I flew my P3S up to video some cloud to cloud lightning a couple of nights ago. On the ground I could only feel a strong breeze in my face so I wasn't too concerned about my UAV getting pushed around. BIG MISTAKE!
I looked down at my tablet and noticed that there was a lot of prop showing and the bird was moving south without input from me. I pushed the right stick full forward and looked up to see my Phantom headed south while I tried my best to fly it north.
At this point my wife said something and disappeared. I had just watched the quad disappear as well behind the neighbors huge silver maple tree. Without thinking about it I gave the return to home command. Then I realized my RTH altitude was set at 392 feet.
I regained visual contact with my now ascending bird and could see that it was now holding its own against the gusts and maybe even progressing back towards home base. After what seemed an eternity it was above me and I heard the voice prompt tell me it was landing.
I fought the wind during the entire descent right down to 8' AGL where I hand caught it.
It turned out that my loving wife was paying attention to my struggles controlling the bird and took off running after it when the wind took it. She told me that one way or the other she was going to be there when it landed and bring me back my favorite toy. She ran three and a half blocks and never lost visual contact.
It's a good day when you can gain that much experience and still end up with a bird that only needs to be recharged to fly again.
Tobby
P.S. Here is the video of that night. Music is Blue Danube by Strauss.
I looked down at my tablet and noticed that there was a lot of prop showing and the bird was moving south without input from me. I pushed the right stick full forward and looked up to see my Phantom headed south while I tried my best to fly it north.
At this point my wife said something and disappeared. I had just watched the quad disappear as well behind the neighbors huge silver maple tree. Without thinking about it I gave the return to home command. Then I realized my RTH altitude was set at 392 feet.
I regained visual contact with my now ascending bird and could see that it was now holding its own against the gusts and maybe even progressing back towards home base. After what seemed an eternity it was above me and I heard the voice prompt tell me it was landing.
I fought the wind during the entire descent right down to 8' AGL where I hand caught it.
It turned out that my loving wife was paying attention to my struggles controlling the bird and took off running after it when the wind took it. She told me that one way or the other she was going to be there when it landed and bring me back my favorite toy. She ran three and a half blocks and never lost visual contact.
It's a good day when you can gain that much experience and still end up with a bird that only needs to be recharged to fly again.
Tobby
P.S. Here is the video of that night. Music is Blue Danube by Strauss.
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