tommy2 Loc: Fort Worth, Texas

My grandson and I took a couple hour class on how to fly drones and subsequently purchased one for him to learn with. Flying it around his home became boring so he took it to large river area thinking it would be safe to fly above the river for some distance.
He launched it and all went well until he decided to send it a hundred feet or so down the river. At about that distance he attempted to turn it around to fly back. It did not respond to his commands and continued on down the river until about a city block away it turned and headed inland. That is the last time he saw it.
Reading the manual again it says the control signal should reach a greater distance than the hundred or so feet.
Family members are now speculating his drone was hijacked by a stronger signal.
Any credibility to this thought?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

if there is no signal coding,definitely, which I believe would be rare nowadays.
My guess is that they may be coded similar to a garage door opener, MANY combinations that the odds of two people having the same code set in the same area would be slim.
Then again, if a selectable code, back to the odds.

Orangebird

What brand was the drone? I’m in the drone service industry and although possible highly unlikely that drone was hijacked. If it’s a more expensive brand like DJI then you can locate it with data stored in the display. What my guess is drone probably ran out of battery and got caught up in the wind and the wind took it away. If it’s possible to track it from controller then go to the drone company website for instructions. I have a $3k drone that only flies for 18 min. Good luck

Bison Bud

Hijacking may be possible, but not probable. If other drone operators were flying in the area, there could be some interference, or channel conflicts. However, this sounds more like a typical loss of signal and unfortunately it does happen from time to time with RC models. I don't know what level of drone he was flying, but many of the low cost ones use low power transmitters on frequencies that are already busy with other radio activity and it's possible that someone's two radio overpowered or interfered with his signal. Sorry about the loss, I feel his pain, but I really don't think that someone intentionally hijacked his drone.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

It depends on how sophisticated the drone's software was. Some drones have pre-programmed abilities to self-land, using GPS, as well a having pre-programmed flight boundaries and other self-flying features. We had a case where a drone was used at an airfield one day and then flown at another, the next day. The second day, the drone took off and flew just fine until the pilot hit the "self land" button and the drone promptly tried to fly 5 miles to the first airfield where it was still programmed to land from the previous day. Drones are generally not a matter of simply taking it out of the box, hooking up a battery and hitting the throttle stick on the transmitter. I would bet there were a few pre-flight settings that had to be established before it could be properly flown.

mleuck

You purchased a cheap, toy drone. It was not "hijacked". Simply, the controller failed to communicate with drone. Now, it is gone forever. You get what you pay for with drones.

tommy2 Loc: Fort Worth, Texas

Yep, my teenage grandson took that real life lesson.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

All the drone manufacturers give specs on the distance one can fly based on the fact that there's no interference at all. But as you know, there are all kinds of radio, wifi, and other remote signals in our airwaves all the time. Also, any kind of metal structure, or even natural things like trees will block your signal as most of the frequencies they run on are "line of sight" radio frequencies simply because of the band they operate in. Low frequency radio waves can bounce off and go over and around structures, where VHF and UHF (very high and ultra high frequency) most of the time will not penetrate such things. Nor will they go around or over such obstructions.

So in my opinion, the drone was simply flown too far away and should have been flown in a more open area and not over water. Also, some drones have adjustable antennas. If they are in the wrong position they won't communicate with the drone well. I have to keep an eye on this all the time. You probably don't have adjustable antenna on that drone since it sounds like a toy drone. You are lucky this done lasted as long as it did. Most kids destroy them in crashes on the first day, or they lose them on the roof or in a tree the first day.

One more thing. Small drones (toy drones) are hard to distinguish the front from the rear and what direction they are flying the farther away they get. So this could have also been a simple control issue. Trust me, I've been playing around with toy drones and big boy drones for some time now and my toy drones are very hard to see and fly when they get far away. Often times, a little panic sets in and then you've lost it. This is why I've always flown over land in a wide open place when flying toy drones. If I get too far away and have trouble seeing which direction it's going or which way it's flying, I simply crash it on purpose and walk over and get it. Can't do this over water.

Sirsnapalot Loc: Hammond, Louisiana

Can't say, but because of all the jokes I've been reading here, I was expecting a punch line! Sorry

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Not enough information to determine what happened? I all depends upon the make of drone? I've only flown DJI drones and have never lost one; however, I have had one decide the compass reading was wrong and head off in the wrong direction when asked to return home; recovered under manual control.

Also, with DJI drones (and I would assume other makes) you can normally find where the drone ended up from its GPS tracking...

bwa