Of all the ways to lose an expensive drone camera, this is possibly the most wholesome. Adam Culbertson was flying his DJI Avata drone over some beautiful terrain near Capitol Reef National Park in Utah when a golden eagle snatched it up. Instead of dropping the drone, the eagle flew until the video signal was out of range. The feed was saved up to that point, but there's no indication of how far the eagle flew with it. The drone is most likely not recoverable, even if the eagle would be inclined to surrender it.
The fallout from the incident is not as dire as you might imagine. The drone is made to shut down its propellers when it detects an impact, so the eagle wouldn't have been hurt. Culbertson was able to get a replacement drone from the manufacturer because the theft was classified as a flyaway, or "something outside of your control [that] causes your drone to fly away never to be seen again." (via Laughing Squid)
I imagine the eagle screaming "Freedom!" as it destroys an element of our surveillance society.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the manufacturer used considerable leeway to make that determination.
ReplyDeleteThe free advertising that video could generate plus the PR of the replacement.