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Drone Flying in Papua

There are many things pilots are good at (Yes, we have massive egos too). One of the many things is filling time while waiting for lovely passengers that are never ever late and always on time. 

We,(Myself and another pilot), had an opportunity to use our elite level time filling skills when we flew in a few businessmen that were looking at setting up a solar energy farm in a place called Abmisibil.


My number one piece of time filling tool is the almighty drone. The majority of the time I’ll crash them (had one end up in a tree 5ms up, lost one at a mountain top, one in the ocean too), I sometimes get some interesting shots of the runways. 


Parking at Admisibil I whipped out Drone number 4, ready to take to the skies. It got airborne and started glitching out. “No satellites” kept flashing at the top of the screen, I decided to carry on because I’m part stupid and part people pleaser, that wants to boost his ego from Instagram likes.



The drone settled and I started taking photos (the one above). Out of nowhere, it decided to start descending, I tried full throttle to gain the altitude but that didn’t help. I tried switching to the sports mode that gives more power, but that didn’t help. I swore a few times, but that didn’t help.


I could fly forward and started heading to a distinct building ahead. I was thinking if I get close enough I’ll be able to retrieve it. 


Then the screen went blank.


I dropped the controller and ran down the hill towards the building. All I could see was long grass and pools of water, I mentally kissed the drone goodbye. I did however have an hour to wait, so my fine-tuned time filling skills kicked in.


Wading through calf-high water searching for my drone. I had half the village looking down at the crazy pilot. Then a lovely old man appeared from the building and asked me what I was looking for. In my limited Indonesian/hand signals with noises, I think I managed to tell him that my mini aeroplane had crashed.


A few people started to help me look. About 40 minutes later, a shoe full of mud and a wet butt from falling more than once, one of the villagers started calling me. I have no idea how he spotted it but the drone had managed to settle on some long grass above an ankle-deep pond. So so lucky!


Chatting to the airstrip agent a few minutes later he was asking what happened to the drone, with a very concerned face he said, “There’s magic in that area, dark magic”. I like to blame the dark magic and not my crappy drone skills.



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Location: Papua, Indonesia

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