I lost one of my quads recently. It was a heavily modified Force1 F200C consumer quad. It had FPV (Ratel 2) and 4K (Thumb Pro). I was hovering around 300-400 feet out over the river (out of sight but using FPV) near my house when it did a violet flip then started to tumble (the FPV went out behind heavy trees). I did I kayak search for an hour or so but it obviously sunk. I got to the river minutes after the crash and I noticed two turkey vultures circling in the currents right where I was flying. Did I have a bird strike? A power outage would have taken the FPV camera with it but I could watch the beginning of the tumble. Radio disconnect and the quad has GPS and would return to home. This quad has dozens of flights in this configuration and has been very reliable. Hmmm??
So my question is two-fold. How often does the quad community see bird strikes on their drones? Can a stablized quad like the F200C recover from a hard tumble like a bird strike by itself? (Obviously if a blade was broken in a strike it would tumble). Thoughts?
So my question is two-fold. How often does the quad community see bird strikes on their drones? Can a stablized quad like the F200C recover from a hard tumble like a bird strike by itself? (Obviously if a blade was broken in a strike it would tumble). Thoughts?