jayhkr
 lvl.4
United States
Offline
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So I waited like a kid at Christmas for the post man to deliver my much awaited package yesterday. Paced back and forth by the door to the front porch eagerly awaiting "Santa". It arrived and I litterally jumped for joy!! Got everything unpacked and immediately started charging the battery as I knew I was going to be doing a FW update afterwards. Fortunately I preinted the manual and read it a few times since DJI neglected to send me one in my box. Charged the birds battery, then the RC battery. Now on to the FW update. Downloaded the file from DJI and opened up the folder to see a non .bin file in there. Thought that was weird but I tried the update anyway. No blinking light on the gimble which I knew wasn't normal. Turned off the bird and redownloaded the file, this time I got the .bin file. Got the file on the card, did the update, NOOOOO ISSUES!! Ok, on to the RC update.....again NOOOOOO ISSUES! Thought awesome, I got lucky (that or reading the 100's of posts on here on how to properly do it helped!) Topped off the birds battery and off we went to a park. I already had the perfect area scouted out. Open-ish field, only trees were in the outling areas and a few behind me by the road. Got to my spot and instantly regreted not wearing long pants and having a can of bug spray with me. It was evening time so the bugs were just starting to come out and feast. Grass was a bit to tall to just put it down on the ground so I used the DJI box. Did the compass calibration, all went well! Took a deep breath and off she went hovering 8 feet off the ground. I let it sit there for a bit, slowly moving the sticks around to get how sensitive she was. OH MAN is she sensitive. Not like flying RC planes at ALL! Putted around a bit not getting to far from me, maybe a few hundred feet at most. 3 minutes in I brought her back down and landed her sucessfully on the box. No issues! Decided to take off again and went up over the tree tops, watched the sun set beautifully on the horizon. Flew her back towards me and around the field for a bit. THEN it happened......a mosquito or other bug distracted me on my left side and I inadvertently pushed on the right stick all the way forward. ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM she took off like a bullet.......straight for a tree. I hastely pulled back on the stick, slowed her down just as she reached the small branches on the outmost branch thought I had her good, but the tree decided it was hungry. It snatched up my bird.........By this time the sun had set and I was panicing. Surely I thought she was going to drop like a rock, but it was well wedged up there. Thought I would try to start the motors to see if it would free itself but no go. Rather than risk messing anything up, I raced back to the house, grabbed my ladder and raced back. Well at this point it was very dark and of course the ladder wouldn't reach the branch where it was at. Had to be 25-30 feet up easily. Pulled my truck to under the branch, tried setting the ladder in the bed but still to short. Park officer rolled by, asked what I was doing. Told him I lost my bird and he thought I meant my pet bird. When I told him it was an RC (didn't want to use the word drone) he chuckled and said, yeah that tree gets a few of them every year. Suggested I call Parks and Rec in the morning to see if they could help. HATED leaving my brand new drone in a tree, with the lights still flashing. But I figured if I couldn't get to it (even tried climbing it and still couldn't get to it from the ground) no one else would be able to. Of course I didn't sleep a wink last night. 8am this morning I'm already rolling out to the park, calling parks and rec, they connect me with a very nice guy who said he would be out in 30-45 min. to see if there was anything he could do to help me. Get to the park, and the drone is still there!! (Whhheeeewww!) Decided to put the ladder against the tree to get to the branch it was stuck in. With a little luck, I shimmied up to the branch and thought, oh damn, this is higher than I thought but I was up there and I wanted my bird back! I litterally crawled on my belly 20 feet out from the trunk trying to not flip over and there were only 2-3 branches the whole way out that were thick enough for me to pull on and continue to stablize myself. Got to about 4 feet of the bird and the branch was REALLY thin at this point. I got very lucky in that a branch that it was stuck on was just in the right position for me to use to pull the branch the bird itself was stuck on close enough to me that I was able to nab the landing gear and free it from the clutches of the tree. I had my wife down on the ground (just in case I fell and needed medical help) toss me up a strap which I tied to the landing gear and lowered down to her safely. Now comes the part that I try to get out of the tree. You would think sliding backwards would be easy, but oh hell no. Not knowing where your feet are was a pucker value of 100. I get to the trunk of the tree and the maintenance guy rolls up and sees me. He said he was just about to go get his BUCKET TRUCK and lift me up here. I had to laugh as that's always they way things work out! I get down from the tree and we talk a bit, I go to shake his hand thank you and he said "I would bud, but you just climbed up that tree covered in poison ivy, and I just got over it a few weeks ago". I had to laugh so damn hard I almost crapped myself! BUT long story short (I know, to late) Got the bird home, gave it a through once over, cleaned off the green leaf blood, started it up in the living room and everything works perfect! I'm ONE lucky SOB that's for sure! I would post the video of it, but that's a little embarrassing at this point. I will hopefully get some footage this afternoon after my other battery and case arrive (here shortly I hope) and I head back out again. This time I'm bringing long pants and bug spray!
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lvl.1
lvl.3
Captain
