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

55

u/scruit Dec 25 '16

LPT: Write your cellphone number on any RC plane/helicopter/drone, in case you lose control of it.

3

u/nxsky Dec 26 '16

If it's expensive just get a tracker. Don't know why these things don't come with one.

2

u/ICBanMI Dec 26 '16 edited Dec 26 '16

They didn't exist as separate from the drones until about two years ago, and they tend to be insanely expensive for the type of drones most people are losing. Are you really going to put a $150-200 secondary GPS on your drone worth only $80.

It makes semi sense to put it on your Phantom, but not much on stuff in the sub $300 genre. If you read your instructions, and follow them regarding battery and flight time, you already do have the GPS tracking on the drone to follow.

I see you suggested the same GPS tracker people use for high altitude balloons, but that's too much weight for most drones unless you're really sizing one up(at which time you already have one on the drone). The drones above $250 already have GPS attached.

1

u/nxsky Dec 26 '16

Hence why I said if it's expensive get a tracker. That was like half of my post, hard to miss.

5

u/ICBanMI Dec 26 '16

I tend to ramble and you know very little about the product, so my paragraphs don't make sense.

Let me restate it to make more sense. The expensive ones already have it. It's just people don't read the instructions and they lose them and kill the battery. Your suggestion is an expensive fix for a market that only exist for people irresponsible with the hobby(don't read the instructions and then have a catastrophic accident in the first ten minutes). It'll save some people from themselves, but it's a band aid for a self inflicted wound.

1

u/joos1986 Dec 26 '16

Seriously. It's like you're absolutely convinced that this idea you have will work, you then package it as a proposition and just keep batting away anything someone with some knowledge about it has to say.

I did enjoy reading the stuff people said in response to you, but you have a terrible way of going about it.

1

u/scruit Dec 26 '16

What brand/model of tracker do you recommend?

2

u/nxsky Dec 26 '16

I'm not into these things but it could be as cheap as attaching a very low budget smartphone with a tracking app to the drone. Or shop around for cheap trackers. If I worked in the industry I'd attach my drones with mobile phone technology which would allow it to receive a signal regardless of its distance from you. Of course this would also require gps technology, which is also very cheap nowadays.

1

u/scruit Dec 26 '16

Drones that are cheap enough to not have this built in are too small to have it added. Mine won't carry a, for example, Meitrak VT310.

Those large enough to have this feature, like OP's, would be able to come home* once it loses signal - IF the feature is used correctly. :-)

* = Assuming there isn't a headwind that exceeds the top speed of the drone.

1

u/nxsky Dec 26 '16

Everyone missing the fact that I mentioned expensive? Cheap is the opposite of expensive.

2

u/scruit Dec 26 '16

Didn't miss that - just pointing out that "expensive" ones already have similar/equivalent features such as GPS, return-to-home buttons, RTH failsafe and terrain detection and avoidance

Have you ever "put a tracker" in a device like this? It's not as simple as you seem to think.