Day Two of ORCA in Switzerland

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We are in ORCA day two in Switzerland and I crashed the drone. I also avoided the shops because of the behaviour I witnessed yesterday.

The weather is excellent at the moment. Sunny, warm, and without wind. These are perfect conditions for drone flying so I thought I’d take advantage. I forgot to put an SD card in the drone so instead of flying and trying to get video I put it in sports mode. I played in the field, flying forwards, backwards, going up, down and more. Eventually, I flew towards the trees and decided that I would get the drone to fly in between trees as I have done in the past.

Previously I put the drone back into normal mode and this time I forgot so the drone hit something and “bounced”. I’ve seen this type of bounce before so I decided to put full throttle upwards. Instead of flying up and clearing the branches it got unstuck and fell to the ground. I thought that it would fall through and hit a few branches and land in the mud. The issue is that the drone was further forward than I thought and it fell through the branches and hit an asphalt road. This broke the rear right arm and loosened that motor. Other than that the battery fell off.

Some people fly their drone and crash during their first flight, or after ten flights. It took 166 flights before I had a serious crash with this drone. Before this crash, I had knicked the propellers on branches or other branches but nothing serious. If it had been above the forest floor it would have been fine. The fall was slowed down the whole way. Mud would have saved the drone.

The break is clean so I can try fixing it with the right kind of glue. I also need to find a way to get the affected motor back into its housing. The second option is to buy the plastic component that houses all the engines.

We will see if I find a way to resolve this issue.