Close Call Today

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May 11, 2016
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I was practicing some real estate video shots of my house today and almost taught myself an expensive lesson. I was flying a "reversing upward reveal" --as I call it-- and took my eyes off the bird for a moment to see the shot on my ipad. During this moment I grossly misjudged my trajectory, and looked up to see my P3P just before the propellers made contact with some leaves from a tree about 30ft up across the street from my house.

Fortunately I kept my cool --though my heart was in my throat-- and made a small correction to move away from the tree, luckily not hitting any large branches. My bird stayed afloat, seeimngly unharmed, but the sound of practically turning my Phantom into a flying weed-whacker scared the pants off me. I immediately landed and checked for damage. Luckily, there was none. Had to clean off the green, chlorophyll marks of shame from the leaves though.

Lessons learned:
  • Use a visual observer if you can, especially in an area full of obstacles
  • VLOS rules exist for a reason
  • Something we always said in the Marines, "complacency kills."
 
I've learned the same lesson flying orbit and watched the landing gear almost catch the tree top. Thank you for sharing and serving sir.
 

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