Dreaded lost drone post FOUND

Wahoo_Ace · Feb 17, 2018

sar104 said:
This is not atypical of these types of threads. The additional criticism you mention, whether polite or not, mostly arises when the flight in question was blatantly in violation of safe practices - that does tend to annoy people. This flight, while certainly beyond VLOS (and thus in breach of the new AMA Safety Handbook rules - it will be interesting to see how that plays out), was very low altitude in a rural environment, and obviously presented very little risk to the NAS.

I appreciate your help and insight in this thread. I wouldn't say I was blatantly violating safe practices (but I see your point according to the "book"). As a 107 certified pilot I do take those things very seriously. With that said, I was looking for "the shot". Fifty five feet is WAAYY too low for anything other than LOS, lesson definitely learned. Again, I appreciate everyone's input and do appreciate the lack of "you stupid idiot" posts.

sar104 · Feb 17, 2018

Wahoo_Ace said:
I appreciate your help and insight in this thread. I wouldn't say I was blatantly violating safe practices (but I see your point according to the "book"). As a 107 certified pilot I do take those things very seriously. With that said, I was looking for "the shot". Fifty five feet is WAAYY too low for anything other than LOS, lesson definitely learned. Again, I appreciate everyone's input and do appreciate the lack of "you stupid idiot" posts.

My point was that you were not blatantly violating safe practices. I had assumed, incorrectly, that you were flying under Part 101 - hence my reference to the AMA Safety Code. If you were flying under Part 107 then of course Part 107 itself requires VLOS. My basic conclusion stands however - your flight was not hazardous to the NAS.

GFields · Feb 17, 2018

sar104 said:
It looks like your flight was probably fine while over the water, but on the direct line return the ground clearance drops to less than 30 ft. If those trees are higher than that then it likely hit one coming back. I'd check that line.

View attachment 95109

I agree. The pilot should have inserted a waypoint just after #15 to raise the climb. My guess it will be found in the trees between #15 and #16

Super Dave · Feb 17, 2018

Perhaps in the future, an improved version of mission parameters will become available, where you could review your mission path horizontally.
The altitude deviation would have become obvious from the gitgo.
Maybe it's already there, just a thought.

charlieb4 · Feb 18, 2018

Ouch!!!!!! (charlie spilled the popcorn on floor) when the crash happened.....lol
I was happy to at lease seen a nice big bird there, not only once, but twice. Do u know the bird? This is the very first time that I really seeing the avoidance systems work, like someone said, "Confuse Drone!" ....lol. But, of course it was not confuse, it was doing it's job. It was interesting to see that it had nib a branch, right before near the end, when it crash. I assuming u had a prop guard on it. Thanks for the show!

OneTenthOfaMileHighClub · Feb 18, 2018

If you are toying with the possibility of rolling up your sleeves, there are many YouTube efforts that will either bring a smile or tears. Here of one I watched a month or so ago [Search for] "YouTube Phantom 4 Pro Plus Gimbal Rebuild" (64mins).

Getting some of the parts may be tricky, although if you follow links to he business, you will note availability of some parts.

I suggest a bottle of Jim Beam, and a box of Kleenex tissues be close at hand.

Best wishes for the next step!

Marcus D · Feb 18, 2018

Fantastic thread. One of the most useful and informative I have read on here. The professional manner and light ribbing will make this flyer a better pilot and teach a lesson that will not be soon forgotten. My hats off to all the participants of this thread.

Wahoo_Ace · Feb 18, 2018

charlieb4 said:
Ouch!!!!!! (charlie spilled the popcorn on floor) when the crash happened.....lol
I was happy to at lease seen a nice big bird there, not only once, but twice. Do u know the bird? This is the very first time that I really seeing the avoidance systems work, like someone said, "Confuse Drone!" ....lol. But, of course it was not confuse, it was doing it's job. It was interesting to see that it had nib a branch, right before near the end, when it crash. I assuming u had a prop guard on it. Thanks for the show!

I did not know the bird! LOL! I knew there was a good possibility that there might be an eagle (or 3 or 4!) down this creek. It was cool to see it seemingly fly with the drone!
As far as the branches go, I did NOT have a prop guard on! The drone was definitely doing its algorithms trying to find out where it was! I'm sure it's easier said than done but a great feature for Litchi would be to have it rise should it encounter an obstacle. More often than not I am sure obstacles will be trees and if the drone continues to rise rather than try and go around the obstacle, it may help things. I'm sure their engineers would say it is much easier to just set your waypoints higher next time!!

Wahoo_Ace · Feb 18, 2018

Super Dave said:
Perhaps in the future, an improved version of mission parameters will become available, where you could review your mission path horizontally.
The altitude deviation would have become obvious from the gitgo.
Maybe it's already there, just a thought.

That would be great! However I am sure Litchi is limited to just how much info is in Google Earth. If I had a 3d view of this area I would have known. In the future I will just make sure anything over trees is above 75 feet as most trees around here are under that. Of course, while staying in VLOS!!