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 p.39 #2 · Mustang Air to Air: The Sequel | |
JWilsonphoto wrote:
I spent yesterday doing an assignment that required aerial, ground and some pretty intricate drone work. Our winds have been pretty ridiculous since my drone arrived, so I've gotten just a few hours of serious practice in. Yesterday was the acid test because I had to fly it farther and more precisely than any of my previous practice sessions. The trickiest portion required me to be standing in knee deep moving water, in a limestone creek bed, while I threaded the drone down the creek through the overhanging trees.
The first flight I had proximity warnings activated and, while they are a great feature, this footage required that they be disengaged, along with distance limits. Kind of spooky for a fledgling Remote Pilot, but there was no other way to get contiguous smooth clips. I flew the first flight, launching from a limestone outcropping that was pretty uneven, planning to fly it back to much more level shoreline when my 30% low battery warning annunciated. Things went pretty well, but all of a sudden I had one bar on my heads up display and it was warning me of an impending auto land, which would have been in the middle of the creek in a couple of feet of water. Resisting the panic welling up in me, I reversed course and flow the drone to a 4' hover a couple of feet in front of me, with the landing warning blaring. There was no place flat enough to successfully land without sacrificing four props and maybe a couple of motors, so, standing in knee deep water, controller in one hand, I decided to try to hand catch it from below thinking I would grab the gear and shut it down simultaneously. Well shutting it down requires that you pull two gimbals down and to the center and in the final phases of recovery I found myself to be one hand short. I needed two hands on the landing out riggers while someone else pulled the controller levers appropriately, something, but by the time I realized I was shorthanded, literally, I was too far into the sequence to change what was about to happen. The P4Pro survived unscathed, my right forearm took the hit. As Yogi would say, "Dejavu all over again.......!" So, I found myself trudging up the creek to my car, drone in one hand and controller/monitor in the other, with my right arm and shirt sleeve looking like I just fended off a Bobcat attack. Once I got to my car and could set everything down I figured I had better roll my shredded shirtsleeve up and assess the damage. My arm was a mess and the jury was out as to whether stitches were going to be in my future, so I drove home to wash it all and get a clear picture of where I stood. Poor Sheila, this is the second time I have walked in the door with blood running down my arm due to a drone attack. She tended my wounds and we determined that, ugly as they were, stitches probably weren't going to be needed. One of my favorite dress shirts was sure toast though.
So, once the blood loss was stemmed, my focus went back to thinking about what went wrong, why, and coming up with a system so I could go back and get the footage I needed. Yesterday was the day, the winds are forecast to pick up again and the possible sale of a $10M parcel of land could hinge on a visual presentation Monday morning, so, under the gun as usual, I set out to figure this all out and return in late afternoon light. HQ is a good place to "figure" and charge batteries, so I headed there. About 5 in the afternoon I headed back to the creek, only this time I had designed a n aircraft carrier of sorts out of one of my equipment tubs with a sandbag in it for ballast. I waded back into the creek, launched the P4Pro from the tub lid, flew my mission, farther, higher, lower than ever before and landed the drone on my make shift "Midway".
Yesterday's experiences confirmed what I already suspected, much of what one reads on the drone forums is self induced, operator error if you would. These are amazingly advanced bits of technology and they require a great deal of knowledge and incremental testing to be operated efficiently and safely. While the early models deserve a bad rap for unreliability, these new ones are incredible, one just has to understand how capable they are, how dangerous they can be, and that they require a tremendous amount of skill and study to properly operate them. After successfully completing a very intricate mission yesterday, I'm convinced the P4Pro is very reliable and considerably more intelligent than it's operator  ...Show more →
I think you need another phone call old man 
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