It started as a lovely day for a drone flight over Loch Leven in Scotland. The weather was calm and overcast. Perfect for flying and photography and within minutes it turned into a disaster.
It was the 13th March 2022 and we were on a tour of Scotland. It had been a brilliant trip so far but now things took a turn to the surreal.
I got the drone up and sent it out over the lake after doing some safety checks on the controls. Everything seemed nominal and so I sent the drone down the lake.
I was getting some great cinematic video footage and was focussed on the scenery rather than on the direction of the drone. I had figured. "What could possible go wrong?" I'm over water away from any people or livestock. This is brilliant.
As I turned the drone to come back down the lake to film the mountains at the other end of the lake I had lost visual line of sight (VLOS) which means I could no longer see the drone. It was a disaster. I'm about to lose a £300 ($400) drone into the depths of Loch Leven.
The drone was pretty high up as you can see from the photo below so I just let go of the joystick controls and let it hover in place while I figured out what to do?
I must admit at this point a little panic set in and I basically forgot what to do. My first reaction was to bring the drone down so that I could at least maybe see it again.
I began to descend the drone as you can see in the low angle of the image below.
The waves are easily visible and I forgot that the altitude I was on was different to the altitude of the drone. I was about 8 feet above lake level. The DJI Mini SE has a ground facing sensor and luckily for me it must have detected the water and stopped automatically and hovered in place.
I had completely forgotten the most basic things to check in my slightly panicked mode and I'm sure plenty of you drone pilots out there are screaming at your screens right now. Telemetry, Telemetry, Telemetry!
In the image below is where the drone 'actually' was and I was looking in the opposite direction completely?
Some how I had managed to fly the drone right past where I was standing and hadn't noticed. The clock was ticking and the battery was getting low.
When the battery gets to a certain level the drone will return to it's take off starting point...again something that I had forgotten?
Another thing that I forgot was that on the controller is a direction indicator (telemetry) which shows which direction the drone is facing.
All rookie mistakes I know but in my defence I'd only had this drone a month at the time and wasn't used to such an advanced drone with all it's safety features. Even though I had test flown it a few times I was not very familiar with it's functionality.
I was operating on gut instinct at this point and with a bit of luck my little granddaughter Aiya spotted the drone and pointed and shouted out excitedly "it's over there". Which we all ignored to our shame. We were still panicking and told her to shush! lol
The video is quite funny as well as dramatic.
Aiya persisted and eventually got my attention. I looked in the direction she was pointing and still couldn't see the drone but as I gimbaled the camera up I saw myself coming into view standing on the lakeside bank.
The drone was in a location completely different to where I thought it was?
I started the drone back towards the shore and as it approached at speed I realised it was to low and may plough into the lakeside bank. I pulled it up higher and brought it back in.
This was the point below when I reaquired the drone visually.
I brought the drone in for a safe landing and was super relieved that we got it back safely thanks to Aiya's great eyesight.
Disaster averted I thought about it for quite some time. I had completed all the civil aviation tests and am a qualified drone pilot. I have all the theoretical knowledge but nothing prepares you for when things go wrong.
Fortunately DJI drones have so many safety features that I should have trusted that the drone would protect itself and return to it's take off position regardless of operator failure.
The reason most drones are lost is because operators interfere with the drones built in safety systems.
I'll leave you with a final shot of Loch Leven. Which photo do you like the best and did you enjoy the story?
Thank You Aiya 😘😘 and thank you for reading.