I am on about getting to the SAR area from the car. It’s a muddy swamp. Ruts that are now ponds and at least a foot deep.
It’s simple - I’d rather head into that with my car than the slip-slidy tractor ruts I was bottoming out on.
I had a look, yesterday, and at some point I’m going to have to get my car up on ramps to hack all the mud out from everywhere it shouldn’t be.
Plus - you have the benefit of daylight and knowing where you’re going … rather than pitch black darkness. LOL!
Was filming field B, when wind gusted and flipped the M2P onto it’s back, carried by the wind about 50 foot into the woods. Managed to find it, but sheered off some props. Weather is too much. I’m calling it.
What a bummer.
Rain incoming, too … and windy AF through until Tuesday.
Searched some more on foot. Soaked through. Just arrived back at the car. Another 4 hours spent. I’ll check the new video footage, but it’s not looking hopeful for the Mini 2.
The weather hasn’t been kind to you mate.
Admire your tenacity Chris in not giving up.
I think the ancient spirits have taken it into the underworld to see why this crazy Celt keeps flying around the Hill forts.
Hope the M2P is not too beat up.
Thanks Clive. It wouldn’t be so bad, except I know it’s there. As it connected 5 times the first time I got to the crash site. That’s the worst bit.
I got home about 4pm, cleaned up and just watched all the footage from today. Unfortunately, there were no signs of it there either. Not sure what else to do now. I think I have exhausted all ideas.
Ha ha, I like that theory … and would rather that than it lying in a muddy field somewhere in this weather. The M2P is fine now. I have dried it off, swapped the props, and its as good as new.
Expand the search area ?
Use drone footage for the open field bits and tops of hedges/trees, and ground search for the rest ? It may show up better when the weather improves
I lost my drone three times and found it three times. I never gave up hope. Now, when I make similar attempts to overcome the barriers of distance, speed, altitude, etc., I have a small (26g) GPS tracker attached to the drone. In addition, the drone is covered with a reflective tape, so I will find it faster at night, when it will be necessary to fly a second drone with a light source. Apparently you have a long way to go. If I have to advise you, you will find your loss the fastest by taking aerial photos (outside the forest) with another drone and analyzing them at home over a hot cup of tea. Good luck.
Netherlands is a possibility.
Even in ATTI mode, your drone will start the RTH procedure when the signal is lost. It will try to get back to HP at around 10m / s. As the wind was blowing at a speed of about 20m / s, the drone was drifting 10m / s in the direction of the wind - you were flying in the direction of the wind before. Approximately 80% of the battery capacity remains after signal loss. It should be assumed that for every 10% of its capacity, the drone fought, but was retracted by the wind about 150m. It follows that it should be searched at a distance of 800-1200 m from the place where the signal was lost. In practice, it will be a larger cone than a straight line.
How can it return to home if it doesn’t have a GPS signal?
I think that is the only possibility, but like you say, the weather at the mo is really grim.
The red area has been searched (in many cases, more than once) …
The 250m strip of woods for example, Dave searched those, and I have searched them 4 times.
From the air, it looks relatively big. From the ground, the area is immense. Just Field C alone is 177,000 sq meters. I have walked over 47,000 steps in mud so far - knees are killing me.
And because it’s soaking wet, walking is a challenge, with an extra 2 to 3 kg of mud stuck to the boots.
I have about 90 minutes of footage so far (open fields, tops of trees, hedges, bushes, you name it), recording video whilst travel at about 5 mph. But again, with the rain and wind at the mo, it’s a risk. The camera clouded up today, with water getting in behind the lens cover.
It’s now just a case of waiting for the weather to improve.
If that was the setting for loss of signal … which it wasn’t … you’d know if you read the posts above.
This I can confirm! There’s enough on mine in the kitchen that if I don’t clean them I’ll need a combine to harvest the crop in the summer!
The drone was set to decend upon disconnect, not return to home. This is the safest thing to do in extreme wind. I wasn’t in atti mode either, but in sport mode - otherwise my search area would be significantly bigger.
And a disconnect switches it to P mode, as I recall, whatever is selected as the action.
Correct.
Hi Chris -
I’ve sat on the sidelines as I was hoping to say eureka when you found your drone.
Alas not to be yet - I’ll keep my fingers crossed it returns home for drying out.
Congratulations on the new record.