Operation Drone Recovery

doug_judy · Oct 2, 2017

Long story short, my P4P is stuck in a tree about 60 feet up in the air (my fault). Figured my only options really were to:

A. climb the tree (too sketchy)
B. hire someone to do it (I mean I could)
C. use another drone with a grappling hook

Obviously going with option C. Creating the grappling hook mechanism right now with some clothes hangers. I've got the day off, so I'm more than determined to retrieve this. Oddly enough if anyone has actually tried this, I'm all ears for advice.

Happy Monday! : )

ryantrax · Oct 2, 2017

I've seen a few videos on it but with a Mavic and another with this cheapo drone:

My concern would be the P4P is a lot heavier than a Mavic or this cheapo, you'd need a pretty beefy drone to pick it up and maintain flight with it.
Another concert would be accidentally grappling a tree branch and getting stuck. Good luck!

unit338 · Oct 2, 2017

Just make sure you have some kind of release for your hook. It would be heart breaking to
have the hook get snagged in the tree and the copter hooked to it.

livefreeanddrone · Oct 2, 2017

Make sure you have someone film the rescue mission!

Dirby · Oct 2, 2017

you may end up with two drones up in the tree.
I think your best option is hire a tree climber and let him get it out for you

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

ryantrax said:
I've seen a few videos on it but with a Mavic and another with this cheapo drone:

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My concern would be the P4P is a lot heavier than a Mavic or this cheapo, you'd need a pretty beefy drone to pick it up and maintain flight with it.
Another concert would be accidentally grappling a tree branch and getting stuck. Good luck!

Hey Ryan, thanks for the video! I've seen a few very similar to this and you raise a great point with the weight concern. Fortunately enough, the battery had become dislodged during the crash -- reducing its weight drastically.

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

D3ADP3P said:
At least you have a location on yours… I have a modded P3P that’s currently MIA from a trip at 30k feet out. My p3s backup I have comes back on Wednesday, I intend on searching the treetops and snagging mine up with a homemade treble hook on paracord.

Damnn, sorry to hear that, I am rather fortunate that I have the location and it's rather accessible. I wish you the best of luck with finding your drone. If you were local, once I got this thing down, I'd go on the hunt with ya. Keep me posted!

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

unit338 said:
Just make sure you have some kind of release for your hook. It would be heart breaking to
have the hook get snagged in the tree and the copter hooked to it.

Great point and also Ryan mentioned that. I had a local PhantomPilot friend that came over to help and we failed. He actually ended up damaging his P3S in the process -- it went spiraling to the ground once the line was caught in the motors/propeller. He also had his Mavic with him, however after what just happened, I thanked him for the effort and told him we should pack up to prevent any damage to his Mavic. Later that night he sent me photos and videos of the drone fixed and up in the air...thank god, I was feeling terrible as it is.

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

livefreeanddrone said:
Make sure you have someone film the rescue mission!

Haha more like rescue/crash mission. I'll reach out to him and see if I can the footage and I'll share it here with you guys.

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

Dirby said:
you may end up with two drones up in the tree.
I think your best option is hire a tree climber and let him get it out for you

Oddly enough one of my very good friends works in the tree removal business, specifically as a climber. He was inundated with work yesterday and was unavailable to help, however, he's free today so we'll see how it goes!

doug_judy · Oct 3, 2017

Sorry for the plethora of reply notifications in your inbox, I just wanted to make sure I addressed everyone's comments since you all have been helpful with the advice. Also, wanted to note another method I tried that also failed. I went to Walmart and bought a heavy duty slingshot, lead sinkers, 50lb line. The idea was to slingshot the line over the branch, let the weight drop down, and then just tug on the line until the drone become loosened and would fall -- ideal in theory, however also unsuccessful. With the combination of the weight of the line, lead sinker, and total distance to the branch, the slingshot wasn't able to generate enough force to launch it 60 feet, at times I maybe got 50 feet, if that. As mentioned in an earlier reply to Dirby, I have a friend coming by today around 2:00 with some equipment to either knock it down or he offered to climb up to get it. I'll keep everyone posted and thanks again for the help guys!