I was sickened.
“Connection lost” was the message on my drone controller yesterday at the Leinster Bridge on the N4. The river Boyne runs under that bridge and my drone (a DJI Mini 2) was last seen travelling smoothly under one of the old, stone arches of the bridge.
It was going to be a lovely piece of video footage as the sun setting was framed in the arch and my drone was travelling towards the sun under the arch. I stopped the drone to take a photograph as it would have been a beautiful image.
And then I saw my drone travel sideways, wobble, and hit the side of the bridge.
My heart sank (along with the drone).
I did some research on YouTube when I came home and discovered that flying under bridges can be risky. The reasons for this are many including:
- Hitting the bridge
- Going too close to the water
- Losing connection with the controller due to the sides of the bridge being thick
I suspect that when I paused my drone under the bridge to get a good photograph it lost connection. When it loses connection with the controller the drone is programmed to head for home, to the last GPS coordinates set as “home”.
If that happened under the bridge it would simply have risen up in an attempt to get to “home” and hit the bridge. I later discovered that this could have been avoided by changing a setting prior to going under the bridge.
You live and learn.
I will be back, however, as I have had too much fun flying it and taking short videos and photographs.