Today my mini 3 pro fell out of the sky. I was looking at controller and it just span out. There were a few birds around. Not sure if i should repiar or replace. Any suggestions.
depends on if you have care refresh or not? You got any air data you can share?
Hi @DazC i was using map pilot pro but have the CSV and Kml from it
You can get a free account with air data, then you can share it here. Someone might pick up on something that could help your case with DJI and getting a replacement/repair
I’m not great with all this stuff, but I can’t find anything that would suggest a bird strike?
One of the other more cleverer people will be along shorlty, but I can’t see any errors or faults
I feel for you, havin lost my Mini 2SE at sea to a mob of gulls back in July, fortunately covered by Coverdrone. Airdata records were neccessary to claim, and Coverdrone paid in full once I’d managed to get my techonphobe head around it all…
The outer end of the arm where the motor pod is attached (not actually attached as it’s part of the same moulding but you know what I mean) seems to be a bit of a weak point in an impact, and I wonder if a couple of reinforcing windarounds of masking tape would strengthen this area without taking the drone over the weight limit. It might mean the difference between a controlled landing and an observation from height of Newton’s First Law in the case of a mid-air with something solid like a building or tree.
Bird strikes are another sort of problem, though, and the best advice, like heart attacks, is not to have them. Otherwise, put the drone into sports and go straight as fast as you can; birds cannot do this as fast as you can. Like you, I was glancing at the screen and it was dusk with the light failing, drone 50m up and 70m away, so I didn’t see the bastards coming…
Arm replacement seems to be a fairly straight forward job and spares are not horribly expensive on the Bay of e, but you need to be capable of working with a soldering iron or know someone who can. You’ll need to pay close attention to the gimbal as well; this is a delicate piece of kit for something stuck out the front. Even if it has not been damaged it’ll prolly need calibrating.
Cheers for the info
I may sell as i have avata 2 and that does the opposite and knocks birds out of the sky LOL.
Still deciding on a Neo also
I think we might be a little past that point?
I like the idea of knocking the feathery white twats out of the sky; I’d be chalking up downed seagulls on the side as confirmed and unconfirmed kills, fighter ace stylee. Is it worth taking the prop guards off your Avata and seeing if you can chop 'em up a bit*. But you’d lose your sub-250g capability (unless you’ve got another Mini type of course).
*This is not meant to be taken seriously, RSPB types please note. I hate gulls, which have killed my drone, attacked me (including on my bike, leading to me mounting a kerb at speed which bloody hurt, and cost me a new front wheel), shat on me, and shat on a new DSLR camera as well over the last two decades and I’m starting to take it personally, to the point of thinking about attaching razor blades to the props, but don’t really condone such activity.
I suppose. Still not a bad idea, but to be effective it prolly needs too much tape to keep the weight down.
Think the compass may be faulty
sorry for your loss what controller were you using just out of interest? would it now be up for sale at a great price?
Selling both the N1 and RC ive just listed in the for sale section
I’m sure many species of bird find drones as equally annoying. It’s their natural environment after all.
Even before you take the drone-killing incident into account, I have had more trouble from gulls than from any other birds, and the majority of it from Lesser Black-Backeds and Herring Gulls. But of course your’re right, drones are occupying their environment and airspace. No other birds have given me any grief or even taken any notice of my drone activities, and single gulls going about their business don’t either, but I’ve learned the hard way to be wary of them when they are mob-handed and egging each other on…
That said I’ve yet to encounter Oystercathers in a drone-flying scenario. Can’t imagine Bonxies being overtly friendly either, but the trick with these might be not to be carrying mouthfuls of fish for them to steal off you, or in general not to look like a puffin!
A forumee on the model railway website who is a retired Air Traffic Control supervisor tells me that various attempts have been made over the years to investigate why birds come into conflict with aircraft. Somebody here suggested that gulls don’t like red, but apparently various colours have been tried and while some are temporarily put off they revert to their default behaviour once they get used to it, and this goes for shotguns, clappers, rattles, and pretty much everything else that’s been tried.
I don’t think the matter has been thoroughly investigated scientifically, but it seems fairly obvious to me that birds are likely to be upset by drones if they are territorial, which many males are in breeding season, or have chicks on a nest; some birds are territorial at all time, such as robins, which are extremely aggressive. A hovering drone might look to a nesting group of gulls or pigeons like a Kestrel silhouetted against the sky, and provoke a mobbing response. But this is only my inexpert idea, and may be rubbish!
Strange that the logs just terminate without any error messages of any type.
So - probably not bird strike.
It’s as if it just switched off. But the battery was at 15% …
It was in RTH … and the only thing of the slightest note was the the last entry in the log had the largest pitch of the flight … at 51°
Was it raining? Looks like you were mapping a field and the drone looks very muddy.
Not raining but did land in a well trodden horse field.
That looks like what happened to my Mini 2, when I lent it to a friend who flew it into a wall, before it hit the ground. I bought replacement parts online and it’s as good as new . limb with motor, propellers and upper shell £90.