While doing what will become my collection of springtime flowers in bloom I decided to do a couple of passes over a field of oilseed raap. As I flew low over the field I neared some high-tention pylons. Having read on one of the other threads that the freq. disruption these cause was not withing the bandwidth of the drone AND having flown under some pylons several weeks earlier without problems, I didn't pay them much attention. Yes, bad move.
Suddenly I lost signal and a red alert flashed onto the ST16 reporting electromagnetic interferance. The TH shot ahead under the lines and turned 90* to the left and then again in the opposite direction. I flipped the RTH switch when it suddenly occured to me that these powerlines were quite a bit lower than normal and the 30m return heigth would most likely bring it directly into to cable. So I switched the RTH back off again. My hope was the TH would go into a hover and wait for me to take control. By this point my observer and I had lost sight of the Typhoon. So we jumped into the car and headed in the general direction of where we last saw it.
I drove with the ST16 out the open window (with the srap around my neck) and we franticly tried to re-establish contact. 30 minutes of driving about and we found nothing. This was all open farmland crisscrossed with drainage cannals so getting from one place to the other was a bit of a challange.After more than an hour searching I was close to giving up. I suggested to my brother-in-law that we head back toward a recently plowed fallow field of short grass. I had seen what looked like a dark clump in the distance that might perhaps be the drone.
So we did another circuit of the farmland, checking the original launch site on the way just in case, and arrived at the field in question. Yes I did see something dark in the distance so we got out and started walking toward it. As we got closer the dark patch started looking ever more like a big green weed. My heart sunk as it became apparent that this wasn't what I was looking for.
Suddenly an alert popped up on the controller which was still running. "Typhoon has entered 5 rotor mode. Return and land immediately" I touched the screen and the alert disappeared to be replaced by the most wonderfull little green arrow I have ever seen. If I was younger, I would name one of my kids after it.
I followed the arrow and after about 50m there it was. My typhoon was so glad to see me it just kept on beeping in greeting. Four props were broken, 2 on each opposite side. The right landing strut was broken at the retract lever and nowhere to be seen. The CGO+3 was torn off and about 10m away. This was my secondnd and I hope last crash.
Fortunately I was able to buy the slip-ring cable harness and the same shop also sells the "lever only" from the landing gear motor assembly. Not hard to replace and 20% of the cost of what the complete unitcost here in Europe. I do wish they had the mounting pins for the camera mount. I know vertigo drones used to have them but I no longer see them listed. I was planning on having my brother who still lives in the US send me several.
Now one little Idea I had was to create an elastic tether on the gimbal mount between the upper and lower plate. In the event of the mounting pins breaking this might prevent to slip-ring harnass from getting yanked out. What do you think?
Suddenly I lost signal and a red alert flashed onto the ST16 reporting electromagnetic interferance. The TH shot ahead under the lines and turned 90* to the left and then again in the opposite direction. I flipped the RTH switch when it suddenly occured to me that these powerlines were quite a bit lower than normal and the 30m return heigth would most likely bring it directly into to cable. So I switched the RTH back off again. My hope was the TH would go into a hover and wait for me to take control. By this point my observer and I had lost sight of the Typhoon. So we jumped into the car and headed in the general direction of where we last saw it.
I drove with the ST16 out the open window (with the srap around my neck) and we franticly tried to re-establish contact. 30 minutes of driving about and we found nothing. This was all open farmland crisscrossed with drainage cannals so getting from one place to the other was a bit of a challange.After more than an hour searching I was close to giving up. I suggested to my brother-in-law that we head back toward a recently plowed fallow field of short grass. I had seen what looked like a dark clump in the distance that might perhaps be the drone.
So we did another circuit of the farmland, checking the original launch site on the way just in case, and arrived at the field in question. Yes I did see something dark in the distance so we got out and started walking toward it. As we got closer the dark patch started looking ever more like a big green weed. My heart sunk as it became apparent that this wasn't what I was looking for.
Suddenly an alert popped up on the controller which was still running. "Typhoon has entered 5 rotor mode. Return and land immediately" I touched the screen and the alert disappeared to be replaced by the most wonderfull little green arrow I have ever seen. If I was younger, I would name one of my kids after it.
I followed the arrow and after about 50m there it was. My typhoon was so glad to see me it just kept on beeping in greeting. Four props were broken, 2 on each opposite side. The right landing strut was broken at the retract lever and nowhere to be seen. The CGO+3 was torn off and about 10m away. This was my secondnd and I hope last crash.
Fortunately I was able to buy the slip-ring cable harness and the same shop also sells the "lever only" from the landing gear motor assembly. Not hard to replace and 20% of the cost of what the complete unitcost here in Europe. I do wish they had the mounting pins for the camera mount. I know vertigo drones used to have them but I no longer see them listed. I was planning on having my brother who still lives in the US send me several.
Now one little Idea I had was to create an elastic tether on the gimbal mount between the upper and lower plate. In the event of the mounting pins breaking this might prevent to slip-ring harnass from getting yanked out. What do you think?