Inspire 1, V 2 completely destroyed in the desert

Flight - Discussion and Q&A
1

We tried to use DroneDeploy for an aerial geological mapping mission in the Nevada desert. We didn’t realize that terrain data did not upload when we chose to upload map data when setting up our mission. We were flying at maximum ceiling trying to cover a large area. We also found it almost impossible to set the starting point, so DroneDeploy chose one far away from our starting point. The drone flew off to its starting point and the last photo we saw were of rocks on the ground. We think it flew into a cliff and now lies somewhere on the desert floor. We thought that DD was going to be an improvement on MapPilot, but we were sorely wrong. We never found the drone, which was also equipped with a Sentera CIR camera.

I guess my basic issue is that the app tutorials and controls really didn’t make it clear that this could happen.

2

Where did you get the impression that the i1 would avoid obstacles?
You are responsible to understand the app and your flight plan and what the model is going to do. If anything looks like it is not going according to plan, you should take control immediately until you are satisfied that everything is as expected.

You can set which perimeter waypoint is used to be the start of the mission.

What I do if I have a spot on a flight plan that I’m not positive about is to manually fly to that location at mission height to determine that everything is good before engaging autonomous flight. This goes for all mission planner software including Map Pilot.

I’m sorry for your loss.

3 Likes