Recently purchased my 1st ever drone and have very limited experience at flying. On Sunday was flying across a waterfall lining up what I wanted to video and all of a sudden a/c was attacked by 2 very protective birds. Whilst they were more the "lets get really close and make a lot of noise" birds, it occured to me that it is the start of nesting season and the possibility of being attacked is probably high for the next couple of months. In all probability, a/c will not survive an eagle or hawk attack but does anyone have suggestions on what 1st manouvere should be other than get on the ground asap?

How about get out the wallet ? An attacking eagle or hawk will move a lot faster than the aircraft, and probably won't miss first time.

Seriously though there's probably nothing you can do apart from land as soon as you spot something like that developing and hope for the best.

I had a bird go after my Mavic 2 Pro already and my gut instinct was to land. After seeing how fast the bird was traveling i knew there was no way in hell i was going to make it anywhere safe to land, let alone get on the ground before he/she got there. My only option was to Sport mode and haul butt out of there. Towards the end the bird was about 20 feet from the craft and i figured well if it's going to be an impact. I  pulled back hard on the stick and was going to make sure that it gets  a full propping and hopefully it will fall strait down with minimal damage as possible; I was prepared to lose a new drone.

What actually happened is that i scared the bejesus out of the bird. The bird wasn't expecting a sudden decrease in speed nor a direction change which resulted in the drone starting to face him. After the bird saw the drone flare back towards him and heard the even more angrier prop sounds. he/she soon realized that it was going to go after him.  He evaded me (Flying underneath and off to the left) and turned around, so i chased him for about 40 feet and then came back, landed, laughed, cleaned out my shorts, and left.

Not sure what prompted him to try to attack my drone, but figured if i am going to lose it, let's try reversing the roles and see if that makes a different, it actually did.
Now, i am not saying this is a good practice at all because it is clearly not, but all my other options were not going to result in a safe landing before the bird got there. And a Straight engine cut and drop worked for me only once. Friends said it looked like a condor or vulture of some sort. big guy indeed. Been back to the desert area many times since then and have not  had a problem with any birds except for that one time.

Yes, birds can't climb as fast as your drone. I had a bunch of seagulls come after my P4 and I went on the attack. They got tired of me and left.  I heard  that reflective tape works in keeping birds away. It works in a garden with pie pans. They know well that your drone isn't another bird and leave it alone.

I still need a pair of evil eyballs, for my drone...


RedHotPoker

Deffo climb, hard and fast,  
Wait, what did i just say?

Bashy Posted at 3-6 19:55
Deffo climb, hard and fast,  
Wait, what did i just say?

Read it and weep? Haha


You wrote it,  so don’t ask me.. grin



RedHotPoker

at least i didnt put "on" lol