Love the dramatic description here, been there, done that, had to change my trousers LOL!
Had a great fun episode with a know-all who wondered over when he saw my flying by the side of Poole Harbour. I am always very happy to chat with interested bystanders and let them see what I'm seeing. Good to foster good relations between UAV Flyers and the general public. Anyway, I digress. This guy came over and said 'I hope you've checked your batteries!'
'Mine are fine, charged them fresh last night.'
'Ah but...' he said in that condescending know all manner some annoyingly have, 'have you checked your remote controllers batteries. It's a mistake a lot of flyers make...' (This guy is obviously high up in the UAV world so Id better listen!) 'Doesn't matter how good your batteries in your drone are...' (err, excuse me mate, I prefer the term UAV to distinguishing between what I'm flying and what you're doing! - remembered to think that but not say it ) ...'if the controller runs out, that thing will drop out of the sky and you've lost it!'
'Oh what?...' I said, 'You mean like if I do this?' - and proceeded to very dramatically turn off my remote control and laid it on the ground.
His face went from a confused 'why would you do that you idiot?' to open-mouthed, red-faced wonder as my P3P flew back across the water, hovered above us and slowly descended. It paused and hovered at standard height for a moment so I grabbed the opportunity to say 'It's waiting for you to move cos you're standing in its spot!'
Down she came, perfect landing and switched herself off. I couldn't resist a gentle dig so I just said 'Guess you just need to train yours a bit better!' He muttered something but it was incomprehensible and frankly I doubt I could have printed it here anyway LOL