And the Drone Save Of The Year Goes To...

If you are a quadcopter owner like I am, you know how frustrating it can be when you are in the middle of a great flight and those red lights start flashing that warn the pilot of low battery. Usually the pilot will return the aircraft safely to their side before the impending doom occurs. Unfortunately, YouTube user Redphive didn't notice the warning lights while flying over the lake behind his home. All of a sudden, you see the drone start falling and the pilot start freaking out. At one point it looks like he considers getting in the canoe for the rescue, but realizes this course of action would take too long. Eventually, he decides to empty his pockets (although his wallet does take a dive) and franticly runs into the water in a feeble, yet amazing attempt to save this $1,000 aircraft. 

Lesson of the day: Watch your battery indicators!

Michael Bonocore's picture

Michael is a full time photographer, traveler and workshop teacher based out of San Francisco, California. Michael's passion lies in international photojournalism, which has brought him to lead photography workshops around the globe. Michael has written guest articles for companies such as Matador Networks, SmugMug, and Borrow Lenses.

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15 Comments

I love the moment where he tries to toss his wallet out, drops it in the water and is clearly thinking: "well, it's wet now anyway! SAVE THE DRONE!"

And the irony is, he would have needed that wallet if the drone took a swim :)

Thanks for the story. It is fun seeing how other people interpret what happened. I was the one that posted the video to YouTube.

The nice thing is that Canadian dollars are waterproof :) So thankfully I would have kept that no problem.

Hey Aaron! Thanks for coming by! Canadian dollars are waterproof?

Yeah, I guess they are more resilient and last longer. And we have a habit of finding our wallets in lakes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Series#Production

And thats Why I love the ISOMini, live feed of all my flight stats, including battery percentage. Always start to head home for a landing at 25% (unless you are flying off a boat and plan to land back on the boat, I have been told start coming back at 50%).

Austin, yea...I am regretting my decision to not by the drone already set up with that. :(

Yeah I got mine and the first month of flying it I had no FOV setup. it was a nightmare. Its well worth the money. It really helps to practice with it, as im now able to get much more reliable footage.

Yeah, I think I am going to make the investment soon!

So I had bought a full kit with video downlink and display but hadn't considered the iOSD on my initial purchase. I had however committed to buying one before this video was made but it wouldn't have arrived before my five day vacay. The GoPro status does give me the recording run time which is good but I wasn't really paying attention to it.

Have a link to the ISOMini?

Lol!!!! Well that was fun! And it was saved;)

hustle always counts

Trying to picture you doing a dash like this...I have video of George sprinting across a field too lol!

Hmm... I think it would've been funnier if there would've been a drop off at the end of the pier like there often is, and he had to let the drone land on his back or stomach and swim back to shore. Now that would've been epic! :)

AND ALWAYS set your "return home" fail-safe marker! :)