From Facebook, “Liverpool: Now and Then”
Thanks again for the support and ideas when I had my mishap this afternoon!
Just to recap, I was hovering the drone in Exchange Flags, ‘retaking’ some really old photographs, and suddenly I got the message that ‘contact had been lost between RC device and controller’. Usually if that happens, it just hovers in place until connection is regained - no problem.
This time though, while I was trying to reconnect, the drone very slowly drifted from its spot and bumped into the netting over the Town Hall rear balcony, that is in place to stop pigeons from settling on and defacing the balcony…
It tangled itself up in the netting, and stayed suspended maybe 15-20 feet from the ground with no easy way of getting it back.
The Town Hall was closed, so no way of getting it back from within, and if it fell, it would 100% be smashed (it’s only a very lightweight piece of plastic) and if it rained before I could get it back, the exposed electrical parts would probably be ruined.
I racked my brains for a bit then eventually came up with a plan that somwehow worked!
I drove up to Asda Smithdown Road and for £14 bought 20 x 3ft bamboo canes from the garden bit, a roll of Gorilla Tape and a plastic bucket, hoping to ‘MacGyver’ my way out of it somehow.
Back at Exchange Flags, I crisscrossed three canes and attached them to the rim of the bucket, then used the other 17 canes, trebled up, to make a pole maybe 12 feet long. I put my woolly snood in the bucket to give the drone a softer landing, and thankfully the whole thing was ‘just’ long enough to reach the scene, and ‘just’ strong enough to bend without breaking while I scooped it off the netting, lowered it down and headed home, relieved
I do often think ‘If something is daft, but it works…it’s not all that daft’ and it was definitely a case of thinking that today !
So I only got 2 aerial pics done today from an intended 28, but will head back some time soon to try again, when I’ve replaced the cable that I suspect was at fault.
Thanks again for the support as always - and the offer of help I received in messages. It is really sincerely appreciated
Keith
I think there will be a good number of us on the group who at some point have ended up in a similar predicament and then need to ‘think on their feet’ to plan how to retrieve the drone before next downpour. Well done for coming up with your plan / retrieving, I expect most passersby probably think we’ve lost the plot when they see our lashed up rescue solutions, but at the end of the day, if it’s safe and retreives the drone / saving you several hundred £’s it was all worth the effort.