I've had a busy week! Sunday night I went out to the desert with the intention of doing some night photography, then flying my drone in the morning. I camped out at a spot somewhere between Ocotillo and Dos Cabesas.
When I planned the trip it was supposed to be cloudy along the coast and clear in the desert, but then Tropical Storm Rosa took a turn inland over Baja. As a result, I had cloudy skies and occasional sprinkles at my campsite. No chance to get any time-lapse of the stars, so I tried it with the clouds. These actually turned out to be pretty interesting, with different layers of clouds moving in different directions. I haven't finished putting together the video yet, but I'll post it as soon as I can.
In the morning on Monday, it was still mostly overcast, but I could see sun up in the mountains. So I decided to go there to fly my drone. Found a nice area with a dead-end road going up a canyon, plenty of sun with scattered clouds.
I flew the drone through the canyon, and above the trees, then took it down low and flew between the trees. Unfortunately a strong gust of wind came up just as I was passing close by a large oak, and I didn't react quick enough to keep it from blowing the drone into the tree. It was about 30 feet up from the nearest place I could get underneath it. The arrows in the next two photos show the location of the drone in the tree:
At first I tried tying a rock to the end of a nylon rope, twirling it, and releasing it up towards the tree. A few times I was able to snag a lower branch and shake it, but I could never get the rock/rope high enough. I spent a couple hours doing this until I ended up with an open blister:
So then I drove to the nearest small town and bought some PVC conduit. I thought could use this to create a pole tall enough to knock down the drone. Unfortunately the PVC wasn't stiff enough to do the job, so I had to give up and go home.
I ordered a 24-foot, aluminum extension pole online, and it arrived on Wednesday. I drove back out there Wednesday evening for Round Two. The pole alone wasn't long enough, so I opened up a coat hanger and taped it to the end of the pole, leaving the hook at the top end. But I couldn't maneuver the pole through the lower branches without bending back the wire hanger. By then it was starting to get dark anyway, so I went home again. On the way, I encountered a couple deer which suddenly ran across the road as I came around a bend:
On Friday I returned for Round Three. This time I was armed with a 1/4" fiberglass rod, which I taped to the end of the extension pole. A wire hook was taped to the end of the rod. After just a few tries, I was finally able to get it hooked onto the branch where the drone was, and shook it loose. The lower branches slowed the drone's fall, and a thick layer of dead leaves helped to cushion its impact. No damage at all! Just a little dusty:
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some folks here on the Forum got Frucked over by some Bumper Company that I will not name :/
