Well, we lost the X650 UAV Quadcoptor on one beautiful Saturday morning for a flight. (UPDATE…Now Found!!!)

What was a routine flight to video the Pla-mor Campground , ended with a missing X650 UAV Quadcoptor.   We were flying at an altitude of 160 feet just making passes over the campground when the X650 just started to head out in one direction.  It was last seen heading North/West away from Rt 6 towards Elkhart (25 miles or so away.)

All seemed well with the flight.  We took off from the campsite, made a few passes over the park and on the last pass the onboard DJI Naza flight computer  locked up. (At least that is our guess.)  Normally when you loose radio reception the onboard computer will bring the Quadcoptor back using it’s failsafe settings.  Seeing it did not do this, the only thought was it just locked, a glitch.  Tried shutting down the radio and then turning it back on to try to reset.  No result.  Tried manual mode, no result.

All we could do is watch the video being sent back to us from the X650 to the video goggles.   Watched it pass over power wires, a home, a dirt road and farm field.  The readings showed that it was heading North West at about 9 mph and had about 6 mins of flight time remaining. It was holding steady at 160 feet on a steady course when we lost the 5.8Ghz video/data link at about 4,000 feet away from the take off location.    Seeing we are in Bremen, IN, the area is more or less all farmland for miles and miles, so it is more than likely in a farmers field.  The odds are very great that is where it ended up and would be the best case so no one was hurt or it caused no damage.  It is a better feeling knowing these odds at least even though it is more than likely never to be seen again.

DAVID BOTT is listed on the inside cover, but that is it. The only hope, and it is a big one, is that someone finds it, takes the SD card out of the camera, and looks at the last video and sees it took off from from the Pla-mor campground. Then maybe they bring it here and the campground calls us.  But we do understand that it is most unlikely to happen being this is mostly an Amish area.  But one could hope.  After all, it is about $3,300.00 worth of gear.

The worst part is knowing it was not pilot error.  It was a glitch that we could do nothing about.   I can deal with a crash, I can fix a crash.  I can not fix what can not be found based on a flight computer issue.  It’s just gone.

So,  just add that to the list of the bad things to happen from the time we left our home behind selling everything to start a new life adventure. Maybe this was a bad idea.

Ok, enough chat on what we can not do anything about.    Time to start building another.

Videos taken by the X650, that will be missed, can be found here if interested…  http://www.youtube.com/user/David350Z/videos

UPDATE…UAV X650 FOUND!!!!

I am happy to report I received the following email..

David Bott,

My girlfriend told me this morning that where she is currently employed a drone type helocopter had crashed into there dust collector system!!

I had to go check it out….Long story short i googled the name on inside along with xaircraftx 650, i saw 68 videos on youtube matching my search results.. On the youtube page it had a link to outside our bubble and thats where i’m at now… Ray Yoder is the business owner and he asked me if i could get in touch with you so you can come pick it up…

Hopefully this will help.

Phone for Ray is (removed)

…Here is the video of the flight.  But before you choose to view it expecting to see the crash at the end, it was not their.  The GoPro clipped off the last 15 seconds of the video when it crashed to save the file.  But the video itself is a nice flight over Amish landscape.  And you will see, 160 feet was the right choice in height. :)