Flying above water

[diniemasjuki]

I flew mavic pro few times offshore.
Based on what i have gone through, its much better to fly with vps disabled above water surface.

 

[newnan3]

I fly over water (ocean) all the time and have never had a forced landing issue. I leave VPS and Landing Protection on. I need and want VPS as it keeps the Mavic rock steady for filming. Either use FW .04 (what I'm sticking with) or the latest .06 so that you can instantly get out of autolanding if that erroneously kicks in. I'm sure your video will be great! Oh, and of course, I'm sure you know the river drops downstream and rises upstream so if you start at 4 feet and are flying upstream you will get closer and closer to the water as a function of the stream gradient. )

Whats the lowest you regularly fly to the water? I would prefer to leave all my sensors and landing protection on as well...

 

[newnan3]

I flew mavic pro few times offshore.
Based on what i have gone through, its much better to fly with vps disabled above water surface.

What have you gone thru? How low to the surface of the water did you fly?

 

[Andrew F]

Whats the lowest you regularly fly to the water? I would prefer to leave all my sensors and landing protection on as well...

Well, since I'm flying over the ocean and I have to contend with sneaker waves and random gusts of wind, I usually leave about a 10 foot buffer but I've flown as low as 3 feet when everything looks calm. You get some pretty cool video from that perspective.

 

[tmw2023]

Solves alot of problems when flying close to rivers or lakes.

Did you buy or make those yourself?

 

[rustydiver]

Well over the weekend I had it a few feet off the water no problem. Wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

 

[Reuuc]

I flew yesterday over the sea in KOS -Greece and I didn't disable anything. TBH I wasn't low enough for it to detect.. prob flying around 15-20metres above.

 

[Malavic]

can send the Mavic to some kind of forced landing.

The VPS says that Mavic is too low and rises up. Pilot pushes stick down to compensate, Mavic still rises so pilot holds down left stick for several seconds. Mavic decides that since we're so close to land, I may as well land. Pilot, on Firmware .500 or .550 frantically pushes up left stick and Mavic just ignores it. Soon thereafter Mavic gives Neptune a kiss and sinks to a watery grave.

 

[fslueth]

Solves alot of problems when flying close to rivers or lakes.

Nice mod. Can you show us a pic of how the floats are attached? What have you noticed performance wise with floats attached?

 

[yd0nxx]

It's not. If you disable VPS, your Mavic won't be able to hover as well. If you keep it enabled and attempt to hover a few feet from the surface of water, the VPS might not be able to detect the surface and it might also have trouble hovering.

tl;dr: Hovering near the surface of water is risky.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Solves alot of problems when flying close to rivers or lakes.

Did you paint your Mavic?

 

[Gary cato]

i flew and hovered low over the sea as low as three or 4 feet quite a few times over a few days on an island i found at 8 feet i was comfortable to be able to get back control in time if anything happened, which it never did, just a little ascending on occasion from VPS, i always fly with landing protection off.

Just watch out for waves and don't fly low near swimmers in the sea they love to throw water at the Mavic.

and that is just the adults.

 

[Chris.K]

If you're going to be flying close to the surface of the water, then turning off Landing Protection will be sufficient. That will prevent your Mavic from auto ascending/descending when it incorrectly detects the ground is near

When flying over water, the downward sensors sometimes detect the ground when light bounces off the surface of the water and hits the downward sensors. That can occur at any altitude. If you have the Landing Protection setting enabled, that could cause your Mavic to auto ascend (when it thinks it's below 0.5 meters) or descend if forced landing mode is auto enabled (when the throttle is in the full down position and the Mavic is at/below 0.5 meters). To prevent those issues from occurring, you only need to disable the Landing Protection setting.

View attachment 10324

just a bit of feedback that i used this yesterday for the first time and it worked flawlessly. i was flying quite low over water and the mavic had a really hard time hovering. it didnt try and auto land or anything, it just wouldnt hold its position well from about 2-4m above the water surface. i used the setting above and it hovered perfectly stable. thanks for the tip !

the ducks didnt appreciate it much and i almost lost the mavic due to one pissed off duck but hey thats another story.

 

[tmw2023]

I don't know if I could ever bring myself to do this

 

[JeffCharger]

If you're going to be flying close to the surface of the water, then turning off Landing Protection will be sufficient. That will prevent your Mavic from auto ascending/descending when it incorrectly detects the ground is near.


In firmware 01.03.06, pressing the throttle to the full up position will cancel forced landing mode. You could also toggle the sport mode switch too.

How does turning off Landing Protection affect landing during RTH?

 

[dekip]

Flipping to Sport mode has become my go to move when things go wrong - whatever it may be. Seems quite reliable and has completely changed my confidence in using

 

[msinger]

How does turning off Landing Protection affect landing during RTH?

From my testing, I found it did not change anything.

 

[Rbruz]

I fly over the ocean often, not changed any settings, thinking the people having issues are not moving much, I am always following something so maybe why I have been lucky so far !

Felipe de Sayulita ! | SkyPixel.com

 

[doccy]

From my testing, I found it did not change anything.

I think it may land slightly quicker (less of a pause in last approach). Also - obviously if something has moved under the RTH destination in the interim (a dog, a child, a chair moved or something) it will just land on top of them rather than stop and give you warning (so you need LOS).

I really wish there was a way to leave landing protection on... but with a way to disable automatic landing on stick down. This way you would have to hand catch and shut off the motor once grabbed... but would avoid the watery grave bug... but still get the protection of the drone not letting you lower it into the ground by mistake when out flying away from LOS.

Not for everyone - but would suit my particular needs perfectly.

 

[JeffCharger]

From my testing, I found it did not change anything.

thanks guys.... I will give it a try......