The closest I have been to losing my drone

I am usually pretty careful with my little DJI Mini 2. I love this powerful thing so much, but as the years have gone by and my confidence with it has increased, as has my level of risk with it. Still, I try to be cautious and not fly too far out, often aware of wind and battery life threats that could be lingering while I fly the thing around the skies taking all kinds of fun photographs and videos. With summer creeping on in, I have been really trying to take advantage of the few warm and sunny days, especially with the countryside looking beautiful!

While I have often thought of how I may lose my drone, I never thought it could be a loss as a result of it crashing just a few metres away from me. I have only ever crashed this thing three times in total: the first time was a few feet from the ground, a bit of risky flying but it only crashed into a very soft patch of grass, zero damage done (outside of the grass). The second time I crashed my drone was stupidly indoors; a little bit of testing to which it clipped the wall and fell on the floor, leaving a chipped propeller. And this brings us to the third crash, today: I was flying the drone around the fields, and these photographs are in order of being taken, aside from the last two. The ground was dry, and the light from the sunset gave everything a beautiful golden highlight. I wanted to capture the light on the crops as well as the vastness of it all. I knew the crops had varying heights, so I made sure I didn't fly too low. The second photograph was taken much more out. It was so beautiful to see the haze in the distance.

Though on the return flight, knowing it was a bit windy, I flew around the wind to save battery life. Typically drones and even planes do this to avoid flying directly into wind. On the landing, a gust of wind hit and the drone clipped the side of the crops. I laughed it off at how dumb it was, and then the realisation of what had just happened hit: my drone just landed in a field, one with towering crops now taller than I. Not only had the drone crashed in this field, it wasn't close either. As panic began to set in, I dived into the crops and began to hunt for it. At first I was barely entering the crops, certain that the drone would be at the edge of them and somewhere quite high up in them. I couldn't find it.

Hands turning numb with panic, I began to question everything: is the sun going to set before I can find it? Will I have to return tomorrow and try my luck again? Will it rain overnight? Did I lose my £500 drone? And, am I even searching in the right place? I essentially ran through the crops as the time went on, having zero luck whatsoever. I looked at DJI Fly in hopes of seeing something, it was completely dark. This is all I could see at first, which is the last image in this post. While I'm sure DJI Fly has some flight records in it that could help me pinpoint the general direction, my panicking brain didn't pick up on this. Instead, I looked at the distance on the drone and nothing was changing. I had the thought to massively increase the ISO and shutter speed to let in more light, maybe that could help.

Eventually, it did. T-posing through the crops to cover the most area as possible, I could see a glimpse of light in the corner of the camera, I could tell that it was facing the sunset still, and that if I disturbed enough area, I'd see it in the camera. It was pure luck that I managed to find it in the end. Even as I noticed the disturbance in the camera, the drone was buried deep in the crops, I looked down and couldn't even see it at first, having to dig it out. This was pure luck. I really thought it was gone this time. The density of those crops was crazy; and the only thing I could think of was how much it would suck to go home without the drone knowing I crashed it mere metres away. Well, I packed everything up after taking one shot of the area I searched through from above and went home. I just couldn't fly more after that. And now, here I am typing this post suffering insane hayfever having searched through the crops. But hey, at least the drone's fine! Maybe no more flying this close to crops from now on.

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