Phew,
what an emotional rollercoaster it has been! Full day of travelling, shooting and editing drone footage, and a nice crash at the end to top it all off!



Luckily I managed to save it!
Hope you guys enjoy the video and learn from my mistakes

Mike

Wow what a great drone this is amazing how it recovered.

Mike I have to say you are like the cat with 9 lives and many have been used up, but it makes your VLOG very entertaining.
Great job...

As always Mike you shoot some nice videos. Thanks for sharing.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-5-3 07:25
Wow what a great drone this is amazing how it recovered.

Mike I have to say you are like the cat with 9 lives and many have been used up, but it makes your VLOG very entertaining.

Haha hopefully they're not all used up yet!

Thanks for watching and for the kind words, much appreciated!

sky6105 Posted at 2018-5-3 07:25
As always Mike you shoot some nice videos. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much, it's a true pleasure to create those videos ;)

Great footage, thank you! And I am happy that it recovered from the crash and didn't fall into the water.

Wow that was a fantastic recovery, great footage and well done for telling your story and hopefully the last near miss. Well done for sharing.

Wait, so as soon as it loses connection that happens? I thought it would go into RTH mode and avoid obstacles?
Nice video though!

Υou are a very lucky man! Great footage

Wow!  Some really great shots in there.  Don't feel bad about the crash.  I would have totally done the same thing.  Sometimes you know its a 'risk' but your willing to make the attempt.  Just know, things could go bad (as you thought they might).

Again, I would have risked it too for that shot!  

P.S.  I just got back from Oregon and shot some incredible footage flying under a bridge.  But, the difference was this bridge was all wood (not a steel bridge) and fairly open so it had a lesser risk of losing signal.   Because those rocks are a totally solid structure the risk was much higher.   Again, great stuff!!  

Oh sh*t! Great video!

Good recovery there! We live and learn to fly another day

super footage - i am glad you had the camera on during the crash and very glad you survived the crash. well done.

Wooooowww!!! Incredible the Mavic Air!! Excellent stability.

Great Video, that is one tough little drone, lucky it did not fall into the water

Video DJI should post showing how well its systems dealt with crashing into rocks and how well systems compensated for damaged props.

Additional amazing is how stable the video is from gimbal / camera with damaged props missing piecies.

A CW Posted at 2018-5-3 09:29
Good recovery there! We live and learn to fly another day

Good recovery there!

No offense to drone Pilot, but I believe all Recovery credit should go to DJI's flight system being able to compensate for props with missing piecies.

You were very lucky that day, Mike! Nice footage too... It would also be very nice to see your flight log from that flight to better understand what exactly happened to GPS signal and how the MA behaves in that conditions.

HedgeTrimmer Posted at 2018-5-3 12:21
Good recovery there!

No offense to drone Pilot, but I believe all Recovery credit should go to DJI's flight system being able to compensate for props with missing piecies.

all Recovery credit should go to DJI's flight system

If it carried out a RTH then yes but I believe Mike flew back the damaged drone himself - great drone yes but equally good flying skills getting it back.

wow!!!  very lucky

A CW Posted at 2018-5-3 12:44
all Recovery credit should go to DJI's flight system

If it carried out a RTH then yes but I believe Mike flew back the damaged drone himself - great drone yes but equally good flying skills getting it back.

What I am getting at is Drone's Internal Flight system (aka Fly-by-Wire) ability to compensate for damaged props.  

I believe only one prop was not damaged.  Two of props looked like tips were broke off and edges shredded.  

The drone had to raise speed on damaged props to compensate for less lift.  Along with factoring in changes in three prop speeds that would cause Yaw rotation.  

HedgeTrimmer Posted at 2018-5-3 12:53
What I am getting at is Drone's Internal Flight system (aka Fly-by-Wire) ability to compensate for damaged props.  

I believe only one prop was not damaged.  Two of props looked like tips were broke off and edges shredded.  

No doubt the drone played a huge part in preventing a total loss situation and a relatively safe return but your point was that the safe return was entirely down to the drone and therefore had nothing to do with the pilot - who actually manually flew the drone back himself in that condition. My point is that it was a good recovery acknowledging the skills of the pilot as much as the excellent design of the drone.

A CW Posted at 2018-5-3 12:58
No doubt the drone played a huge part in preventing a total loss situation and a relatively safe return but your point was that the safe return was entirely down to the drone and therefore had nothing to do with the pilot - who actually manually flew the drone back himself in that condition. My point is that it was a good recovery acknowledging the skills of the pilot as much as the excellent design of the drone.

who actually manually flew the drone back himself in that condition

I believe difference between our points lies in meaning of "manually flew".
If indeed the drone pilot was controlling each of four motors (rpm of props) individually, then I would give credit to pilot for being able to fly drone back home in such a crippled state.

But from what can be seen, the drone maintained it's sense of direction (North, South, East, West), it's sense of altitude, and somewhat its sense of relative position (due to interntial guidance).  Amazing how well drone initially recoverd on its own from impact and damage, then relatively held position.

From what drone pilot said, he only had to reverse direction till he was clear, then increase altitude to come up to above top of rock edge, backup some more, lastly pausing for landing.

Perhaps drone pilot (DroneSupremacy) could weigh in on what he actually did in terms of flying drone.  Was he having to compensate with RC's controls to keep drone level and stable?

Good thing it recovered.

You're a lucky guy, Mike!

HedgeTrimmer Posted at 2018-5-3 13:19
who actually manually flew the drone back himself in that condition

I believe difference between our points lies in meaning of "manually flew".

The drone hit a wall, damaged the props but didn't fall and he flew it back - simple. I can not believe I am having to debate calling that a good recovery. Bye now.

A CW Posted at 2018-5-3 14:25
The drone hit a wall, damaged the props but didn't fall and he flew it back - simple. I can not believe I am having to debate calling that a good recovery. Bye now.

It’s very clear what happened here he clipped wall as a result of weak gps causing aircraft to drift hitting the rock he managed to regain control most likely because he regained better signal and he flew craft to safety, if craft is unbalanced with broken props IMU will send signals to try to maintain correct attitude that’s all , but your right we all fly these aircraft everyday so we know how they work, but we still have to fly them so good job mike.

Mike said at end of video MavAir limped its way back I think that should clear stuff up.

I did hit my Air by a tree stick accidentally. The prop hit sticks and aircraft lost control and falling immediately. It recovered back after dropping less than a feet. Only few scrap on the prop but my hart almost stop.

Nice for recovering the drone, please do check the propellers and the drone, change the broken blades if they are damaged. And always stay safe and cautious when flying.
BTW, beautiful place for shooting indeed. Thank you for sharing.

Hey everyone, thanks for the amazing supportive comments! I was smiling while reading them

To everyone that's interested - you're right, the drone compensated for its clipped off props automatically, but even then it was slowly descending, so I had to be extremely quick and hit the throttle 100% so it can go up, otherwise it was going to quickly sink in the water.
As you noticed, in the video I said "limp its way back to me", because the drone was really difficult to control, especially when trying to increase the altitude, which of course is understandable when having 3 broken props. Anyway, I'm so so so happy with how it dealt with the hit and how it still managed to regain some sort of control right after hitting the rocks.. Luckily I was really close-by so it didn't have to go some extreme distance to land.

One thing though, this crash made me fall in love with the drone even more, I definitely appreciate how it dealt with the situation. I was thinking if this was my Spark, it would have already been at the bottom of the sea Changed the props right after getting back home and the drone looks and feels like brand new again. Gotta love this small piece of awesomeness

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-5-3 15:06
It’s very clear what happened here he clipped wall as a result of weak gps causing aircraft to drift hitting the rock he managed to regain control most likely because he regained better signal and he flew craft to safety, if craft is unbalanced with broken props IMU will send signals to try to maintain correct attitude that’s all , but your right we all fly these aircraft everyday so we know how they work, but we still have to fly them so good job mike.

Mike said at end of video MavAir limped its way back I think that should clear stuff up.

Exactly mate - the drone did it's job perfectly but for someone to write that is the only reason it didn't crash and to ignore Mike's piloting skills returning it is quite bizarre.

DroneSupremacy Posted at 2018-5-3 23:00
Hey everyone, thanks for the amazing supportive comments! I was smiling while reading them  

To everyone that's interested - you're right, the drone compensated for its clipped off props automatically, but even then it was slowly descending, so I had to be extremely quick and hit the throttle 100% so it can go up, otherwise it was going to quickly sink in the water.

I for one appreciate the piloting skills you showed here in it's safe return. Good job Mike and pleased to see the Mavic Air held it's own in that situation too - that's very reassuring given that I just bought one.

Bad idea to fly close to the edge of cave. Did you turn off the sensor? Wonder APAS can help to avoid the crash in this situation.

Very good job with your footage and your recovery. Keep it up and thanks for sharing. Can you please share your log, if  you don’t mind ? It would be interesting to see why it drifted at the right. Did you have APAS and sensors off (even though there is no sensor at left and right and you first drifted right) ?

Nice Control Mike ! Well recovered in that Dead End situation ! Thats a Good Pilot in Action !

At least the props can be replaced. You gave me a SHOCK when reading the Title !

as stated into youtube channel, it was a great fly! I wish to see what happened when was below the rocks, if gps failed with low satellites or other happened..it should be interesting. By the way..the place is awesome!!!