I was excited to bring my drone on the Scout 800 recovery trip last weekend in order to shoot some B-roll of the operation. I’ve flown enough drones now to know how they operate and what to look out for, so I wasn’t feeling stress about that, but knowing I was asking all of my friends to help me with this project and to give me ten minutes to shoot video made me feel rushed. Right before we winched the truck onto the trailer I unpacked the drone and got some good location shots, flying it back and forth over the entire field of trucks until I had it hovering over the Scout. Then I brought it down lower for some more dramatic shots, and promptly flew it into a tree. When I picked it up the rear left leg flopped over in my hand: a combination of the fall and the bitter cold had snapped the plastic in two at the body.

Doing a little digging around the internet, I found some helpful videos that walked through disassembling the drone, removing the old parts, and replacing them with new units. This involved carefully prying the body apart and soldering three tiny 22ga. wires to connect the motor back up to the control unit. At this point, having disassembled and fixed cameras, laptops, stereos, iPods, iPhones, car radios, power tools, and appliances, I’m used to fiddling with small finicky bits to get things working again. Within a half an hour I had the new leg in place, wires soldered, and covered in heatshrink tubing. I took it for a test flight before buttoning the case back up, and used it this afternoon for some more cinematic shots of the truck.

Clearly I’ve got to be more careful about the drone’s proximity to ther objects. This one only has detection in the front, where the Pro model has all sides covered. Having looked through the footage I did get, I’m really impressed with the quality I got, and I’m still very happy with my purchase.