Today's drones have a lot of intellegence on board. One feature uses a GPS reciever and if something goes wrong, the drone will return to its place of launch. This is not a good idea if there is a large rock between the drone and the launch site...
From DIY Photography:
Video firm Every Angle Films had it in their pocket. They shot about one minute of a beautiful sun rise at Pinnacle Peak, Arizona using a their new GoPro4 mounted on a DJI F550, naza v2 and an H3-3D gimbal (all and all a few thousands dollars worth of gear).
For some reasons the drone lost connection for a short time with the operator which triggered its Return To Home function. Sadly there was a big rock between the drone’s ‘current location’ and ‘home’ which the drone went straight into, falling all the way down.
While the GoPro seems intact, the team comments that:
The lens was damaged, good scratch on the bottom that was noticeable in later videos. Drone’s electronics were all fine, smashed up the arms and propellers which he has plenty of spares for. This isn’t his first time doing this, he did the same thing last winter and found the gopro a few months later still in perfect condition without the case. He has the video on his page, it’s pretty cool
They also comment that this is not the first time they were bitten by the Return To Home function. This I think makes the RTH feature almost useless unless it comes with built in collision avoidance.
