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Things start well enough on a cloudless Friday in Hamtramck as a Solo 3DR drone quadcopter approaches a majestic icon -- St. Florian Church, towering over Poland Street and surrounding blocks since 1928.
The liughtweight craft approaches and circles the 247-foot spire as its camera records large bells in the Gothic Revival tower, sun-splashed statues of saints and hundreds of homes below.
Uh-oh! One second to impact.
Natural light and an eye-level altitude provide vivid vistas for 33 seconds. Then the ground signal to the four-propeller drone apparently is interrupted or garbled, creating a zooming-in scene far more vivid than the operator wants.
The GoPro-equipped craft flies closer . . . closer . . . and directly into St. Florian at full speed.
Hamtramck, we have a problem . . . The Solo has (crash-)landed.
The camera took a licking, but kept on recording its eight-second death spiral nearly three weeks ago.
The unidentified ground pilot licensed his brief video to a London firm, Viral Videos UK Ltd., which "promotes footage to TV broadcasters worldwide." The crash wrecked his Solo 3DR (prices start at $600) and GoPro HERO4 Black ($450 or more), the videographer tells the company.
Ah, but the replay value: Priceless.
Hat tip to Alexandra Fluegel, digoital content editor at Metro Times, who blogs about this Thursday morning.
