Landing on a Moving Ship

[Gringorio]

Hi ya'll,

We've been using a phantom 3 Pro, 4 Pro, Mavic and Matrice 100 on the ship.

With the Mavic, since there is no atti mode, when I hand catch it while we are moving (generally around 8 knots) the motors spin up faster and the Mavic tries to move back to the position it was caught at making for a dangerous landing.

Since the winds are up for the next few days I can't test this, but I'm wondering if sport mode would have the same issue?

Is there any way around this or to quickly stop the motors?

Thanks!

 

[gregw]

Hi ya'll,

We've been using a phantom 3 Pro, 4 Pro, Mavic and Matrice 100 on the ship.

With the Mavic, since there is no atti mode, when I hand catch it while we are moving (generally around 8 knots) the motors spin up faster and the Mavic tries to move back to the position it was caught at making for a dangerous landing.

Since the winds are up for the next few days I can't test this, but I'm wondering if sport mode would have the same issue?

Is there any way around this or to quickly stop the motors?

Thanks!

I believe the motor is spinning up because the bottom VPS sensors tell the Mavic it's about to crash when the sensor encounters your hand when you're catching it... Turn the bottom sensor off before you do a hand catch and it won't spin up.. That's what I do when catching.. BTW, switching to Sports mode only turns off the front Obstacle Avoidance sensor, not the bottom sensor, so it won't help in your case.

 

[Gringorio]

I believe the motor is spinning up because the bottom VPS sensors tell the Mavic it's about to crash when the sensor encounters your hand when you're catching it... Turn the bottom sensor off before you do a hand catch and it won't spin up.. That's what I do when catching.. BTW, switching to Sports mode only turns off the front Obstacle Avoidance sensor, not the bottom sensor, so it won't help in your case.

Thanks for the reply! I should have said that I do turn off the sensors and the problem still occurs. Any chance sport mode is like atti and does not use gps to stay in position?

 

[Vasco]

Closing VPS sensor , while hand landing procedure i try last weekend work just fine for me without motor spinning effect.

 

[Falkenfisch]

Handcatching when you are at a fix place and the mavic is hovering seems not to be that difficult - but on a driving boat with 8 knots and some waves, pulling the boat up and down ..... :-( I am on a fishingtrip end of April and my intention is to get some nice footage from up , but I don´t know if I dare to under this conditions...

 

[Squamer]

Handcatching when you are at a fix place and the mavic is hovering seems not to be that difficult - but on a driving boat with 8 knots and some waves, pulling the boat up and down ..... :-( I am on a fishingtrip end of April and my intention is to get some nice footage from up , but I don´t know if I dare to under this conditions...

Be fast, be nimble my friend. I hand caught in 30mph winds this weekend and like you said the pucker factor was at an all time high. But the biggest thing I found was to commit! Grab hold of that sucker and don't hesitate!

 

[gregw]

Thanks for the reply! I should have said that I do turn off the sensors and the problem still occurs. Any chance sport mode is like atti and does not use gps to stay in position?

Sports mode still uses GPS. There is no switchable ATTI mode on the Mavic.

I regularly hand catch with the bottom VPS sensor off and have never had the blades spin up, but then, I'm on solid ground, not a moving boat. One of my tricks to make the Mavic slow it's blade down quickly while hand catching is to physically move the Mavic down while holding the left stick down all the way. When the Mavic senses that it's descending with the left stick all the way down, it seems to reduce the speed of the blades immediately.. You can test it out yourself on solid ground before trying it out on the boat.

It's possible that in a boat, the up/down motion of the boat could cause the Mavic blades to spin up when you catch it with the VPS sensors off...

 

[KiterTodd]

Be fast, be nimble my friend. I hand caught in 30mph winds this weekend and like you said the pucker factor was at an all time high. But the biggest thing I found was to commit! Grab hold of that sucker and don't hesitate!

So just so I understand this, if you grab hold of it, and keep the left stick all the way down, will it shut off after 3 seconds? Is that the pucker threshold I'm dealing with?
Just wondering, without a neck strap I think pulling both sticks to opposite corners could be difficult.

 

[Squamer]

So just so I understand this, if you grab hold of it, and keep the left stick all the way down, will it shut off after 3 seconds? Is that the pucker threshold I'm dealing with?
Just wondering, without a neck strap I think pulling both sticks to opposite corners could be difficult.

Only pull the altitude (left) stick down. For me since I DO NOT shut off any of the obstical or vision position sensors when I grab hold of it from underneath the motors rev up like its trying to avoid you holding it. Keep holding the altitude (left) stick down and it will shut off after a few seconds.

I usually fly it towards me facing me, spin it around facing away from me and then sneak up under it. Grab hold of it with thumb and pointer finger and pull altitude stick all the way down like you would normally descend. It revs up for a few seconds and then says "landing" . Then the motors shut off. The pucker factor for me is when its revving up and for those two three seconds your like uh oh uh oh uh oh. The wind doesn't help as its slightly drifting, or on a boat you're going up and down and that's why I say to commit, don't hesitate haha

For clarification. I know you can switch the controller settings to make the left stick the right and so on so I want to call the the left stick the "Altitude" someone correct me on what its really called. But I do know majority of use left the settings alone as they were from the factory. Pulling the right stick down with it will force the Mavic to fly either forward or backwards depending on its orientation and will like not end well.

 

[KiterTodd]

Thanks @Squamer for the description.
I wonder what's going on in the Mavic's brain that causes a motor shutoff. Think it senses your hand and that it's altitude is no longer changing?