Poor piloting?....
The only way he could get the drone back was to fly it away from the water since it was over it about 10 to 15 feet back to him on the dock... and then grab it out of the sky... He turned if off even though it was trying to fly back out of his hands...at full power... What your seeing is that he left the camera recording at the end as he was walking back up to the front of the dock. The motors were turned off as soon as he got it into his hands and could hit the motor kill switch. Our question to YUNEEC is why would this drone loose all communication with the ground station after flying up the docks for over 100 yards???
So...
With out any warning what so ever the drone shot to the right and backwards and would not respond to any stick control what so ever... It was as he said a dead ST-16 ground station... He had no control over the drone until after it hit the mast cable. Only then did the ST-16 & U.A.S. begin to communicate again so he hit the full up left stick and regained control over it.
Look at how fast the drone recovers... in well under 1 to 2 seconds...
After the near crash the entire drone was taken apart in the film truck and put back together. He recalibrated everything. So poor piloting was never the issue or even close to the reasons that the drone almost hit the pond...
As a side note, he is also a retired combat Navy pilot with 25 yrs behind the stick... I say it was **** good judgement and lightning quick reflex that saved the U.A.S.
Watch the video again and you can see it pretty much go limp after he gets it back...
Thanks for your input!
United States Drones Dot Net
www.unitedstatesdrones.net