T’was the Thanksgiving holiday time the last four days and it was relaxing. That means I did nothing, no exercise or anything but this was only because I was SICK the entire four days!
Yes, I was sick the entire holiday time. I had to skip dinner with friends and could not taste anything until last night around 4:00 pm. There was no really good eating, either good for me or good tasting. I am officially not giving any vitals today as I know they won’t be the best.
I came close to losing my Spark again. I went flying Wednesday night and I don’t think the batteries were up to the flight. They were charged but I think the cold weather got the better of them. Anyway about eight minutes into the flight the drone became a bit unresponsive and started to land where she was. Not far away and not any kind of hard landing, just wend down in what looked like a grassy area. I quickly left and headed out toward where I thought it was and ran into a couple that had found it. Fantastic of them, just asked if I was looking for anything and handed it over. I did lose the battery though.
I made some Tater tot Casserole during the holiday weekend, one was made on Wednesday evening but by that time my taste buds were so far gone I had no clue if it turned out good or not. I made the second yesterday and by the afternoon I could taste and was pleasantly surprised by my creation. Not really my creation but one I found online. I’ll edit with the picture I took before placing in the oven.
I have been sick all week. These people at work, they think they are being good for the company by coming to work sick and they give all us health folks the flu, colds etc.. I think I’ll make the comment during the next staff meeting. If you are sick, DO NOT COME IN TO WORK!
I had an interesting weekend of flying. I had done all my pre-flight checks, batteries, props, drone body, memory card and everything else I could think of except….. you’ll see..
I started the flight around 6:45 am on a beautiful Saturday morning. It was a little chilly but by batteries were kept warm and just charged the night before. My controller had the parabolic range extenders on and I was on my was to fly over the top of my normal flight area. I lingered around over the flight area, turned to the right towards the freeway (I do not fly over the freeway, just turned towards the freeway). I kept turning toward the right and was heading toward another flight area of mine all the while keeping the drone within visual range. I had been flying for approximately five minutes and this is when the fun started.
My phone died! Yes, the one thing I did not check was the battery level of the phone.
My screen went black and after a little panic attack when the phone died I lost visual of the drone. I kept calm and mashed the RTH (Return To Home) button and prayed… After about two minutes I heard the drone flying over head and then it dropped down out of the sky right where it had taken off from. Missed a little and crashed through the branches of the tree but all was good. I charged up my phone and flew again about tree hours later.
Below is a picture of when signal was lost from my phone and then the crash.
Phone died and drone lost signal hereReturning home. You can see my location but after a brief panic period I had lost the droneDropping down thru the trees outside my homeCrash landing but all is well. No damage and was flying again after a phone recharge about 5 hours later.
My new toys
Force1 F100 beginner drone: This is not for beginners. No GPS – intermediate outside flights only. Watch the propellers with or without guardsDJI Tello: Great for beginners both inside and out. Make sure you get the remote to make for a much easier flying experience. Wind will tend to take the drone outside.DJI Spark: Great for all levels of flying experience, just a joy to fly. Sports a 1080p HD camera on a 2 axis gimbal.
