The first time I flew my DJI Phantom 4, it was nearly destroyed from crashing into the Colorado River in San Marcos, TX!
Watch the recovered video footage on DLive.
https://dlive.io/video/nathanedge/8f79a117-a6b7-11e8-bd4b-0242ac110003
The maximum flight time for a Phantom 4 is 28 minutes, and this is a story about the time I took it to the absolute limit, while shooting out at a local music festival.
The week my drone arrived in the mail, was the week of Float Fest. The idea of Float Fest is to float down the Colorado River in an inner-tube, and at the end, you hop out of the water and stroll into a music festival. It's a pretty unique concept.
I remember when Float Fest launched, it really blew my mind, because they combined two of my favorite activities:
- Getting drunk on a lazy river
- Raging at a music festival
Needless to say I was super excited and eager to get out there and create some amazing content!
My goal was to make a video that captured the full festival experience. I flew down the river, passing over countless tubers, which resembled a river of fruit-loops from the birds eye view. I had flown earlier that day, so my battery was already low. I flew as far down the river as I could, until a notification popped up, telling me to return home.
30% seemed like a lot of battery life to me... So, I naively shrugged my shoulders, tapped 'ignore' and continued to fly towards the campgrounds. I just wanted to get back to the festival and shoot some seamless footage at that location, before ending the flight. Every 5% decrease, the drone reminded me to go home, and every time I would simply ignore the notification.
I successfully made it back to the festival like I wanted, but then I had a BIG problem... The drone engaged an EMERGENCY LANDING! I tried to fight it, but my attempts proved futile. The drone was relentlessly dropping from the sky at a faster and faster rate. Once I realized that I had lost the altitude control, I panned the camera down and discovered that I was descending directly above the water. I scrambled! With maybe 30 seconds to react, I sent the drone darting randomly into the direction of the closest open field. I didn't even know where the drone was at this point, I couldn't see it, all I knew was that I couldn't let it hit the water or an innocent bystander. I sure didn't want the drone to get confiscated or stolen either.
Luckily, I crashed the drone behind a tent, and no-one seemed to really notice, as the camera twitched from side-to-side in the tall grass. However, it landed on the opposite side of the river from where I had taken off... I set the controller down and swam across the river. Frantically, I ran up and down the banks looking for the drone, but I couldn't find it anywhere. After about 20 minutes, I gave up, and swam back across the water to review the video footage again. I recognized the massive pile of tubes and the blue tent where the drone came down, and thought I had a good idea of where the drone might be. Once again, I swam across the river in search of the drone. Low and behold, there it was sitting all by its lonesome! It wasn't until I crossed the river one more time, carrying the drone above my head, that I had finally completed the drone rescue. I looked around and I could tell everyone was watching, hoping I might just drop it in the water, but I didn't.
I took a well deserved break, and then popped in a fresh battery to capture some magical night footage.
Chromeo was performing when I took this shot.
Watch the recovered video footage on DLive.
https://dlive.io/video/nathanedge/8f79a117-a6b7-11e8-bd4b-0242ac110003
Special thanks to @pearlcharles for providing the instrumental to her song 'All The Boys' for the drone video!
After this whole fiasco, I vowed to always return home for now on when the drone notifies me to do so :)