Here's a funny story:

Yesterday I flew my Spark up to the top of a mountain while sitting in the parking lot of the trailhead....

(I had already hiked up two other mountains with my Spark that day)

It's about 400m up and 1km away. The mountain has lots of cliffs that people usually hang out on.

I was using and testing a pair of range extenders. Previously flying in the same place without the

range extenders I had difficulty maintaining signal when reaching the cliffs (1km away).

Once the Spark got up there I found these three hikers, one of whom decided to drop his pants at the drone!

They were motioning me to get closer, and while trying to do so (and not realizing that I was still in Sport mode)

I had a slight drop in video signal and then when it came back I saw my drone fly into the trees and crash into the grass

up on the mountain with me sitting in the parking lot!

I was trying to decide what to do and wondering if I was going to have to hike up there to get it (it's about an hour hike up, but it was getting dark).

Suddenly I can see through the video feed that the guy picks it up and puts it flat on the rock for me.

So I take off again and I can see him giving me a thumbs up into the camera!

Finally I regain my orientation, stabilize and start recording again (I don't have video of the crash as I was trying to take a photo).

I'm trying to think of how to acknowledge his kind resscue of my Spark so I rock my “wings” (in Sport mode) to say thank you.

Then girl moons me and a few moments later flashes me! lol

Here's a link to the photo and the before and after videos, which I cannot stop laughing at:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xkXAtTYcSPBsimXq2


A few of notes:
- the parabolic range extenders work really well, I don't think that I would have been able to maintain signal after the Spark crashed up on the mountain, just over the lip of the cliff without them.
- once I took off from the mountain and began returning I was initially confused by the telemitry of the DJI Go 4 app until I realized that my "home" point was now my most recent takeoff point, on top of the mountain. So I had to stop and manually set my home point at the phone's location. That helped with some of the telemitry, but my altitude continued to descend into the negative, relative to the takoff point. Which made it more difficult to judge how high up I really was. Fortunately it was clear line of sight so once it got close enough I could spot it, the flashing lights on the Spark really help in low light.
- even though I had several more fully charged batteries I decided to not try another flight up that evening.

LMAO that is just brilliant a bit shaky, what great sports they were , makes a big change from those who want to shoot drones out of the sky.
Great you got your drone back hopefully no damage. I’m still laughing...

Kool.. red necks around here will try to distory or shoot it.

Hahahahaha....what a funny story that was great to meet those hilarious people who didn't freak out by the sight of the drone, and really cool they helped you out, you made a good decision i think by not flying more that day...

Totally wild, and how cool if those hikers!

Todd in Chicago

I advise you to just use the sport mode to get to the location. After that, it's important to return to normal mode.
When you get close to objects, especially when you are so far from the ac, you want to be in control.
Also, I'm not sure if the ac uses its obstacles avoidance sensors when rth initiated when you still in sport mode.
If someone can shed some light on it it would be appreciated.

Moshe.mmm Posted at 2017-11-4 14:03
I advise you to just use the sport mode to get to the location. After that, it's important to return to normal mode.
When you get close to objects, especially when you are so far from the ac, you want to be in control.
Also, I'm not sure if the ac uses its obstacles avoidance sensors when rth initiated when you still in sport mode.

Only if your within 100 metres will obstacle avoidance be active outside 100metre RTH will advance at 10 m/s so no OA.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-4 14:49
Only if your within 100 metres will obstacle avoidance be active outside 100metre RTH will advance at 10 m/s so no OA.

It will be disableded even if I'm at normal mode? U sure? If so, it's very disappointing.
Maybe in some cases when you fly around mountains, it would be samrt to choose rth in the same why the drone flown becuse it's possible to miss the right altitude for the regular rth.

Moshe.mmm Posted at 2017-11-4 15:00
It will be disableded even if I'm at normal mode? U sure? If so, it's very disappointing.
Maybe in some cases when you fly around mountains, it would be samrt to choose rth in the same why the drone flown becuse it's possible to miss the right altitude for the regular rth.

Once your outside 100 metres and RTH is initiated OA is disabled no matter what mode you are flying in so it’s always important to set RTH higher than all obstacles in sparks path.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-4 16:04
Once your outside 100 metres and RTH is initiated OA is disabled no matter what mode you are flying in so it’s always important to set RTH higher than all obstacles in sparks path.

On the spark official introduction video, at 0.59 minute in the clip, you can see that it's almost clear you can understand the spark can return to home safely because of its OA capability.
Is it false advertising or just a misunderstanding?

Moshe.mmm Posted at 2017-11-4 16:24
On the spark official introduction video, at 0.59 minute in the clip, you can see that it's almost clear you can understand the spark can return to home safely because of its OA capability.
Is it false advertising or just a misunderstanding?

It clearly tells you in your manual that outside 100 metres spark will RTH at speed of 10 M/S and OA will be disabled so if you see it in the video it’s false.

Inside 100 metre OA is active in RTH.

What a wonderful story and experience! Indeed there are also great people out there who apparent like us and have a good sense of humour :-) Thank you very much for sharing!
P.S. I also have one of these parabolic range extenders on my shelf but had never tested it so far. Might be worth a try although in my flight operations I never fly very far away.

Should consider the Titan Cyclone ,amplified antenna

lannes Posted at 2017-11-4 18:50
Should consider the Titan Cyclone ,amplified antenna

I've gone as far as I want to with kludges, in the end it's still just WiFi.

Upgrading to a Mavic (which uses Occusync) will be my next step, at some point.
Having that 3rd axis on the gimbal would be really helpful in a lot of situations.

Really awesome people, I wish more people like that would be more understanding about drones.

Lost my Spark today in a fly-away, so it was really heart-warming to see how it all turned out for you!