After flight in the Danube

Automatically saved design

Michael Hackl presented Drone Life Line in the show "2 Minuten 2 Millionen". The man from Mühlviertel flew the drone into the studio and dropped it into a pool of water for demonstration purposes.(Bild: Puls4/Gerry Frank Photography )

Flying has long fascinated Michael Hackl. But if a drone falls into the water, it is in danger of being lost forever. After the man from Mühlviertel experienced this himself and sank a drone in the Danube, he became the inventor of an automatic rescue system.

Pictures from the air are spectacular - as anyone who has ever sat in a window seat on an airplane knows very well. With the help of drones, many such shots no longer require an airplane; others use the aircraft simply to slip into the role of the pilot, who takes over the controls from the ground. But what happens if the drone falls into the water? "Then the drone is usually lost forever," says Michael Hackl.

As soon as the drone is in the water, the rescue system triggers automatically.(Bild: Puls4/Gerry Frank Photography)

The lecturer in drone technology at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Wels, who also runs an online store and a drone pilot school, worked hard until he developed a rescue system.

Flight performance not impaired
"The challenge was that the flight performance should not be impaired," Hackl told the Puls4 TV show "2 Minuten 2 Millionen", in which he also presented his development to investors. What does it look like? If the drone falls into the water, a buoy attached to a line is ejected.

The life buoy rises to the surface, the drone can be located and pulled to the surface. The Mühlviertel native, who is a trained insurance salesman, was motivated to become an inventor by his own experiences: "I sank a drone in the Danube."