400 ft above the surface of the earth, not above any manmade structures or obstacles.
Bummer. I do as @Weston Ney and get right at the base of hills and fly to the ridge (if I can, some are a couple of k high).
 
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The camera is missing. Arms sheered off. Gimbal missing. The part that houses the SD card I found, but I don't know what's missing from that To be honest, something's are better left dead. I think that was the tag line for the movie "Pet Sematary".
 
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lets us know if your in the market for a replacement

a lot of black Friday deals going on now
 

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