Last Flight of the Honey Bee

“Wow check out how cool this looks, the water is…” CRASH!!! “Oh No!!”

Below is the last photo we got from the air… the Lambordinghy is parked in a beautiful motu we were visiting in Fakarava.

Then, the last thing I saw in the monitor was a coconut palm… then the poor Honey Bee (our DJI mavic drone) plummeted into the sea water right next to the sand. My heart sank. The water was just a foot deep so we retrieved the soggy and deathly damaged Honey Bee.

I was flying the drone sideways while filming; the sun was glaring so I couldn’t see well and the obstacle avoidance didn’t go off (only works going forward or down). Major piloting lesson.

Luckily we have DJI’s insurance. As long as you can retrieve the drone, they’ll replace the first claim for $80 and the second claim for $120, and then no more. Thanks to Ben for volunteering to courier it back and sending it off for replacement.

We’ll have to wait for it to come back before we can take more aerial pics… it’s a sad day ;-(

5 thoughts on “Last Flight of the Honey Bee”

Oh…
So sad!
But I’m so grateful for all the stunning views you showed us, it has made a huge huge difference in the way we are following your voyage………………..Thanks, Honey Bee!!!

This isn’t why Sabrina should be flying

Thank goodness for the insurance….love the drone photos, they are stunning!!

Sure sorry to hear about Honey Bee. Sure love the aerial photos and I bet you’ve got some great video footage, too. Great that you’ve got the replacement insurance. Just prepared for a very long wait with DJI. It took them more than 3 months to resolve warranty issues on my new Phantom 4 Pro. I’ve had a couple of friends send in their crashed Mavics for replacement and both took 2 months. Cheers! Jim Clark