Another Long Distance Thread

Joined
Mar 19, 2015
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Lake Ouachita, AR
Like so many others, I too have lost a drone, Specifically my P3 Standard because I failed to program to program it with the proper return to home function. When I took off from a Island extension close to a lake I would have bet you dollars to donuts that I had programmed it to Return to Home, not Hover, not "Land". This was before DJI had come out with GO4 app for their products.

My original flight plan was to see how far I could fly my Standard down a straight stretch of the lake that was open for at least 2 or 3 miles.and then come back. Wind was able to move the drone off course and next thing I know, it goes behind some pines that were part of the land around the lake. Of course I lost signal and I like so many others, went into panic mode when I realized it was landing and not coming back to point of origin. Yep, it did what it was suppose to do, Land, because I had failed to check the RTH foundation before take off. It looked like it had made it to land so if anything, it might hit a tree. After all is said and done, my P3S when scuba diving on it's own in 60 plus feet of water. I eventually bought another P3S because it was, at that time, the easiest drone to teach others how to fly.

The real issue is really none of the above, but my desire to way out of "Line of Sight". Which is what the FAA does not want you to do and I can understand why. Back when Phantom2 HD-3D were really popular, it was the first DJI drone I purchased and you could fly as high as you wanted and were only limited by your battery. YouTube had quite a few video's of guys flying above the clouds and hitting the 1500 foot level. Most ran out of battery life on the way down and basically crashed. This was late 2014 and 2015. Of course I wanted to eventually fly above the clouds myself but realized that it was not something I should be doing because as time passed, the FAA got more and more involved, which meant the Federal Government was more involved.

Aside from that, I began to see where flying out of sight, is not something anyone should be doing for any reason other than commercial operations. When we loose sight of these machines than can cut a person and if one fell out of the sky, could do more harm than any of use want to be responsible for. We as Pilot's are and always will be responsible for any damage we cause. One sobering fact is how would any of us feel if we lost control and it strikes a child or baby causing permanent brain damage? I sure at heck do not want that on my mind ever.
 

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