Quad Save

[bucks448]

@Ronnie - have you been here? -

Seems like he ditched his phone to save it

 

[Ronnie]

Yeah, I've been there but thankfully my phone is in a life proof (water proof) case and it is attached to the remote.

I'm not sure what quadcopter he was using but suspect it was a phantom 1 because the phone is an integral part of flying the phantom 2 (it's used to display what's in the cameras view as well a other telemetry like the number of satellites speed, altitude, distance from the remote and most importantly battery life remaining). On the phantom 1 a fully charged battery in good condition will allow for up to a 15 minute flight with a gopro or similar camera mounted to the quad copter. There are only two visual warnings that the battery is close to depleted, first the led on the back of the quad will blink red slowly when there is less than 20 to 30% of the battery's power remaining. Next it will blink quickly when it is about to start its auto landing sequence and when it is in the sequence. Since it is out of power it lands wherever it is at and the pilot has no control to move it in any direction. Some people don't read the instructions closely or at all but the GPS assisted homing feature only works when there is sufficient power left in the flight battery (I.e., when it is not auto landing due to lack of power).

I hope the guy's phone was worth less than $400 because that is about what a gen 1 phantom goes for these days. However he may have saved a gopro camera as well, many guys don't fly with it in its protective case to keep the weight down and flight time up. Oh well that is another expensive lesson that he may have already learned is not such a good one.

 

[Ronnie]

I forgot to mention that unless this guy mounted the camera so that it faced the back/aft of the quad, he wasn't paying attention to what the led indicator was doing, that is he wasn't monitoring the battery life as that has to be done from the rear of the quad copter. On the phantom 1 whenever you see that led turn red, it's a problem of some sort and an indicator that its time to land while you still can.

 

[Big Shasta]

LOL...Yeah, it was a good save. Almost as good as the save of my custom quad from the top of a 60 foot pine tree. The neighbors were going to HATE my battery alarm going off into the night.

The phantom's don't have an audible alarm? I suggest if you have one, you add it...It plugs in with the battery and is about 2.00 on ebay...they are VERY loud. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=rc+battery+alarm&_sacat=0

 

[Ronnie]

The gen 2 phantoms have an audible alarm but not the gen 1. $2 is cheap insurance however rotating the copter and / or looking at a clock every once in a while is even cheaper.

 

[Glassman]

More with the copters, huh?

Why did I click on this??

So tell me, have you been chased out of any parks lately? There was quite a bit of television coverage about copters and privacy, etc. a month or so ago. It seems to have died down somewhat.

The negative press put my thoughts of buying one on hold.....but I still want one.

 

[HawkTX]

Great save!!!

 

[Ronnie]

I've only been "chased" out of one park since I got into quad copters almost a year ago. Ironically, it was the same regional park that I tested and purchased my first used quad copter at. I took my son there to let him practice and the ranger eventually came over to let us know that there is a park rule prohibiting use of any RC vehicles. Still the guy was interested and let my son finish the flight he just started which lasted about ten minutes. More recently a quad owner took video of the damage caused by a 6.0 quake near napa California. The media reports of his footage showed a total change in attitude not just by home and business owners but by the fire department and city inspectors as well. They were thankful for the footage. Of course the quad owner couldn't collect any money for it as that would violate one of the few laws on the books regarding "drones", that is, no commercial use, so the guy ended up claiming it was used for educational purposes.

I'm not concerned about prohibitions as long as they are reasonable, like no flying near an airport, hospital, even a freeway where it can cause distractions but I'm not in it to take footage of national monuments or national parks, most of which is already available on line. I'm it for the different perspectives I can get of my own adventures. Here is my best example to date: It's quad copter video of my son wakeboarding. It's my first attempt at this so I know what to do better the next time around (e.g. hover the quad copter front of the boat initially on the side the wakeboard faces when he is up). This was very challenging video to get because my wife is new to pulling people on wakeboards, so I had to get my son up first (actually second I had to put the quad copter in a hover first), than take control of the quad copter, get him in the camera's view and keep him there. It may sound easy but the boat and my son were moving forward (relative to the orientation of the boat) I was facing backward while trying to fly a quad copter forward, backward and sideways. As I've mentioned before the control of the quad copter changes as it's orientation changes (i.e., when its tail is towards me, forward is forward, back is back, left is left, etc. the opposite is true when the nose is pointed towards me).

In retrospect it's been tough to carve time out to fly while boating and camping so I could have lived with something less than a Phantom 2, maybe an FC40 for less than half the price. Back on track and sorry to hijack the thread, the save was OK not great in my opinion. The reason being that he dropped his phone (I think) in the water making the save so dollar wise he may be about even if not better off than getting the heli and camera wet but he still lost money making the save. That he is willing to publish the footage at all says a lot about the guy's character.

 

[GiddYupJoe]

I'm not concerned about prohibitions as long as they are reasonable, like no flying near an airport, hospital,

This just happened this past week here locally. Interesting thing was that he was asked by the fairground to take aerial shots. You would have thought he would have known better being so close to a hospital.

http://www.whio.com/ap/ap/ohio/drone-delays-landing-of-ohio-hospital-chopper/nhBGC/

 

[Ronnie]

Staying on the theme of quad saves, here is one of a guy retrieving his quad-copter after the ram he takes care of head butted it out of the air.

http://news.yahoo.com/ram-drone-video-152839647.html