- Joined
- Jan 1, 2015
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 0
Much thanks to Cambridge PD, I did in fact recover the drone. I got in touch with a detective from the CPD after calling into the cambridge police a few times to ask if anyone had returned it. The Detective (and the lady that reported it) both went way over and above to return the drone. Apparently an older lady found it in her backyard, and called it into cambridge police after doing some research and learning that it wasn't just a toy from her neighbors kids. So much thanks to everyone involved!
Whats crazy is how far the drone landed from where I had searched for it. I wrote up the details of my search in a separate post (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=32474). The drone was actually found more than 2000 feet away from its take off point, and 1300 feet away from its last reported position. I had been searching in entirely the wrong neighborhood since I had assumed the drone was no more than 500 feet from launch.
According to the video, the drone went on very long (although strangely controlled) journey after loosing contact, traveling nearly 2 miles, and made two separate self-controlled attempts to return to base. During the next 7 minutes of flights after loosing contact, it traveled nearly 4000+ feet away from takeoff, crossing a town line into Davis Square! I still have no idea how this could have happened. (FYI you can see a lengthy writeup after I lost the drone (but before I located it) is here (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=32474)..)
The video shows a crazy path, although the drone maintains altitude around 300 feet the entire time and at no point "drops out of the sky". For reference, at t=0:00 I had set the home position in the center of a 58 acre field. The drone takes off and starts panning around the park as intended. Everything is going great, although the drone is traveling a little further than I intended. At 3:45, at 300+ feet high, it starts spinning wildly and reports its last location back to me. At that point the display on my device has frozen and shortly after I switch the transceiver off to trigger automatic "return to home". I can no longer see the drone. You can see me in the distance running forward trying to re-establish contact. Then suddenly the drone stabilizes at 3:48, and hovers perfectly still until 3:55. Inexplicably, the now-uncontrolled drone starts picking up speed to the NE at a heading of 60 degrees, which is sort of an odd direction away from the home position. The motion looks smooth (probably the gimble??) but the drone is moving far faster than it normally would in controlled flight. At 4:46, it seems to stop, having moved about 1600 feet in under a minute. Maybe a massive burst of wind..? Then much more slowly it starts moving back to the home position, I suppose fighting to return back to base. Never the less, the drone is moving now slowly directly back to the field. Then around 5:21 its only a third of the way back to the home position and disaster strikes again. The drone starts moving NE again quickly -- easily more than 30-40 miles per hour. It crosses Mass Ave 2A at 6:23, and by 6:58 it reaches Davis Square, Somerville, the next town over. This is more than 4000 feet away from launch. By 7:00 the drone is practically over the David subway station and then seems to take a powered turn (you can see the rotors tilting) and and starts making a controlled flight towards the home position for a second time. Ironically I'm already packing up my gear because I assume the drone has crashed, but the drone is still aloft, well over 300 feet high and working its way back to home. The trip back home again seems much slower but the drone appears to be making course corrections. After 2 minutes of slow, methodical movement back towards the home position, the drone is about halfway back home, at a distance of 2060 feet from home position. Just past 9:05 it apparently decides it can't make it back to base with remaining battery and attempts an auto-pilot controlled landing. At 9:13 you can see it slowly, methodically descending straight down in emergency land mode. At 10:17 its is now at the tree line, and gets tangled up in the branches of a house with lots of solar panels. It crashes to the ground, then bounces(!??) back into the air about 20 feet and then lands in a fence. At 16:24 the video cuts out.
Whats crazy is how far the drone landed from where I had searched for it. I wrote up the details of my search in a separate post (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=32474). The drone was actually found more than 2000 feet away from its take off point, and 1300 feet away from its last reported position. I had been searching in entirely the wrong neighborhood since I had assumed the drone was no more than 500 feet from launch.
According to the video, the drone went on very long (although strangely controlled) journey after loosing contact, traveling nearly 2 miles, and made two separate self-controlled attempts to return to base. During the next 7 minutes of flights after loosing contact, it traveled nearly 4000+ feet away from takeoff, crossing a town line into Davis Square! I still have no idea how this could have happened. (FYI you can see a lengthy writeup after I lost the drone (but before I located it) is here (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=32474)..)
The video shows a crazy path, although the drone maintains altitude around 300 feet the entire time and at no point "drops out of the sky". For reference, at t=0:00 I had set the home position in the center of a 58 acre field. The drone takes off and starts panning around the park as intended. Everything is going great, although the drone is traveling a little further than I intended. At 3:45, at 300+ feet high, it starts spinning wildly and reports its last location back to me. At that point the display on my device has frozen and shortly after I switch the transceiver off to trigger automatic "return to home". I can no longer see the drone. You can see me in the distance running forward trying to re-establish contact. Then suddenly the drone stabilizes at 3:48, and hovers perfectly still until 3:55. Inexplicably, the now-uncontrolled drone starts picking up speed to the NE at a heading of 60 degrees, which is sort of an odd direction away from the home position. The motion looks smooth (probably the gimble??) but the drone is moving far faster than it normally would in controlled flight. At 4:46, it seems to stop, having moved about 1600 feet in under a minute. Maybe a massive burst of wind..? Then much more slowly it starts moving back to the home position, I suppose fighting to return back to base. Never the less, the drone is moving now slowly directly back to the field. Then around 5:21 its only a third of the way back to the home position and disaster strikes again. The drone starts moving NE again quickly -- easily more than 30-40 miles per hour. It crosses Mass Ave 2A at 6:23, and by 6:58 it reaches Davis Square, Somerville, the next town over. This is more than 4000 feet away from launch. By 7:00 the drone is practically over the David subway station and then seems to take a powered turn (you can see the rotors tilting) and and starts making a controlled flight towards the home position for a second time. Ironically I'm already packing up my gear because I assume the drone has crashed, but the drone is still aloft, well over 300 feet high and working its way back to home. The trip back home again seems much slower but the drone appears to be making course corrections. After 2 minutes of slow, methodical movement back towards the home position, the drone is about halfway back home, at a distance of 2060 feet from home position. Just past 9:05 it apparently decides it can't make it back to base with remaining battery and attempts an auto-pilot controlled landing. At 9:13 you can see it slowly, methodically descending straight down in emergency land mode. At 10:17 its is now at the tree line, and gets tangled up in the branches of a house with lots of solar panels. It crashes to the ground, then bounces(!??) back into the air about 20 feet and then lands in a fence. At 16:24 the video cuts out.