u/SchuminWeb

I had an in-flight incident with my DJI Air 3 at altitude this morning, and wondering how you all might have handled this.

The flight started out normally, with everything performing nominally. The drone launched, it went up to operational altitude (~350 feet), and I started doing the photography work that I had planned. So far, so good. Then after about ten minutes or so, it announced "attitude mode", I saw a dramatic shift on the screen, and the drone started flying very erratically, flying up and away from me, uncommanded. (I would eventually learn that the drone had thrown a propeller blade, but I wouldn't learn that until after it was back down.) I somehow managed to bring the drone back to my launch point, but because it was flying erratically and at an angle, it wouldn't initiate the landing. At this point, it was about two or three feet off of the ground, and flying sideways towards a parked car. My first reaction was that I wasn't about to hit someone's car with my drone as long as I had anything to say about it, and so I deliberately took my own drone out, reaching out with my hand and smacking it out of the air. It took me two tries, but I was successful, crashing it into the pavement and causing the motors to stop.

The first thing that I discovered was that I was bleeding from both hands. Clearly, the propellers had done a number on me, as I had gotten cuts on my left pinky and my right ring and middle fingers (TW: blood). The cuts don't hurt anymore, and should heal just fine on their own, so I'm not worried about that. As far as the drone was concerned, I changed the propellers when I got back home, and discovered that the right front leg was now resting too far forward and making contact with the main drone body when I attempted to launch, which, understandably, would lead to an abort. Seems that when I took it out, I damaged the housing, and now the leg goes too far out, which causes the unwanted contact.

The drone was about two and a half years old, and the propellers had been replaced two weeks ago. It had experienced no incidents prior to this, and had been fairly active since the blades had been replaced, taking the drone up for at least one flight for most of those days. I was surprised that the drone threw a blade, because I didn't think that the Air-series drones with their snap-in propellers could throw a blade (as compared to the DJI Mavic Mini, where the props are attached with screws, where I have thrown a blade at altitude before after a screw worked itself out in flight).

As I see it, I stand by what I did, because I did what I had to do in the interest of safety, because my drone was out of control, and I successfully stopped it before it damaged any people or property, and I can afford to get the drone repaired and new blades. But I want to know if you all might have handled this any differently, or if I handled it pretty well, so that I can adjust my response should something like this happen again in the future.

I have photos of several Delta Connection E175 planes landing at DCA where I'm a little too close to the flight path, and the tail number doesn't appear in any of the photos, as in the example above. However, I did capture a number on the forward landing gear door on these planes, "8203" in this case. I did some googling based on this information and trying to fill in the remainder, and came up empty. Is there a good way to find the tail number based on this other information for Delta aircraft?

Walmart has since moved to a larger location nearby.

It was kind of weird, coming off as a weird cross between a Walmart and a convenience store, having Walmart's "Airport" design package and with the employees wearing regular Walmart vests, but with the layout and merchandise assortment of a convenience store.

Walmart no longer owns this building, and the exterior facade was recently renovated to what you see here.

This building began life as a rollerskating rink, and was later converted to a store after being acquired by Walmart. I used to go here frequently while my mother worked at the old Walton Life Fitness Center. A lot of the shopping carts there were old "Big K" carts left over from Walmart's acquisition of Kuhn's Big K.

A couple of things to note in these photos: first, the company vehicles parked in front of the building are painted in the same color scheme as Sam Walton's truck. Second, note the retired Walmart sign on a flatbed in the last photo. No idea where that came from, though I suspect that it might be from the Bentonville Supercenter location, seeing as that store is currently undergoing a remodel.