Thursday, July 27, 2023

Close Calls With Tractor's & Drone's


I was in Scott County, VA, at the Cabin this week, but I wasn't there to mow but to move the tractor so it could be taken to get repaired. 
The old tractor in the barn has been down well over a year. That Bald-Faced Hornet nest above where we worked on the tractor this time last year. So, the plan was for a guy to come in with a rollback truck and haul it out. Well, the road to the Cabin is a rough one mile, but the barn is even harder to get to even with a 4x4. When the guy got his truck up there, he said he couldn't reach the barn. Getting stuck just before the Cabin might have colored his opinion. So, we would need to get the tractor down from the barn to the truck. We pulled it out with the backhoe enough so gravity could take over and the tractor coasted down to the truck. The tractor needed a pilot, and there was only one person for the job...no literally I was the only person. I wasn't a pilot, I was hoping not to crash it. We did finally get it to the truck, and best of all, no one was harmed.


That was just the first of some close calls as I had one with the drone. I had it up to watch the sunset, but clouds, so I decided to take it over the ridge, which I had done before. However, this time, a warning of a weak signal, and then the screen went to black-and-white. That means I lost contact with the drone...which I thought meant disaster. I will admit I did panic, but it was that which might have saved my drone. While I tried to bring it back, I hit the up button instead. Because of this, the line of sight improved, the screen popped back on, and the drone went into auto-return mode. I was able to reestablish control and landed it safely. 





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