Hey all,

Here are the last few seconds of a flight before I crashed my AOS35, after which I could not find it. I was foolishly doing some power loop practice in an area where I didn't expect to crash, basically looking for the angle at which the quad was flying backwards without losing altitude, and attempting to complete the loop once it started losing altitude. It lost altitude faster than expected, but I've done this before so should have been surprised, and again, shouldn't have attempted it here. I keep making stupid mistakes, apparently not learning quickly enough from them.



I spent about two hours searching for it. I focused my search to the right and forward, since that looks like the way it was going when I lost video, but I also searched between the road and the pond to the left, and somewhat behind and to the right, but not real far.

Based on this video, where would you focus your search?

I'm thinking of doing a grid search with my Avata in N mode with the camera facing down.

When I play the video in ClipChamp at the slowest speed, I see a bunch of changes in the goggles OSD after the view freezes. I assume that the quad carried on after the view freeze, and that it just took some milliseconds for the digital processing to reflect what happened upon impact in the OSD.

I was on the other side of these ponds when it crashed, and it took me about 10 minutes to walk around the ponds and get to the place where it crashed. It's possible a jogger picked it up, but I hope not. This was when the sun was just coming up, so there weren't many people out yet, but I did see a couple of joggers as I was walking around the ponds.

Thanks.

i would watch about 100feet back to the last image, as you was still pitching back - a touch on the back motors would give a iterm-bounce and shoot it back. if you did wait with disarm, it could make mutch way from a bounce on the ground and a high throttlevalue from recovering

just an idea, i would look in the back, somehow faraway.

its often not where we beleive it could be, many times i was close to give up - but so far, i found them all :-)

good luck!

Thanks. Lemony also said in an email he would look behind the point of apparent impact. I will spend more time looking there.

Ive tried to train myself to disarm whenever I think I'll crash, but this happened so fast I can't remember if I did or not. I believe I lost rc signal as well as video immediately, which makes me think the battery disconnected, so it may have disarmed itself.

I'm pretty sure the finder was connected, so I was a bit surprised that I didn't hear it beeping at all when I was searching.

… sometimes you DONT want to find a lost quad.. I know tree across the street has a Kabob babytooth SOMEWHERE up there.. AND, my twig XL racer was about 60 feet up in a big oak.. I could SEE and HEAR IT.. it was up there for about 2 weeks..I did get it down.. but the babytooth is MIA..

(20-Aug-2023, 11:58 PM)Rob Axel Wrote: … sometimes you DONT want to find a lost quad.. I know tree across the street has a Kabob babytooth SOMEWHERE up there.. AND, my twig XL racer was about 60 feet up in a big oak.. I could SEE and HEAR IT.. it was up there for about 2 weeks..I did get it down.. but the babytooth is MIA..

I can’t think of a single instance where I wouldn’t want to find my quad, even if it’s stuck in a tree.

If I can see it, I’ve got a good chance of being able to retrieve it one way or another.


I don’t think aerokam’s quad is in a tree though.

I meant “finding” it.. because once you do locate it.. now the fun begins! I’ve seen a lot of different ways to rescue a quad..For me and the Spanish moss in the south.. I’ve found to just tie paracord to my 5” beater.. fly it LOS INTO the area where the stuck quad is.. and just pull on the line..I tried doing it fpv .. but Los was easier for some reason.. oh.. don’t try catching the falling quads.. 7-800 gram quads falling don’t catch like a football. They HURT

I spent about 10 minutes searching with the Avata; at one point a homeless guy came out of the trees along the creek and started throwing rocks at it--in reviewing the video it looks like he almost hit it. Searched for another half an hour on foot, focusing on the area behind where the quad crashed. No joy.

Either it's in the pond, hiding really well in a tree or some bushes, or someone took it. I don't think I'll be searching anymore.

Or that homeless guy ended up cooking it over a open campfire and had it for dinner..

Sorry for your loss, it sucks to lose a drone. I remember I lost my first drone at a multi-gp event when I was learning fpv (of course it was my favorite setup at that time). Everyone was assigned a spotter, but mine didn't come forward. The analog video blacked out shortly after take-off, thinking it would come back I stayed in the air, and when it didn't, I disarmed, but apparently it was too late. There was a small lake, not really that close, but I guess drones like large bodies of water and somehow manage to find its way there. The whole group helped search but to no avail, and in the end another pilot gave me a lost drone sticker, I don't know if that made me feel worse.
Since then I've lost a handful more drones over the years, but once you get your build momentum(addiction) going, a lost quad is a good excuse for adding another drone (or two) to the fleet.

(22-Aug-2023, 02:04 PM)mstc Wrote: Since then I've lost a handful more drones over the years, but once you get your build momentum(addiction) going, a lost quad is a good excuse for adding another drone (or two) to the fleet.

Exactly! I posted my 5" shopping cart earlier this morning, before my sunrise flights.

I know you've looked for it and not found it, but was there more to the video than what was shown? Because the video I saw it stopped on the pavement. If you maneuvered more after the video, I would look in the direction you moved the stick(s) after video loss.

I've found all of my O3 drones with that "last view" recording, and really like it. Saved my bacon. And kwads.

I hope you find it, sucks losing them. All of my pond dive tinywhoops are still around luckily. Only true loss so far was one I didn't get to in time in the road, little guy has a crushed canopy and smashed camera now. Will fix it eventually...

(28-Aug-2023, 05:53 PM)Pennywise Wrote: I know you've looked for it and not found it, but was there more to the video than what was shown? Because the video I saw it stopped on the pavement. If you maneuvered more after the video, I would look in the direction you moved the stick(s) after video loss.

I've found all of my O3 drones with that "last view" recording, and really like it. Saved my bacon. And kwads.

I hope you find it, sucks losing them. All of my pond dive tinywhoops are still around luckily. Only true loss so far was one I didn't get to in time in the road, little guy has a crushed canopy and smashed camera now. Will fix it eventually...

Nope, what I posted was the end of the video. It happened so fast that I can't say what I did with the sticks, when I disarmed, etc., after I lost video and rc connections, both of which seemed to happen at about the same time, as if the battery was disconnected upon impact. It that's actually what happened, it doesn't matter what I did with the tx at that point.

Yeah, I've used "camera view before loss" many times to find my quads in long grass. I used it here to find the exact spot where the last frame of the video was shot, and that was the center of my search radius. I haven't bothered searching again after the search that included the Avata with the homeless guy throwing rocks at it.

One reason I think it's in the pond or someone took it is that I did not hear the buzzer at all when searching minutes after the crash, and the ViFly buzzer that was on it should have been beeping if the battery was disconnected. Either that or it's buried deeply in some bushes that muffled the beeper enough that I couldn't hear it.

Hi aerokam,

I agree with Pennywise. I watched your video several times and even "slow" framed it.
From the last frame in the video, the quad is sitting on the pavement and quite a good
distance from both the water or any trees. I think the last video frame should be pretty
close to where it landed as it was not moving at that point in time.  Since it was basically 
sitting on the ground, I simply don't see how it could have moved from that location.

By walking down that pavement, you should have been able to find it unless someone
else (homeless guy?) picked it up. If any other people might have been in the area,
then I would suspect that someone snatched it. 

Sorry for your loss especially since it had digital gear. 

Where I live, trees are bad news. I lost one in a tree and could hear the buzzer, but
could not see it. Even though the tree was maybe 30 meters away, the underbrush
made it impossible to get to. Plus, it was not a climbable tree. Sometimes, knowing
where the quad is simply doesn't help much. 

Later, My Friend, iFly  

Hi aerokam,

I am putting this in a separate post just for clarity.

I viewed the video on full screen from your YouTube channel and stepped through
it about a frame at a time being very attentive to what was on the screen and 
noticing various landmarks including the bushes on the sides of the road. I went
through several times just to be sure that I wasn't missing anything. 

My conclusion is that the quad landed upright on the pavement of the road with
nothing around it. I don't see how the quad could have "jumped" into the water
since it was stopped on the pavement and not even close to the water. Also, there 
are absolutely no trees anywhere near where it landed and nothing in the video to
suggest that it was in any tree or brush. In my mind, the quad should have been 
quite visible and easy to find by anyone walking down that road. My guess is that 
it might have been picked up by someone else especially if it took some time for 
you to get to that location.




I don't know if this analysis helps or hurts.  


Later, My Friend, iFly  

(30-Aug-2023, 04:47 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: My guess is that it might have been picked up by someone else especially if it took some time for 
you to get to that location.

Thanks for all of the effort. That was my intuition as well. When I walked over there, I was expecting to find it on the road.

I guess I wasted the three or so hours I spent looking for it.

I was thinking of trying to find the homeless folks that live across the creek from where it crashed and offer them some money if the happen to "find" the drone.