I messed up today. Make me feel better by sharing your drone mistakes.

[NothingBurger]

I can't just say I screwed up without explaining myself, so, here we go.

I fly golf courses a lot and I was flying one today. Up at 4am and out of the house by 520 to be there just before sunrise. I make it there on time and start flying once the light is good enough. 10 holes went relatively smooth. After #10, it's time to change the battery. I do all of my flying in C mode. I speed things up in editing if I need to. Well, all of us DJI pilots are probably familiar with the mode reverting to N after powering off the drone. I start my recording and send the drone along its merry way and then realize I'm in the wrong mode. No big deal, right. I bring the drone back, change the mode and I'm off to the races once more.

Well, in all the excitement ( ), I flew the entire hole without starting the recording. Now I get to get up at o'dark thirty again to drive 40 miles to film one hole.

I was looking forward to sleeping in a little bit tomorrow before I had to jump on the computer to start editing. I feel like a dunce.

Now you all get to share your mistakes.

 

[Airmapper]

It happens.

I once lost a whole flight of lidar data somewhere between the drones memory stick, my laptop, and the office. Never knew what exactly happened, I suspect I just missed it in the transfer and I cleared the storage after so many flights. It turned out not to be a big deal because I wasn't done with the site that day and had to return regardless, so I picked up that area my next visit.

The survey drone used a rather unique USB drive as it's storage device, one I could not simply substitute with any I had laying around. I once left that in my office PC and had to go back to get it. I was only 15min away so it didn't turn out to be a big thing just annoying.

Now the silly one is I was flying this remote field, and was out this dirt track road in the edge of nowhere and since it was so remote I decided to let the car radio play while I worked. Well the work vehicle had a rather junk battery and I didn't know that and ended up stranded. Luckily there was a local survey crew working on the next property over (still a few miles away) I met earlier in the day (not even the company I worked for, but one we were friendly with.) I called their office and they sent a crew chief who kindly gave me a jump. I felt extra stupid because I had a generator with me, but not the cable that would connect it to a 12v battery, or enough scraps of wire to make one, or I could have boosted myself.....that went back into my kit the next day.

 

[Custom Drone Work]

Stuff happens

Like Airmapper I killed my truck battery recharging my drone batteries. I didn't realize it but my inverter expected a smaller vehicle needing less juice to start it so the low voltage cutout on the inverter was way less than what I need. Called a friend who came out and gave me a hotshot.

Was about an hour away from home taking pics of a gas station convenience store. It was in Class C airspace so I should have had authorization (this is before LAANC) but I was exploiting a loophole where the tower shut down on Sundays so it was Class E on Sundays. Got home and realized half the pics I took were of the gas station convenience store across the street from the one I was supposed to be shooting. Had to wait till the following Sunday since the pics had to be done between noon and 2.

I got a million of em!

 

[Sierra Drone Concepts LLC]

It happens.

I once lost a whole flight of lidar data somewhere between the drones memory stick, my laptop, and the office. Never knew what exactly happened, I suspect I just missed it in the transfer and I cleared the storage after so many flights. It turned out not to be a big deal because I wasn't done with the site that day and had to return regardless, so I picked up that area my next visit.

The survey drone used a rather unique USB drive as it's storage device, one I could not simply substitute with any I had laying around. I once left that in my office PC and had to go back to get it. I was only 15min away so it didn't turn out to be a big thing just annoying.

Now the silly one is I was flying this remote field, and was out this dirt track road in the edge of nowhere and since it was so remote I decided to let the car radio play while I worked. Well the work vehicle had a rather junk battery and I didn't know that and ended up stranded. Luckily there was a local survey crew working on the next property over (still a few miles away) I met earlier in the day (not even the company I worked for, but one we were friendly with.) I called their office and they sent a crew chief who kindly gave me a jump. I felt extra stupid because I had a generator with me, but not the cable that would connect it to a 12v battery, or enough scraps of wire to make one, or I could have boosted myself.....that went back into my kit the next day.

I got a good chuckle out of that one. There's nothing like having your friendly competition send over a rescue boat. And especially having your own generator but no cables that's just comical. Have been in similar situations myself so I can appreciate the story.