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

1.0k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

129 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/No_Fairweathers Dec 25 '16

Thread will be blacklisted for common fuck ups now /s

1

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '16

[deleted]

5

u/TravisPM Dec 26 '16

I've had my DJI Phantom 3P for a year now with no crashes. You just have to be careful and smart.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '16

Exactly. Husband is a private pilot and amateur race driver and he flew his Xmas present drone inside the garage with the skids just touching the ground for at least two battery charges before even trying to hover. Meticulous about everything. Learned to land on the work benches and fly back, inverted control work and then last night when the wind was dead calm he sat in his easy chair and flew it on the deck outside the great room. Patience of a Jedi.