At a small seaside town, Ogmore-by-Sea, there are 3 things that attracts visitors- the vast sand dunes, the castles and the perilous cliffs! During my visit, we got to experience them all, but as the titles suggests, yes my drone crashed and unfortunately it also looks like it is beyond repair.
From the view point that walks out along the headland, you can see the entire length of the cliffs stretching round the bay. There is a steep, cut-out footpath that leads you down to the beach but getting caught out by the tide is definitely something everyone needs to plan for as there is only one escape.
As we walked around, talking photos and letting the dogs swim in the sea I searched for a nice flat take off spot. All was going well apart from the video feed on the app which randomly froze and caused a short video lag on a couple of occasions. These 'hiccups' are considered normal once you have been flying for a while!
My last battery was running out and I had a few more scenes that I wanted to film. With a strong wind coming in from the sea, the Mavic Pro drone was either picking up speed or flying rather slow if traveling into the wind. Trying to 'pan-out' of a certain rock formation, I flew backwards in the direction of the wind. The drone reversed parallel with the cliff face, offset by a safe 50 meters or so.
Upon starting the scene I was 400+ meters from the headland that curved round (also where I was standing), with a plan to stop at least 150-200 meters before the rocks, leaving plenty of space.
This didn't happen! The video started to freeze and I believed I was someone further ahead. The strong wind gave extra speed and as I prepared to hold my position and stop flying (allowing for the controller+app to reconnect/catch-up) I heard a crash and small rock fall to my left off in the distance. I was sure I was nowhere near 'that' location and tried to spot the drone hovering. To my horror, the app then displayed a message reading something along the lines of 'aircraft disconnected'.
Running to the scene of the accident, I saw my drone in pieces lying at the foot of the cliff with a decapitated camera/gimbal, bent and cracked arms, lost or chipped propellers, a smashed chassis, a flashing but destroyed battery and lots of dents and scratches!
The video that was recording at the time of the crash showed nothing, just a instant video cut or instant death! There was no tumble or crash like in many other drone accidents.
The rest of the memory card worked fine and the 10Gb of photos and videos of the day were saved. I have posted the photos here but the video is still being edited and will be posted soon.
The photo above shows the section of cliff (just to the right of the green slope in the center) that my drone flew into!
The sand dunes to the west of the cliffs were endless. Dozens of trails led you up and over the sandy hills to the beach. There were footpath markers, but to be honest it would have been difficult to get lost as all paths led to the beach.
If you are also a drone flyer, don't forget to instantly react when there is any kind of lag in the video feed or app! Don't do what I did and stay away from cliffs. Trust me, it's a sad moment seeing your drone in pieces :(
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