PSA: Make sure your FPV zone is wild horse-free before flying

A recent Instagram post from Italy caught our attention, and we think you might enjoy it as well. It involves an FPV drone, a wild horse — and a pretty spectacular collision. Warning: Don’t try this at home.

The post comes from the Instagram account of gianmarco.gabriele, who has more than 22,000 followers. Among those followers are experienced FPV pilots like Team Black Sheep, so clearly Gianmarco knows what he’s doing. He also flies with a group called dirtyseagullsfpv, which specializes in capturing some of the many beautiful spots around Italy. Here’s a dirtyseagull post showing some impressive flying inside a now-abandoned “treehouse” in Italy:

When in Rome…

Gianmarco.gabriele has been at this game for a while, and his Instagram feed is filled with some pretty glorious videos and stills. Check out this shot of the Coliseum, taken in the pre-COVID era:

Trevi Fountain

It’s funny how the internet works. At the beginning of this story, gianmarco.gabriele was to me an unknown name. But as I started poring through his Instagram page, I noticed at least one post that had gone a bit viral earlier this year. It’s a spectacular flight around Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain, which was made even more spectacular by the absence of people due to COVID19. Just watch. I’m willing to bet some of you have seen this before:

The horse, the drone, the collision

And so, what about the horse? Well, seems that Gianmarco was helping to document the capture of a horse that had been living in the wild. For several days, they had walked with it, slowly guiding it back to a stable. As they approached their destination, Gianmarco decided to grab a clip by drone. It seems that spooked the horse a bit. In fact, with the magic of Google Translate, let’s let Gianmarco tell the story:

For three days we always walked safely with 4 people to direct the horse towards the stables. On the 4th day I asked to shoot a clip for the backstage to the person positioned on my left .. unfortunately this request, added to one turn too much around the horse, meant that when the horse should have entered the stables he discarded right taking me smear. The front hoof hit the radio antenna, the impact made me go forward with my torso and the hind leg impacted the FPV goggles. It was like being run over by a train 🤣 🤣 luckily I came out unscathed! By swiping to the right you can see the clip from the drone!

Gianmacro.gabriele via Instagram

And what did that look like?

Well, exactly like this:

Of course, Gianmarco had his goggles on and couldn’t see what was coming.

But there is some good news here: He entered this clip in a GoPro contest and won!