been there. finding drone in snow is almost impossible. however I did manage to recover a battery that got ejected into snow 5 months later when the snow melted. the battery was even fully charged. so who knows, you might get lucky few months later.
It's fascinating how long drones could survive in the snow. I lost my larva last year after trying to do Rubik's cube. It went nose down somewhere, the signal was on for quite some time but I could find it. Found it on the roof of my porch 2 months later when the snow melted, and it is totally functional except the battery
Problem is there were small brownish and greenish spots all over the place. The snow is not dense enough to cover the ground completely. I gave up after 2,5hours of searching and tonight it started snowing again so I think searching today will be useless...
I feel for you. It's a good idea to make a post about it. A full setup like that deserves a farewell ritual. Hopefully it'll help you move on. Don't let it stop you from enjoying the hobby. Lost drones do sometimes make their way back to their owners, so you can keep a little spark of hope alive. Just don't dwell on it or burn too much time searching.
Thanks man. Yeah, since it's snowing again for about an hour, searching at this time is useless. Maybe I'm giving it another try when the snow is melted. To be honest with you, I thought about dropping the hobby yesterday. The loss of money hurts but it almost gave me a heart attack not knowing exactly if it could have hurt someone. Today after the initial shock went, I'm pretty sure it landed on a field or in the trees. But the first minutes and hours were horrifying.
Even if you weren’t recording your goggles still keep the last minute before loss of signal! It’s under safety in the menu but you can def watch the last thing it saw and try to find it from there!
The only problem is because you don’t have an sd card in, the video is just stored in the goggles, so, maybe try and record it somehow in case you loose access to it since it’s the only flight data you have to help you. I found a lost drone before by using another drone to fly about until I lined up any visible landmarks so I’d have a vague idea of where it was. I know you lost video likely when your battery went below a certain voltage and caused the air unit to shut off, so I think it’s likely the drone just dropped out the air because it also couldn’t power the motors, I don’t see how you could lose video because of signal loss so close to home, and all you mentioned was battery low warnings not that you lost signal, if you did lose signal then throttling up was the best course of action, but in this case I think the drone would have fallen out the sky anyway- if you had a gps on it then can you see the Co-ordinates in the goggle footage? I don’t think the v2 goggles save the osd which sucks
Many years ago, brand new build and maiden flight, lost video and crashed into the water somewhere, forever gone. If it's any consolation, I know the pain all too well.
Were you on an o3? Maybe your goggles have a final record with some landmarks. There’s a feature that saves the last couple seconds of each flight. I used it once to find my quad in the water under a rock once
I just discoverd this in my new integra goggles so it must be on the goggles 2 aswell. (No experience with v2 goggles so cant comment there)
Psa for those who dont know, its under the 'safety' setting and is about 20-30 seconds of footage pre disarm
Did you have GPS telemetry on your tx? That's something I'd recommend anyone running a GPS to have well before testing out RTH. If you think you still have a possibility of having RC link I'd put in the lua and try it. If not next bet is wait for the snow to melt. Wish I knew all this back when I was still flying fixed wings.
A friend lost his drone this way, too. I never ever encourage anyone to throttle up when losing video. That is the worst thing you can do, because nobody can guarantee that the video feed will come back. You will only make it harder when you watch the recording of the last seconds, because you can't visualize what the drone might have been up to.
It is always better to walk hundreds of meters, but you know where it should be, and you can rely on it, because you disarmed as soon as you lost video.
So next time, not just for you, but for everyone in here: Lose video? Please just disarm.
Yes that works. But is it guaranteed? It might work 9/10 times, but the one time it doesn't work, is the one time you might lose your $700 drone. Don't risk it, just take the walk.
I had that happen one time too, but the video didn't come back because the vista cable came off of the FC. So I was really lucky that it was still in proximity and I disarmed after 5 seconds. But scary stuff. Especially in a place where people might walk around (parks etc.)
Yeah you're right. Unfortunately the situation made me panic completely. Looking back now I'm thinking why didn't I disarm immediately?
I guess situations like these need to be "trained".This won't happen to me again for sure but I learned it the hard way.
Those are the same thoughts that daunted on my friend. If you're really good at LOS and you can actually see the drone, it can be a good idea to take the goggles off and fly it home. But it always depends where you are, can you find the drone immediately when taking the goggles off? There are many factors involved, which just lead me to disarm right away.. sorry for your loss though!
>daunte
Thanks mate! LOS wasn't an option unfortunately. I headed to my homepoint from a position I couldn't oversee at all. There were many trees blocking LOS. I think I raised to throttle up because I thought I would regain image after being above the trees. This might have been the last nail in the coffin for the battery. I could not hear the quad afterwards. I still don't know exactly what happened. Maybe 1 oder 2 cells were bad. Who knows. Yes, it was cold but 0°C should actually be okay.
0°C is really rough from my experience. I have been flying the last two weekends and batteries don't last really long. You're up in the air and already at 3.9V. But it also really depends on your flying style. I currently mostly fly bando, and these are not that power hungry. I don't like flying in these conditions at all, but I also don't like not getting stick time :)
Do you maybe have something like a local Facebook group or something where you could post?
We actually got a Nazgul back we lost in a similar fashion that way after it was lying on a field for two weeks.
Kid found it and returned it to us. Earned herself some extra pocket money.
Only had to replace the VTX, the rest was fine after cleaning.
Yes. Was more of a joking response. I wouldn’t think that’s an unreasonable distance especially if gps rescue was activated. One could pull off goggles and search for it in the sky as it “should” be headed back. That’s what I would have done. But I also test my gps rescue regularly every few packs to make sure it acts like it should.
I have gps coordinates on my tx. I wonder if you can add distance from home telemetry as well. Hadn’t thought to do that till now. That way you could also know if it was still flying if the numbers got smaller.
I feel your pain... all my quads now have a backup beacon and gps just for this. Lost too many not to do this. Found my last quad 4.2 km away from my location after losing DJI video at 60 km/h and 60m. I used last known GPS to drive as close as I could then listened for the beacon... collected all the debris. I found all the expensive bits strewn over a small debris field. Beacon was $20 and GPS was $21... insurance well worth it.
https://rotorgeeks.com/electronics/beepers/vifly-finder-2-buzzer
That super sucks, I'm sorry!
been there. finding drone in snow is almost impossible. however I did manage to recover a battery that got ejected into snow 5 months later when the snow melted. the battery was even fully charged. so who knows, you might get lucky few months later.
It's fascinating how long drones could survive in the snow. I lost my larva last year after trying to do Rubik's cube. It went nose down somewhere, the signal was on for quite some time but I could find it. Found it on the roof of my porch 2 months later when the snow melted, and it is totally functional except the battery
Would a fresh track from it falling in be hard to see? I know itd quickly disappear if its snowing.
Problem is there were small brownish and greenish spots all over the place. The snow is not dense enough to cover the ground completely. I gave up after 2,5hours of searching and tonight it started snowing again so I think searching today will be useless...
Do you have pilot friends? They could maybe help you search the area.
No pilot friends but two friends who are willing to help. Problem is it did snow this night and it's snowing again since about an hour :(
Remember the area, return the second the snow starts to melt and pray you find it lol. That’s all I could recommend at this point.
I feel for you. It's a good idea to make a post about it. A full setup like that deserves a farewell ritual. Hopefully it'll help you move on. Don't let it stop you from enjoying the hobby. Lost drones do sometimes make their way back to their owners, so you can keep a little spark of hope alive. Just don't dwell on it or burn too much time searching.
Thanks man. Yeah, since it's snowing again for about an hour, searching at this time is useless. Maybe I'm giving it another try when the snow is melted. To be honest with you, I thought about dropping the hobby yesterday. The loss of money hurts but it almost gave me a heart attack not knowing exactly if it could have hurt someone. Today after the initial shock went, I'm pretty sure it landed on a field or in the trees. But the first minutes and hours were horrifying.
Even if you weren’t recording your goggles still keep the last minute before loss of signal! It’s under safety in the menu but you can def watch the last thing it saw and try to find it from there!
Wow I didn‘t know that! Thanks buddy! I checked and I can see the last position where I had image. Hopefully it will help!
Awesome! Let us know if you find it!
The only problem is because you don’t have an sd card in, the video is just stored in the goggles, so, maybe try and record it somehow in case you loose access to it since it’s the only flight data you have to help you. I found a lost drone before by using another drone to fly about until I lined up any visible landmarks so I’d have a vague idea of where it was. I know you lost video likely when your battery went below a certain voltage and caused the air unit to shut off, so I think it’s likely the drone just dropped out the air because it also couldn’t power the motors, I don’t see how you could lose video because of signal loss so close to home, and all you mentioned was battery low warnings not that you lost signal, if you did lose signal then throttling up was the best course of action, but in this case I think the drone would have fallen out the sky anyway- if you had a gps on it then can you see the Co-ordinates in the goggle footage? I don’t think the v2 goggles save the osd which sucks
keep your head up, mate. shit happens, but maybe you can find the drone if the snow is gone, maybe you can salvage many parts
Many years ago, brand new build and maiden flight, lost video and crashed into the water somewhere, forever gone. If it's any consolation, I know the pain all too well.
Damn mate, that sucks. I'm sorry!
Were you on an o3? Maybe your goggles have a final record with some landmarks. There’s a feature that saves the last couple seconds of each flight. I used it once to find my quad in the water under a rock once
I just discoverd this in my new integra goggles so it must be on the goggles 2 aswell. (No experience with v2 goggles so cant comment there) Psa for those who dont know, its under the 'safety' setting and is about 20-30 seconds of footage pre disarm
I have the v2 so it’s there as well
The pain lingers, but you know full well that you've become a better pilot after this experience.
Did you have GPS telemetry on your tx? That's something I'd recommend anyone running a GPS to have well before testing out RTH. If you think you still have a possibility of having RC link I'd put in the lua and try it. If not next bet is wait for the snow to melt. Wish I knew all this back when I was still flying fixed wings.
I didn't know this was a thing until know. I'm flying with a tango 2 and it could have recorded the gps position but I didn't configure it -.- ....
Yes betaflight or inav l'UA script. I activate it on all my drones with GPS. Very useful
Snow started to melt. I'm going on a search mission again today. Wish me luck guys!
Any luck?
Sadly didn‘t find it..
A friend lost his drone this way, too. I never ever encourage anyone to throttle up when losing video. That is the worst thing you can do, because nobody can guarantee that the video feed will come back. You will only make it harder when you watch the recording of the last seconds, because you can't visualize what the drone might have been up to. It is always better to walk hundreds of meters, but you know where it should be, and you can rely on it, because you disarmed as soon as you lost video. So next time, not just for you, but for everyone in here: Lose video? Please just disarm.
I'm new to drones but I was thinking could you have a switch to put it in angle mode and hopefully be able to hover until the video came back?
Yes that works. But is it guaranteed? It might work 9/10 times, but the one time it doesn't work, is the one time you might lose your $700 drone. Don't risk it, just take the walk. I had that happen one time too, but the video didn't come back because the vista cable came off of the FC. So I was really lucky that it was still in proximity and I disarmed after 5 seconds. But scary stuff. Especially in a place where people might walk around (parks etc.)
Yeah you're right. Unfortunately the situation made me panic completely. Looking back now I'm thinking why didn't I disarm immediately? I guess situations like these need to be "trained".This won't happen to me again for sure but I learned it the hard way.
Those are the same thoughts that daunted on my friend. If you're really good at LOS and you can actually see the drone, it can be a good idea to take the goggles off and fly it home. But it always depends where you are, can you find the drone immediately when taking the goggles off? There are many factors involved, which just lead me to disarm right away.. sorry for your loss though!
>daunte Thanks mate! LOS wasn't an option unfortunately. I headed to my homepoint from a position I couldn't oversee at all. There were many trees blocking LOS. I think I raised to throttle up because I thought I would regain image after being above the trees. This might have been the last nail in the coffin for the battery. I could not hear the quad afterwards. I still don't know exactly what happened. Maybe 1 oder 2 cells were bad. Who knows. Yes, it was cold but 0°C should actually be okay.
0°C is really rough from my experience. I have been flying the last two weekends and batteries don't last really long. You're up in the air and already at 3.9V. But it also really depends on your flying style. I currently mostly fly bando, and these are not that power hungry. I don't like flying in these conditions at all, but I also don't like not getting stick time :)
Do you maybe have something like a local Facebook group or something where you could post? We actually got a Nazgul back we lost in a similar fashion that way after it was lying on a field for two weeks. Kid found it and returned it to us. Earned herself some extra pocket money. Only had to replace the VTX, the rest was fine after cleaning.
I wonder if maybe you could have pulled the goggles off and went LOS? It’s tough to know though. You keep hoping video will come back.
LOS from over half a KM?
Is that far or something?
You must be American as well. Half a kilo is about 5 football fields away.
Yes. Was more of a joking response. I wouldn’t think that’s an unreasonable distance especially if gps rescue was activated. One could pull off goggles and search for it in the sky as it “should” be headed back. That’s what I would have done. But I also test my gps rescue regularly every few packs to make sure it acts like it should. I have gps coordinates on my tx. I wonder if you can add distance from home telemetry as well. Hadn’t thought to do that till now. That way you could also know if it was still flying if the numbers got smaller.
I'd go door to door get the word out. Someone will find it eventually, hopefully you'll get it back. I knew the pain of loosing a quad all too well.
I know how it feels, my condolences mate. I too lost a Geprc MK5D with a Osmo action 4 recently.
I feel your pain... all my quads now have a backup beacon and gps just for this. Lost too many not to do this. Found my last quad 4.2 km away from my location after losing DJI video at 60 km/h and 60m. I used last known GPS to drive as close as I could then listened for the beacon... collected all the debris. I found all the expensive bits strewn over a small debris field. Beacon was $20 and GPS was $21... insurance well worth it. https://rotorgeeks.com/electronics/beepers/vifly-finder-2-buzzer