I was flying at my favorite spot by the lake this afternoon. On my second flight, I switched to sports mode, and flew at 26 feet high (according to DJI's log) flying parallel to a point that some fisherman were on. According to the KML file I exported from airdata.com (Healthy Drones), I was about 75 feet horizontally from the shore line. I was just glancing down to my screen, when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw my P4P buck, followed by a crack. I stopped, looked at the P4P just hovering there, looked at my screen for any warnings, then flew it back and hovered near myself while checking out all my controls. Everything responded normally, and I just figured I must have heard a crack from one of the boats in the area hitting someone else's wake or something. So, I flew another 17 minutes or so... and brought it home. I normally wipe off any bug splatter before putting it away, but this time I noticed some fishing line wrapped over the hub of the left rear propeller and wound tightly between the prop and motor itself. In fact most of the fishing line appeared to have melted together.
When I got home, I was able to cut away the line and free the prop. I won't use the prop again though it doesn't look damaged... the motor and spindle assembly and spring seem fine. There are lacerations to the plastic arm around the motor mount, which I wonder could be potential structure issue?
Not sure if I should send this to DJI to get an evaluation on the motor and perhaps another shell... or just fill in the lacerations with some kind of superglue-baking soda fix? Not sure how to test the motor to make sure it's not potentially failing internally...
Anyway, this could have been a really bad day for me. I'm a little freaked out that I somehow got into someone's fishing line so high and far away; but very thankful that my P4P isn't currently at the bottom of a rather murky Texas lake.
When I got home, I was able to cut away the line and free the prop. I won't use the prop again though it doesn't look damaged... the motor and spindle assembly and spring seem fine. There are lacerations to the plastic arm around the motor mount, which I wonder could be potential structure issue?
Not sure if I should send this to DJI to get an evaluation on the motor and perhaps another shell... or just fill in the lacerations with some kind of superglue-baking soda fix? Not sure how to test the motor to make sure it's not potentially failing internally...
Anyway, this could have been a really bad day for me. I'm a little freaked out that I somehow got into someone's fishing line so high and far away; but very thankful that my P4P isn't currently at the bottom of a rather murky Texas lake.
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