Short and sweet intro … I inadvertently flew my DJI Mavic Pro drone into a tree the other day, and got it stuck about 70-80 feet up.
Thankfully, shortly after it got stuck, I was able to see it’s red LED navigation lights WAY up there, so I had a pretty good idea of where it was (generally). But, that said, it took me about a day and a half to actually spot it with a pair of binoculars.
With the location nailed down, I spent some time this morning trying to get it down. Initially, I planned to use couplers to connect about seven (7) 10-foot long pieces of EMT conduit to reach up and knock the drone down. Nope. The couplers weren’t strong enough.
So, I decided to cut down the tree. Easy enough. NOT!
Took a short break to cool down, then went back out in the rain and finally got the tree down horizontal. Recovered the drone … BUT the damn camera gimbal broke, most likely having gotten whacked pretty good on the final 60+ foot fall to the ground. Alas, it will have to be sent in for repairs.
Lessons learned:
1. The drone doesn’t have rear facing obstacle avoidance sensors, so flying backwards around hazards is risky.
2. All things being equal, the drone is pretty well designed. It took a lot of punishment in this episode, and only the camera gimbal (tiny, delicate instrument) broke.
3. I need a second (backup) drone. It would have been much easier to find the first unit, if I had a backup to fly search and rescue sorties to find it! 😉