skydio 2+ had a small crash today

kenmavic2zoom · Sep 18, 2022

hand launched, motion tracking on, drone is in front of me at lowest settings, so no more than 8 feet off the ground and 8 feet in front of me. im on the bicycle going down a wooded path full of trees but the drone is doing an excellent job for the first minute because it's summer and there are green leaves and it's light out. next minute it hits one thin vertical branch handing downwards and the drone goes down like a sack of potatoes. battery and filter pops off but no other damage but i think i'm going to replace the props...just because. i kept flying for another couple of batteries, no issues.

couple of comments: that branch was so thin im not sure why it knocked down the drone. obviously i can see where the cameras missed it but my opinion is the drone should have wobbled and corrected. anyway, i'm starting to learn when the drone is tracking you (by beacon), every little twist and turn and the drone responds. i could have missed that vertical branch handing downwards from above had i turned my tire to the left for just a second but i turn it right and the drone instantly went right...right into the branch. when it gets tight down the path, i'm guiding the drone with tiny front wheel adjustments...away from branches. when you are riding a bicycle and going straight, the front wheel goes left and right along the bumpy trail; not perfectly straight. not sure the drone should be following those movements precisely. another mode perhaps?

drone is perfectly fine but i'm a little rattled; that wasn't pretty (no crash is pretty).

Ridefreak · Sep 21, 2022

Congratulations on a successful crash, I consider any crash where the drone remains operational a success.

I'm not surprised it didn't recover, one of the times when I had a similar problem (where it did recover) that maneuver took a bit of altitude to accomplish. It was going down a slope at a low alt and clipped a branch, with the slope falling away it had additional time to right itself, had the same thing happen at similar altitude when there wasn't a slope and it didn't recover in time. There's others on here that clip a wire and the drone falls out of the sky from much higher alt. To me self recovery seems hit or miss.

baksideDisasterFlicks · Sep 28, 2022

Motion tracking is erratic at best. I suggest using fixed track you'll have less wild swings and it's a lot easier to anticipate where it's going to go if you have some challenges in the environment. And **** consider yourself lucky it was unscathed. These drones don't take a crash well. I've had two go down and neither survived, one very similar small branch clip like yours at a just a couple feet off the ground.

kenmavic2zoom · Sep 29, 2022

yep i've since learned that fixed tracking is better in tight environments. i feel like i have to go back to that same space for a redo because it should not have been such a huge challenge.

Ridefreak · Sep 30, 2022

I use motion track most of the time in tight spaces electing to manually change positions occasionally for some variety in the scenes. I use it most often in tight environments.

I've tried fixed track and find it tends to get into places that are difficult to get out of when there's allot of clutter (branches/trees) in the environment. That can happen when flying motion track also. The main times I'll use fixed tracking is when I need to keep the sun out of the picture or capture a vista I'm riding along, that can be done with motion also. If it's wide open w/o a super bright sun I'll play around some with the settings but when I need it to thread a needle it's on motion track and its usually behind me.