Well, I suppose it was inevitable...

[Mark Waco]

Had to wait a week because I wanted to make sure this was a report and not a rant. But want to pass along some lessons learned:

1) Turning off the obstacle avoidance was the trick to letting me go from 6mph to 20mph flying.

2) You can use an iPad (with the correct adapter) with your Controller - but if you don't use a sun shade better make sure there is some other shade available or you will have a very large image that is washed out. Also you probably want to make sure the adapter will let you lock the angle the iPad is held up at.

3) Birds should be required to be licensed and file flight paths

So what happened is there is an old railroad bridge about 1/2 mile from a county park that I really (!) wanted to film. Decided to do this the same day I was using the iPad for the first time. Which meant things were a little awkward, but seemed to be flying ok and could see I had just gotten the footage I had been so desperately trying to get on a previous attempt (using my galaxy 8 where I was having trouble making out the bridge). While I was flying out there I had noticed a bird flying by a couple times and hadn't thought much of it. Was hovering and preparing to hit the Return to Home, when something dark appeared and then I lost all contact. Appears the bird thought of the Spark as lunch (area has buzzards and the occasional eagle or hawk, so suppose I should have considered this), and took it down.

I couldn't go look for the Spark because most of the area for a long ways all around the bridge is fenced off with all sorts of state warnings about poachers and suggestions that they will arrest first and ask questions later. Figured that given how it likely went down, odds were it wasn't worth tempting fate any further.

I presume a Mavic would be not much more likely to survive such an encounter? Perhaps I should reconsider a Phantom (have to imagine that form factor would be less attractive to birds of prey, and more likely to have props far enough apart to not get fouled up)?

Do y'all just budget for replacement drones as the "cost" of the hobby?

It wouldn't hurt to call for authorization and maby escort you.

 

[Mark Waco]

I got some photos of the signs so I could try calling the numbers eventually. As for the flight logs, I don't appear to have ended up with any for that flight. Video I posted in another thread is from the same general area, but had not gotten as far as the bridge which is why I went out there.

I presume the reason I ended up with no logs is because when it first happened I thought maybe if I restarted the app and tried to reconnect it might find something - and did this a couple times until I was sure my battery would have been dead. In retrospect... maybe not my best decision :-(

Your flight logs are on your phone or tablet under the go4 app under flight logs.

 

[ThePara]

What was the "once in a lifetime" shot that cost your drone?