Drone

Repairs to a DJI Mavic Air Drone

Old Water Damaged Drone

This story starts back in January 2018 when I fell through the ice.  I was carrying my old drone on my back when I went into the water. The batteries took on a lot of water and haven't worked exactly right ever since. 

I figured after 2 years with the old drone, given the crazy advancements in safety, size and performance and the fact that my Old 3DR Solo drone was no longer supported by the company and the software was getting buggier with every OS Release, it was time to make the switch to DJI.

I picked up a DJI Mavic Air and what a difference. It's so small.  The app is amazing, the sensors work great and it's quieter. Anyone who complains about drones now being "loud" haven't had a drone 2 years ago from a different company.

Well, I was out in South Dakota recently and was standing way up on top of one of the Needles in the Needles District. It was hard enough to keep my balance, let alone fly my drone.  The one thing I keep forgetting about my Mavic Air is that there are no sensors on the side of it. The front, back and bottom sensors work so well that I just assume it will be able to save itself from all of my bad flying.

Flying the wrong direction

Well, due to my concetration on maintaining my balance, I wasn't able to "get into the direction" the drone was flying and pressed the stick the wrong way on several instances until I actually slammed it into a rock.  

The drone tried to save itself (it's done it before when I ran into a tree), but wasn't able to and it fell about 50 feet.  The damage was pretty extreme, breaking an entire leg in half.  Fortunately, I had sprung for the DJI Refresh Care insurance. 

With the Refresh Care, you get 2 claims in the first year paying $69 for the first claim and $99 for the second one.  After the second claim, you're out of luck. If you don't use both claims in the first year, you can pay to extend that claim one more year.

The funny thing is, then sent me a different drone that had the opposite side repaired on it.  I damaged the left side and they sent me a drone with repair stickers on the right side on the same parts. Funny coincidence I guess. 

Check out the video for the crash and a test montage video at the end.

The Treasury Pillars History

In the middle of Pioneers Park, nestled away at the southwestern corner of Lincoln Nebraska are a set of four stone pillars calling to be visited.  Surrounded by a pond, these ancient looking stone works are one of the highlights of the park.

Commemorative Plaque cast from metal recovered from the sunken ship the USS Maine.

A popular photography location and wedding setting, they've inspired countless visitors, but where did they come from?  A commemorative plaque nearby only tells part of the story. 

With this video I'd like to introduce a new series to Flarecorp Media called 'Historical Threads' where we will follow the thread of something backwards in time as we unravel its journey through the web of history. 

Watch below for the whole journey of these columns from the 1800s in Washington D.C. to their current resting place.

Here's a link to download the free history of the Treasury Building ebook mentioned in the video.

The Treasury Building: A National Historical Landmark:


Christmas in the Old Market

This is a peaceful video the beautiful lights in Omaha, NE set to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear". This is one of my favorite videos that I've made.  I was so happy with how it turned out that it motivated me to start Flarecorp Media. So this was the first official video.  We're now 32 videos in 1 year later. Thanks for enjoying our content. 

This is a re-upload of the video because I realized I didn't have a watermark on the original (I didn't think I needed them when I first uploaded it).

Car Show - Malcolm, NE

I'm not much of a car guy.  I can't tell you the difference between this car or that, but when I was invited out to the Malcolm, NE car show last Sunday, I figured I could at least appreciate the ones that look good and the friendly people.

I took all of these on my Canon 70D camera, but I knew they'd be going into a video so I had to intentionally leave myself some buffer room so I could come back and crop them into a 16x9 aspect ration. 

It was a good day. Really hot, but enjoyable. There's the video below or if you want to peruse the pictures at your leisure, I've uploaded those as well.