Drone - no more to Drone 2.0

It was a sunny morning of December 2024. My cousin Ketan had joined me for a trek to Torna Fort some 45km from home. We had couple of good flights for the drone. Some time later we reached the top of the fort and had one more flight. It was supposed to be a short flight with just 2-3 shots. I got the shots done, and was about to recall the drone. And then disaster struct, and the drone crashed to the hillside. It fell into some grass on a very steep hillside. getting there to retrieve the drone was not possible without any mountaineering help. Unfortunately so such help was available. So that was the end of drone 1.0.

Sucked bad, but we did not let it dampen our spirits. Completed the trek and headed home. Feeling bad and letting it bother us was not possible because my cousin was here for few more days and I had a packed schedule with one more trek and couple of days of outings planned. So we did not let it bother us and instead completed the vacation.

Aftermath was for me to look at the why's of this incident. After looking at multiple factors and what I was using I zeroed in on 2 culprits.

1. Chinese duplicate battery.

2. Unsafe way of flying the drone.

The Chinese duplicate battery that I received with the third party charger was the main culprit as it failed at a charge level of 30%. But since the drone was over an area where recovery was impossible also played big in this. If the drone would have been 20-30 mtr towards my position, it would have crashed in fort area and I could have collected it and maybe got it repaired at some cost, instead of total loss. And I should have taken a closer look at the battery since it's such a critical component.

Anyway that takes us to Drone 2.0. After looking around for a replacement, I found a DJI Mini 2 preowned drone available for 39K with flymore bundle. I researched online and found it to be a decent deal. Then I checked the seller and found him to be a honest seller. So decided to buy it. I did look into buying a new drone but an upgrade was too costly. For example DJI Mini 3 pro goes for like 80K INR. Anyway I have had 3 flights with this drone and everything seems to be in working order. Couple of batteries do seem tired and a bit swollen. I'll have to do some research on using them or not. They may be just slightly tired or maybe reaching EoL. I am not sure. If it seems too much, I have thankfully the original battery from Drone 1, so I can continue using that. Plus I have decided to be very cautious about where and how high I fly the drone. Hoping to keep this one for some good amount of time and get at least 100 flights out of it. Also I have stuck my name, phone number and email to this so in case this one goes missing, there's some chance of it getting back to me. Cheers!!