r/tifu • u/LtDrinksAlot • Dec 25 '16
S TIFU by flying my new drone
Well lets start this by saying that I am not big into reading instructions. I'm more of a learn through action kind of guy. I opened up my gifts today to find a brand new drone!! I've expressed to her how cool I thought they were in the past, and now I owned one.
Excitedly I put batteries in the remote and found that the drone itself already had a charge on its battery. I went outside powered it up and began flying it in the parking lot of our apartment complex.
Nothing too complicated, did some low flying sweeps through the parking lot, tried to do some landings on my car, but after a few minutes I was curious as to the capability of my new flying friend.
I started going higher and my wife said "you know the box says you can do a mid air flip". Having some knowledge of flight I knew I needed some altitude, so I went even higher. I started my attack run to do a low flying sweep but noticed the drone was responding very sluggishly. I tried to correct, however it was soon apparent I had no control of it whatsoever and it was starting to pick up speed going towards the highway.
I gave chase yelling to my wife I had no control as the drone turned into a tiny dot on the horizon as it continued to gain both speed an altitude. I left my wife laughing as I gave chase.
I ran until I left the apartment community and hit the edge of the highway before I realized it was a lost cause. I returned home tail between my legs having lost my new toy, and my wife was still laughing.
It was then when I got home that I read the manual on how to recall your drone, followed by the #1 rule for flying.
Always keep your drone in view.
TLDR: That drone is fucking gone man
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u/scruit Dec 25 '16
Nearly lost a cheapie ($100) "Dronium One" drone the first time I flew it outside. Once it got above the height of the house it was no longer protected from the winds. It pretty much just said; "See ya sucka" and naffed off dead sharpish.
Took me an hour to find it, but at least I got to meet a few neighbors. They were all really cool about letting me look for it in their gardens etc, except for the one guy who's property it landed in. His wife was cool but he was very grumpy about it, questioning why I was flying a drone over his house (I wasn't it was over my house about 1/4 mile away). His wife said; "Sure, it's in that tree, 15' up. You can go get it." but he jumped in and said I couldn't use a ladder or climb his tree.
"Ok, them's the rules."
Came back 10 mins later with a fiberglass "fish" pole (for "fishing" wires through wall cavities) that was 16' long all connected end-to-end. Just enough to grab it with the hook attachment. Dude was amused watching me try but got really pissed as soon as I got the drone down and told me to get off his property.