The Niagara Fall
Having completed a successful shoot at the Burlington Bridge, which I wrote about recently, I packed up the drone and headed along the QEW to Niagara Falls, looking forward to a combination of challenge and potential.
On arrival, the location seemed ideal. There was a lovely wispy sky, lots of sun, and a beautiful mist rising off the Horseshoe Falls.
Still, I must admit to being nervous.
At first, I was concerned there might be too many people about, but as you can see, there were few. Still, I had some worries. Would the air currents caused by the cascade buffet the drone?. And what would the impact be of the moisture in the air?
I had never flown the drone in conditions quite like these.
To start the adventure, I sent the drone up several meters, and flew it toward the American Falls, enjoying the spectacle of the double rainbow in the mist. From this height I could see the neighbouring town of Niagara Falls, NY, the bridges reaching over the rapids to Goat Island, and the broad river beyond.
The volume of water flowing over the edge, splashing and crashing on the rocks below, was awesome.
I kept the drone going, staying well upwind of the mist, until it was over the lip of the falls. There, the camera looked down on hardy bushes that manage to cling to the rocks despite their tumultuous environment. A month before, their leaves had fallen, but now, as mist met freezing air, they were decorated with a coating of rime, tiny crystals of ice.
This image of rushing water, bushes, rocks, and the precipitous falls, seemed to me more painterly than literal, a pattern from the mind of an imagined artist.
Just upstream from the wall of rock that the Niagara River crashes over, Goat Island splits the water, forcing it into two individual cascades. Half a kilometre to the south of the American Falls are the Horseshoe Falls, so-named for their shape, which are even more spectacular, if that’s possible.
As I directed the drone toward this remarkable sight, the late afternoon sun was shining in my eyes, reflecting off the water and illuminating the rising mist.
Entranced by the beauty of the scene, I was too distracted to recognize the extent of invisible vapour in the air. Unknown to me, the breeze was propelling it inexorably in the direction of the drone.
Squinting into the monitor on the remote control, I didn’t recognize that the five-sided sparkles that began to appear were an active warning of danger.
Too late, I recognized that an invisible mist had enveloped the drone. At once, I backed it away and quickly navigated till it was above the river but close to the pathway where I was standing.
I imagined that all was well, but what hadn’t occurred to me was that the moisture in the air might be interfering with the drone’s sensors.
The remote control has an artificial voice which warns me of automatic functions, and suddenly I heard it announce a single ominous word: “Landing”.
With that, the drone began to descend toward the river. Unless I acted fast, it would sink into the water and be swept away.
Pretty shocked, I used the elevation control to force it upwards. To my great relief, I was able to override the automatic function. The drone obeyed my command.
Although the aircraft was safely hovering a few metres above ground level, I was seriously rattled, not fully rational.
Driving it back anxiously, at high speed over the grass, toward a safe landing place, I managed to direct it straight into the branch of a tree. A propeller shattered immediately, and the machine fell to earth, breaking a landing leg and a propeller arm.
The moment I picked it up, I knew that it would be spending some time in the drone hospital before it would fly again.
I packed it gently into the car and drove home, My mood alternated between gloom about my failures as a pilot, and excitement about some wonderful images I had captured.
