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Amazing (TYPHOON H) Near Fatal Movie Set Crash

I'm glad he recovered, but he made a fatal mistake in aviation piloting. When you have an opportunity to land safely do so immediately! He continued to fly not realizing there could have been other structural damages or engine failures. I am a single engine certified pilot, this is one of the basic fundamentals as I had expressed in an earlier post. Good recovery bad judgement on his part to continue to fly . he could have landed on the dock, no excuses. I you look at the video he should have landed where he recovered once he was able to control the H.
 
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I'm glad he recovered, but he made a fatal mistake in aviation piloting. When you have an opportunity to land safely do so immediately! He continued to fly not realizing there could have been other structural damages or engine failures. I am a single engine certified pilot, this is one of the basic fundamentals as I had expressed in an earlier post. Good recovery bad judgement on his part to continue to fly . he could have landed on the dock, no excuses. I you look at the video he should have landed where he recovered once he was able to control the H.
I agree. Looked like a bit of poor piloting to me. It seemed that it was only the H ability to fly on 5 motors that saved the day and little to do with pilot skills. Flying so close to all that rigging is just asking for trouble...one false move and, well the results are obvious. Looked like he simply lost control of the thing (a lapse in concentration?) and flew it backwards into a boat's rigging. It certainly wasn't a RTH event...but to be fair I wasn't there.
 
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Good place to be flying in TEAM mode. Almost had the same problem last year inspecting my radio tower. Dang antenna elements jump out from everywhere. Hard to film and concentrate on close by objects at the same time. And I agree should have landed ASAP.
 
Good save but not much room for error to start with. The guys got more balls than I do. I've looked at the same lay out at a couple harbors and just couldn't bring myself to run the gauntlet.
 
I'm glad he recovered, but he made a fatal mistake in aviation piloting. When you have an opportunity to land safely do so immediately! He continued to fly not realizing there could have been other structural damages or engine failures. I am a single engine certified pilot, this is one of the basic fundamentals as I had expressed in an earlier post. Good recovery bad judgement on his part to continue to fly . he could have landed on the dock, no excuses. I you look at the video he should have landed where he recovered once he was able to control the H.

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
 
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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
Yes. Poor piloting. Electing to fly a UAS in such close proximity to all those masts and rigging show, at the very least, poor judgment and left the aircraft vulnerable to a collision should anything have gone wrong with control...which it did. The reasons why the aircraft went out of control is a side issue. In my book, a honest risk assessment of the Area Of Operations would have shown that a pole mounted camera would have been a better choice given the height that the aircraft was flying. Also, since he did decide to do the shoot using a UAS then, given the risks associated with the shoot, his Area Of Operations should have been cordoned off to prevent public incursion (I'm assuming that those people seen at the end of the video are not part of the production crew). He was simply using the wrong tool for the apparent task. Poor judgment makes a poor pilot.
 
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Yes. Poor piloting. Electing to fly a UAS in such close proximity to all those masts and rigging show, at the very least, poor judgment and left the aircraft vulnerable to a collision should anything have gone wrong with control...which it did. The reasons why the aircraft went out of control is a side issue. In my book, a honest risk assessment of the Area Of Operations would have shown that a pole mounted camera would have been a better choice given the height that the aircraft was flying. Also, since he did decide to do the shoot using a UAS then, given the risks associated with the shoot, his Area Of Operations should have been cordoned off to prevent public incursion (I'm assuming that those people seen at the end of the video are not part of the production crew). He was simply using the wrong tool for the apparent task. Poor judgment makes a poor pilot.

I have to agree completely. Flying that low over a walkway and then made an even larger mistake flying backwards in an obstacle filled environment. Would you attempt backwards flight through a tree?
As low as he was to the walk way why not just use a hand held steady camera?
Just because you can does not mean you should.

I know that the Navy pilots are the best there is, but they screw up too. Recent crashes of the Blue Angles will attest.
 
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Would you attempt backwards flight through a tree?

I would and I have. I was standing close enough to the trees that I had a great view to watch the H while flying. I'll bet this was a case of watching the camera feed instead of the drone.
 
I have to agree completely. Flying that low over a walkway and then made an even larger mistake flying backwards in an obstacle filled environment. Would you attempt backwards flight through a tree?
As low as he was to the walk way why not just use a hand held steady camera?
Just because you can does not mean you should.

I know that the Navy pilots are the best there is, but they screw up too. Recent crashes of the Blue Angles will attest.

Your not reading the post correctly... let us state it again...
He did not FLY BACKWARDS INTO THE mast cables... The ST-16 and the (H) were disconnected from COMMUNICATION !!! The U.A.S. "on its own" flew backwards and into
the cables.... Read the posts that we have already typed... as for Movie work... Typhoon H and DJI drones film in even more confined areas not to mention inside buildings...
 
Your not reading the post correctly... let us state it again...
He did not FLY BACKWARDS INTO THE mast cables... The ST-16 and the (H) were disconnected from COMMUNICATION !!! The U.A.S. "on its own" flew backwards and into
the cables.... Read the posts that we have already typed... as for Movie work... Typhoon H and DJI drones film in even more confined areas not to mention inside buildings...

I think you are right and he did the best recovery possible under the circumstances.

Edit: I'll premise that with saying I lost my first copter (and favorite fun flyer) last weekend in Houghton Lake, Michigan about 1500 ft out over the water. I didn't have telemetry connected (except for battery power) so am not sure what happened. It was about 200-300 ft. alt and suddenly all control was lost and straight down she went, made a magnificent splash. The bottom line is all these things have points of failure that can't be predicted when one will fail.
 
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Post some flight data. I have to agree with FlushVision that a pole mounted Steady Cam would have been the better choice for that particular scene shot.
If the flight data shows no connection to the ST-16 you will have my most sincere heart felt apology.
 
I suspect the H did as it consistently does when flown to close to railroad tracks or metal lattice type bridges after moving some distance alongside them, it lost connection to the 16 due to what I suspect is signal bounce and took off to one side. Although boat hulls may be fiberglass, wood, or concrete, and the masts aluminum or wood, the cables are typically stainless steel, and there were a lot of them, and each can become an antenna. This is a situation where having a two waypoint flight plan would be a superior means of executing the flight. The aircraft would have been slaved to the flight plan instead of being reliant on constant GCS/operator input. The mistake here was in not understanding the limitations of the H and over confidence.

I don't care what branch of the military someone served in, or what manned aircraft they crewed, if they didn't eat, breath, and live unmanned systems they likely don't know how they might be limited in certain ways. Military personnel are used to being provided extremely comprehensive ops and maintenance documentation, which the H does not possess in any form, so they have to experience things to learn instead of following a line item checklist. After they experience and learn they can develop a checklist but there is a lot to learn and much of it does not fit what they were accustomed to. Ultimately, he got it back with no real damage aside from the aircraft.

It's easy to critique after the fact. When it's live action you do what you believe to be right at that moment. You don't have the time to analyze every factor, you do what you know how to do. What he did worked to get out of the jam. It's situations such as this the FAA wrote FAR 91.3.
 
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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

There were a couple elements in play I see. One it takes a lot of concentration to control a drone that low to the ground let alone water surface and dock. That has two different rates of heat changing, thus making the drone try to correct while the pilot is correcting. I have experienced this drift too close to the ground or obstacle. Those six props produce a ton of force underneath which gets pretty unstable with obstacles and water. The metal, caused the gps to go I would bet. My H hates flying by metal it tries to drift and act weird enough to know something is wrong. The blade 350 had a gps issue with metal as well. I personally stay away from metal because I know the h doesn’t like it. Just a thought
 
The footage explains everything you need to see and know about the U.A.S.'s ability to fly out of
the serious near fatal crash while filming on a new T.V. series set in Oregon.



Way too much steel and metal. Low altitude with tons of unstable air underneath. Toss in the owners manual that states. Stay away from metal objects. Another pilot error if you ask me. Great recovery from the water though.
 
Ok, someone has to say it: "Overkill on the sensationalist thread title, eh?"

:eek::(:p
I agree. Click bait. I wouldn't have even called it a crash. It merely clipped a prop on a boat's rigging and went into 5 motor mode. Yes, if it had been a quad then it would certainly have crashed. But that's the H for you.

I have some video of a crash I had with a P2V in early 2015. Now that WAS a crash, but I've never shared the video with anyone.
 
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Well the title could be correct if he has crashed his drones before, His wife could kill him.
 
First of all that is not "a movie set" that is a boat dock...secondly who cares if he served in the military...fly down the dock once and then in editing reverse flight back down dock...I've flown thru doorways and much tighter spots that isn't an issue for me...perhaps some of his issues were due to prop wash blow back from solid objects which were nearby....I won't watch this again since I found it over hyped however lets hope the pilot does watch it several times to figure out why it crashed...by the way don't forget to tell us when "the movie" is released I enjoy comedies. Finally, just what is it you regard as "amazing" about this footage or incident?
 
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