Yesterday Jehu II took quite a tumble.
I’ve been doing a lot of flying. Nearly every day. And though the Syma X8G would be considered by most to be a “toy” (which is a designation I agree with for sure) it has enabled me to get quite good at flying. So much so that two local aero clubs have told me that I’m “far from a novice”. I’ll take it.
The weather lately has been great for flying. Warm, windless evenings make for some of the most picturesque, enjoyable and relaxing flight times. And last evening was no different. So, why the tumble? It was the result of me being a bit careless, of course.
I’ve had a few hairy experiences that I’ve managed to pull out of unscathed, which makes last night’s tumble all the more disappointing. One happened about a week and a half ago. I was flying alone at a local park and there is a wind stream that comes off of the nearby lake that pushes your craft out and away from the landing strip. Just a few days prior someone had told me that a pilot lost a new, fairly expensive, somewhat autonomous UAV, in this same wind stream. That UAV had “return to home” and that didn’t even work. The UAV is lost.
I met this pilot on Wednesday. I felt bad for him. And I told him how I got caught in the same wind stream but managed to get my UAV back. How? Well, for a few moments I too thought my craft was gone for good. Even at full-throttle the UAV simply wasn’t strong enough to fight the wind current. And it was quickly 500′ away and 150′ up. The only way to get the UAV back, I found, was by getting as close to the tops of the trees as possible (probably 60-80′) and zig-zag slowly back and forth towards me. At 500 or so feet away, and using only line-of-sight, it is hard to tell how close you are to the tops of trees. But after several minutes of fighting the wind I was finally able to get in front of the tree line and swoop low enough to come all the way back. It was a nail biting few minutes.
Last night, though, came down to simple distraction. A young boy showed up where I was flying with his – I think – grandmother. The moment he was out of the car he made a B-line directly to me since he saw me flying. His grandmother had absolutely no control over this even though she was trying to get him to come back. He was immediately rifling through my things and asking to fly the UAV. I looked away from where I was flying for just a moment to see what he was doing and came down pretty hard for a tumble.
Here is the result, a cracked body.
The crash was my fault, not the little boy’s. No matter what I should keep my eye on the craft until it is down safely.
Today I’ll spend some time seeing if Jehu II can be repaired enough to squeeze a few more flight hours out of it before I hang it up for good and get something new. The more I hang with the aero clubs the more I’m considering getting a plane. But something is still pulling me towards an upgraded UAV with GPS and a nice camera. I wonder what I’ll end up with.
Update: A bit of glue and some tape and Jehu II is flying just fine.