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Drone Crash!

Posted by lianpinkoh on October 12, 2013 at 3:00pm

(Repost from: http://conservationdrones.org/2013/10/12/drone-crash/)

People often ask how often we crash our drones. It really isn't that often nowadays. But when it happens, a crash is caused by human error 99% of the time. During our trip to Panama, we had two crashes because we set 'receiver failsafe' to 'Fly-By-Wire' (FBW) by mistake. As soon as the drone flew out of radio range, the autopilot switched out of 'Auto-mission' mode into 'FBW' mode. This video clip shows the last few seconds of a truly unmanned and mission-less drone as it drifted over Barro Colorado Island and into the Panama Canal. No drone was harmed in the making of this video. It was safely retrieved and had only water damage to the autopilot and some electronics.

Tags: conservation, drones
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Comments

  • 100KM
    keeyen pang October 14, 2013 at 3:10am
     
    I agree on crash is mostly cause by pilot error. My recent crash was due to the fact that when I update mission planner somehow it set the altitude control algorithm to TECS which is NOT my default setting. The plane losing altitude rapidly  and I fail to recover. It end up hang on a tall tree for a night before a brave soul climb up ( about 25 meter ) and retrieve it.
  • Rob_Lefebvre October 13, 2013 at 6:46pm

    Heh, that's not a crash.  That's a pretty much perfect landing if it was a copter.  I wish all my copter crashes were that gentle. :)

  • lianpinkoh October 13, 2013 at 12:49pm

    Oh and I should add that the video was taken by a Mobius camera. Very nifty little things these keychain cameras. Weighs only 40 g and can be stuck on to almost anywhere on the airframe. Thequality is evident in the youtube post. I would rank it a notch below GoPro Silver but far better than most other generic sub-$100 'action cameras'.

  • lianpinkoh October 13, 2013 at 12:44pm

    @Jason Wise: It is a Finwing Penguin, same one seen in our last video (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/conservation-drones-over-barro-...)

    Thanks @BluSky1

  • BluSky1 October 13, 2013 at 12:38pm

    nice video & subscribed to your Youtube =)

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer October 13, 2013 at 4:47am

    At the end of the day checks and procedures whilst tiresome make the whole exercise less expensive.  

  • Jason Wise October 13, 2013 at 2:04am

    What type of drone is this? multirotor? Wing?

  • LanMark October 12, 2013 at 10:01pm

    nice location and video.  oops on the crash

This reply was deleted.