I made the mistake of flying next to my home located in a mountainous heavily forested ravine with weak GPS. If I don’t get a GPS lock on my deck I fly up and if necessary out a bit till I get a lock then return and reset Home. The other day after getting a Home lock over my drive way Spark seemed to go out of control and a couple of seconds after out of sight it hit and stuck in a tree. The problem there are so many trees I can’t figure out which one. The flight record indicates it flew 98 feet after setting Home in a loop heading back “Home”. It appears the crash site is within ~ 50’ of “Home”. From the Google Earth overlay it appears next to the driveway approx. due north. However The Google Earth image is very fuzzy in the dgi Go app and considering the weak GPS the accuracy of the flight path overlay is somewhat questionable, though the location of Home seems the be when I remember seeing the GPS lock. I’ve spent hours searching, but haven’t yet spotted Spark. Any ideas on how to narrow my search? Is there any way I can increase the resolution of the Satillite image in the flight record and print it all out?
Which tree is my Spark in?
- Thread starter Roger S
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I had to hunt for my Spark today It wasn't very far away in a bush, but it still took me a good 10 minutes to find it.
(I forgot when I took off I had started from a new homepoint. So I stood in the old spot. I tried to keep it aloft long enough to figure out where it was but couldn't see it. Gave up and let it land; battery was on last legs. )
Good luck!
(I forgot when I took off I had started from a new homepoint. So I stood in the old spot. I tried to keep it aloft long enough to figure out where it was but couldn't see it. Gave up and let it land; battery was on last legs. )
Good luck!
There are only two types of drone pilots. Those that have landed in a tree and those who will.
RENOV8R
Well-Known Member
Gotta friend with a camera drone? Could fly one to potentially find the other.... I am going to do that to find a toy I lost in January, once I have my spark in a few weeks. Its most likely up a tree. 
I had the flight log converted to kml as msinger suggested. Thanks msinger. However I don't see anything new in Google Earth after importing the kml. I think I may have used the wrong txt file. The dates and times for the files seems to be screwed up. For example I have flight logs on my tablet with today's date . Can I find which was the last flight log from the file name?
The flight record starts 50-100 ft from where the drone took off on my deck. I presume this is where it locked GPS. This Home position has height of 12 ft and the final height is -4 ft (see attached screen shots). Is height measured from where the drone actually took off or is it the height when it locked to GPS?Yip. Thought I'd earn some points for that.
Never recovered the drone, even after my icy swim
card carrying member of the former tribe here as of Wednesday. *sigh*
I have some clues which should be helpful in finding my Spark. the flight log provides heights, though no position data since it never locked to GPS (the above flight path was mistakenly taken from another flight). There is also a short video taken after it crashed suggesting the drone is on the ground under a redwood tree. It just occurred to me that I could narrow my search to the last height recorded, though that may have been before it fell out of the tree and the video was recorded.
Are the heights recorded relative to the take off location? Can anyone suggest an altimeter app for Android, preferably barometric that I can set to 0 at the take off location, rather then having to subtract the elevation above sea leval from elevations I measure?
idbl_fanatic
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