Disaster! Flying my Mini 2 SE off the Cardiff Bay Barrage this evening, on RTH after a low battery warning, and it was mobbed by gulls, about 8 of ‘em. Plop into the Bristol Channel just off the entrance to Cardiff Docks. I suspect there may have been a nest that they were protecting.
It was only last Thursday I took out insurance with coverdrone (just as well I did), but it’ll cost me £50 excess at least. I’m not doing well with gulls recently; one shat on me back in March and in May my local O2 phone mast stopped working because of gulls nesting in it. It’s still out of action because the nest is protected an no work can be done untilthe chicks have fledged, and I’m making do with a Vodaphone SIM. I’m starting to take it personally.
Sorry to hear that John. I know it will mean paying the excess but at least it was insured, still a nasty hit though.
Something to bare in mind for the new replacement. Try not wait until you get a low battery warning before returning, you never know when you’ll need that extra bit of juice in the battery. I doubt it would have helped in this situation, but flicking into sports mode and climbing as quick as you can to evade the gulls, they can’t keep up with the speed and acceleration. Then when out of danger you still have enough battery left to safely make your way back home.
As an avid sea flyer I never reach the point of a low battery warning… Always take into account wind speeds and direction can change quicker than you realise. This can and will suck up more juice that is much needed when having to return asap.
Lesson learned! Need to keep over land and close to home after about 20 minutes on full battery. I’m a bit pissed off about it as you can imagine; it was getting dark and tbh I didn’t see the flock until the incident or I’d have climbed out of it.
I don’t think they were nest-protecting, it’s a bit late in the season for that. I am wondering if the strobon light upset them, or possibly the propeller noise. It was too dark for orange paint to have made much difference!
10-second vid starts at a point where I was completing a turn to head for home, and about two seconds in two things happen; this is the point at which I recall pressing RTH, and the drone starts it’s fall from about 120’ up. Is it possible that RTH has caused the crash, and the gulls in the vicinity were coincidental?
Will it do this retrospectively; I haven’t actually joined it yet? Assuming it takes data from DJI’s database, and that that monitors flights, they should be able to shed some light. I’ll be angry if the thing that is supposed to save the drone actually killed it; I activated RTH as soon as the low battery alarm started, but it went almost instantly to critical battery alarm, and within a second or so of that the drone started flying like a brick. There is no sign of gulls on the vid, just a sudden change from a steady shot of the lagoon and an instant change to the spinning death drop, but of course they could have jumped me from behind.
oh no, poor you
