In the accident two months ago that broke my wrist and tore the anterior cruciate ligament of my left knee, I fell backwards and landed on my backpack. In the backpack was a thermos filled with hot chocolatemilk. That thermos broke, leaving my backpack in quite a sticky mess. Also in my back pack that day was my drone, a DJI mini 2. It sat in my backpack in its own protective bag, yet it must have sustained a heavy blow. Because I was rather immobile since the accident, I hadn't tried whether it still would fly until this morning.
This morning started with beautiful weather. A sunny sky, wet meadows and low early morning mist low above the ditches and streams. A perfect occasion to bring out my drone again and to see whether it could still fly properly and whether the camera still functioned as it should.
Imagine my relieve to see it could still fly and the camera looked fully operational as well. As there are some stream near to where I live, I decided to make a litlle tour on my bike and make some shots of flying low over the water and some shots from above to show the stream in the surrounding landscape.
The thing about flying a drone is that it is easy when the drone flies in the same direction you're looking at. Pointing the sticks on the remote to the right makes the drone fly to the right and pointing the sticks to the left makes the drone fly to the right. Easy. When the drone is flying towards you, however, it is the other way around. Pointing the sticks to the right makes the drone go to the left from your point of view. So when the drone is flying towards you, you have to reverse your thinking. Which turns out quite a tricky thing to do for me.
Flying into a tree and craching into the ground is something most drones don't respond very well to. If you're lucky, one or several of the props are broken, Those are easily replaceable. if you're not so lucky, the damage is more extensive. And that is, assuming the drone crashes into the ground.
This morning I flew my drone across the stream in the picture above. Beatiful shot, following the water, turning and tilting the camera up to reveal more of the landscape. After the shot I flew to drone back to me. It got to near to the tree in the upper middle of the picture and I steered it to the right to avoid that tree. My right. The drone went obiently to it's right, which was, as it was flying towards me, my left. And crashed into the tree. And fell into the water.
Ooops!
The year 2021 is not a good year for me so far. Knee broken, most of my crypto gone, drone dead in the water. The Chinese name the year after an animal. Right now it is the Year of the Ox. If I see how 2021 is working out for me so far, I think I'll call it "The Year of the Stupid Mistakes". I wonder what other mistakes I am going to make? I hope I can laugh about them sometime...
