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Well, I suppose it was inevitable...

NaweG

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Jun 30, 2019
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21
Age
62
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?
 
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y'all just budget for replacement drones as the "cost" of the hobby?

When I purchased the Spark, I thought to myself that I could replace the Spark if needed because of the price.

Just courious, did you have the prop guards on? They make the Spark look bigger and may deter an air attack.
 
When I purchased the Spark, I thought to myself that I could replace the Spark if needed because of the price.

Just courious, did you have the prop guards on? They make the Spark look bigger and may deter an air attack.

No, I didn't have the guards on, because I've heard the extra weight can impact battery life. So guess there's a new argument "for" using the prop guards :)

As far as buying another Spark, is there anywhere you can buy JUST the Spark. I need the battery that comes with it, but having originally bought the Fly More combo I don't really need another controller (though maybe having two would be a good thing?), and I have plenty of additional batteries, and landing pad, and...
 
When the Spark was introduced, I think there was three purchasing options. Spark, Spark w/remote, and the Fly More bundle.

Wal-Mart has the Spark and remote for $329 in the US.

Two remotes, one Spark, at least you'd have a spare in case something happened.
 
So guess there's a new argument "for" using the prop guards :)

I have a lot of excuses to use the guards.

Easier to see in flight, protects my props in the storage case, something to attach my strobe lights to, if it crashes to the ground they may dissipate the impact and the Spark might survive (like an Indy car smashing a wall).

What I like best is that can carry the Spark momentarily with my pinky finger with ease if my hands are full.:)
 
Totally agree re the guards. I don’t fly without now and perhaps it was luck but two peregrines looked interested in my Spark a week or so ago here at the Avon Gorge in Bristol UK but they departed without a plastic lunch. The guards have saved me many times, the latest being when I stupidly tried to manoeuvre Spark when close to the ground near where I was sitting (yes sitting as people don’t tend to think you’re flying if you’re sat down) and accidentally sent her under the bench. Not only did she try to take a slice out of my derrière but she collided lightly with the legs of the bench. No damage apart from a scuff or two on the props!
 
Food for thought . . .

Submit your flight logs to the forum for review.

Jump over to the Mavic Forum and post there as well! There is one member of the Mavic forum that seems to be a wiz in this area (SAR104, I believe). He can pinpoint.

Contact the govt agency and check with them about the possibility of retrieving Sparky.
 
Yes, you can use the controller you currently own, you will have relink the controller so that it recognizes the new spark.
I just bought a second spark, so now I have a backup.... but the controller can only link to one, if you want to use the other spark.... you will have to break the link to the spark you have been flying, and relink to the other.
 
Submit your flight logs to the forum for review.

Jump over to the Mavic Forum and post there as well! There is one member of the Mavic forum that seems to be a wiz in this area (SAR104, I believe). He can pinpoint.

Contact the govt agency and check with them about the possibility of retrieving Sparky.

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 :-(
 
I would try to get permission to take a look for your drone. I doubt if you hit a bird. Your camera would have worked to the ground and if you were recording you could review the bird strike. The Spark can take a pretty good hit and still recover.
You should be able hit the Tetrahedron symbol near the bottom of the DJI4 app (it will say disconnected below it) and look at the flight list with a satellite view and see exactly what went on during the flight and the exact end. You can see all of your flights there.
I don't get the turning off the obstacle avoidance to gain speed..there is a speed control in the settings that allows only slow speed flying. I use it indoors. The obstacle avoidance works in slow speed. Turning off the avoidance could turn off the slow speed setting but that is not what it is designed to do. Sport mode will also turn off the obstacle avoidance.
I live in a region where wind is a constant and the spark fly's horrible with the guards on in the wind...or at least it did the one time I tried it. They have their use I guess.
 
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?
Ppp0ut pppppoplp
O I'll hppip ppl
 
Have you ever seen any authorities out there?
If they have signs about poaching and you're not carrying anything that looks like fishing tackle or a gun I'd say they won't care.
Get thee forth and have a look. Cops are reasonable folks and if you point out you're trying to prevent environmental impact then they'll likely help you find it.
I'd leave out the part about hawks and eagles tho since they're federally protected.
 
No, I didn't have the guards on, because I've heard the extra weight can impact battery life. So guess there's a new argument "for" using the prop guards :)

As far as buying another Spark, is there anywhere you can buy JUST the Spark. I need the battery that comes with it, but having originally bought the Fly More combo I don't really need another controller (though maybe having two would be a good thing?), and I have plenty of additional batteries, and landing pad, and...
I've purchased a replacement Spark by itself only, when my original drone from fly more combo lost connection and flew away never to return.
All I had to do is pair my controller with a new drone (and keep cursing spending $100's to replace 1 month old drone).
 
I've purchased a replacement Spark by itself only, when my original drone from fly more combo lost connection and flew away never to return.
All I had to do is pair my controller with a new drone (and keep cursing spending $100's to replace 1 month old drone).
Was RTH on list link set?
 
I did not have proper GPS lock at the time. There was a unique opportunity to take some video that I did not want to miss and took my chances.
What suprised me is that drone kept flying at high speed away from me when it lost connection. With a new drone, it stops for a while when it looses connection and howers at one spot, then begins to return home after 10 seconds. What I was hoping for is that it would fly to last used RTH location from few days ago and that did not happen. It just continued to fly who knows where until its battery depleted. I was flying in sport mode at the time.
With a new drone I take my time to make sure that I get good GPS lock and then save RTH location repeatedly to make sure I don't repeat expensive mistake again.
 
So there's the answer... I never use Sport mode on Spark or M2P - I just don't see the point of flying fast, it's not a racing drone it's a flying camera. The other thing is to take into account wind direction and speed at altitude. If the new drone stops and hovers on list link, then it has been preset with those options in the Go 4 app I would suggest. RTH will not work at all if it has started flying without setting the Home Point because it has nothing recorded that it can return to. The app and drone don't keep the previous RTH in memory across power cycles. I wouldn't keep resetting home though unless you move location. Once it's set, and you've checked it on the map in the app, I would recommend leaving it alone. It's quite possible that something will go wrong in transmitting a new location to the drone in flight and if you have reset home more than once, there's no telling which location it might have actually recorded. Good luck with the new one - slow down your procedures, remain VLOS, and you should be fine.
 
I just don't see the point of flying fast, it's not a racing drone it's a flying camera.

I use the Sport Mode if the point of interest is away from me, say an old barn in the middle of a field, I can get there quickly to allow a little more time to photograph the interest, rather than cruising along chewing up battery time.

The Spark is even slower if the Obstacle Avoidance is ON while up in the air away from everything.
 
Well, I guess one makes one's choices and handles the consequences. The only time my OA is off is if I switch to ATTI for smoothness in shooting real estate video. Other than that, it's always on.

On another point, it's hard to knock M2P (or any of the Mavic Pro series) out of the air. It can be done, but they're quite strong. However I still land of there is any sign of bird interest. Gulls are the real jerks in this department.

I don't think Phantom is any less attractive to bird interest. The main attractions are the noise and the fact that they're there at all.
 
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Other than that, it's always on.

I turn it back on when I get close for photos and such.

I only have the Spark and it's slow compared to it's bigger brothers.

However I still land of there is any sign of bird interest. Gulls are the real jerks in this department.

Agreed.
 
So there's the answer... I never use Sport mode on Spark or M2P - I just don't see the point of flying fast, it's not a racing drone it's a flying camera. The other thing is to take into account wind direction and speed at altitude. If the new drone stops and hovers on list link, then it has been preset with those options in the Go 4 app I would suggest. RTH will not work at all if it has started flying without setting the Home Point because it has nothing recorded that it can return to. The app and drone don't keep the previous RTH in memory across power cycles. I wouldn't keep resetting home though unless you move location. Once it's set, and you've checked it on the map in the app, I would recommend leaving it alone. It's quite possible that something will go wrong in transmitting a new location to the drone in flight and if you have reset home more than once, there's no telling which location it might have actually recorded. Good luck with the new one - slow down your procedures, remain VLOS, and you should be fine.
What I've meant by saving RTH location repeatedly is like a compulsive behavior I have acquired after PTSD experience loosing my expensive drone.
I save multiple times before lift off to make sure that RTH "burned" into Spark's memory.
I use sport mode to get to the shooting location faster as Spark 317 mentioned and then I switch back to regular mode. Unfortunately, Spark is slow as molasses getting somewhere.
This was the same case, if I did not get there quickly enough, I would lose shot opportunity.
Too bad the rush prevented me to get propper GPS lock.
I saw something "unique" out of my high-rise apartment's balcony and jumped on a opportunity to get once in a life time video.
I've lost the gamble this time.
Now, I'm extra careful.
 
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