Litchi mission I had run multiple times .
Wow... well I’m really embarrassed to say that when I posted this question I had just the same day crashed my drone in an incident very similar to yours.
I was in a National Park manually following my car (being driven by the mrs) on a very long, dead straight bit of road. Literally no trees except one dead skeleton tree - no leaves or anything, and as the sun was positioned I literally could not see it.
I was flying pretty much full stick ahead and saw it at the very last minute but it was too late. I crashed straight into it and it immediately disconnected. I was an emotional wreck at that point and we turned around and drove back to the tree.
Low and behold the legs of my
phantom 4 Pro we’re hooked over a tiny little branch up in the tree - the battery had come out and was nowhere to be seen (there was a very bushy swamp directly under the tree along side the road).
I had to park my 4x4 right off the edge of the road as close to the tree as I could. I then climbed up on to my roof rack and had to use my manfrotto tripod to reach out and unhook the drone.
At this point I was confused why it wasn’t in pieces - it was perfectly intact and I thought maybe the gimble is definitely broken. I whacked a new battery in and it actually still works no issues whatsoever.
I immediately changed the props and took it to a quiet spot for a test flight. Everything works perfectly.
Oh and as I was taking a photo of the tree I crashed into I looked down and could see the green lights from my battery. I got down on my knees and reached down into the soaking swamp and pulled it out - it was about a third of the way sitting upright in water. I gave it a shake off and took it with me. 3 days later it still lights up fine when I press the button but I’m too scared to plug it in the charger or dare I say it put it back in the drone???
I will upload footage of this when I get home later this week.
It was pretty thick and I was always keeping an eye out for bears. I spent about 3 hours round trip. I was using an iPad with no cellular connection so no map, but once I was closer to it I got a signal back and I finish tracking it by the aircraft signal. Even being orange I didn't spot it until I was about 8' - 10' from it. The orange really helps in the air though, I can easily see it a half mile away.
