What's the bottom line here?

[aringhof]

I'm taking the drone to an area with some snow, ice and water next week. I've researched as much as my brain can process, and ive read as many posts as I could from you all (Love this forum by the way!). I am overwhelmed with all the opinions on this issue.... What's the bottom line here? what should I enable/disable when flying near ice/water so my Mavic Pro doesn't nosedive into the drink?

 

[Bunny Too]

I'm taking the drone to an area with some snow, ice and water next week. I've researched as much as my brain can process, and ive read as many posts as I could from you all (Love this forum by the way!). I am overwhelmed with all the opinions on this issue.... What's the bottom line here? what should I enable/disable when flying near ice/water so my Mavic Pro doesn't nosedive into the drink?

If you disable landing protection you should be fine, all you have to worry about then is (you) physically flying it into the ground. Landing protection causes the drone to slow, stop, hover and land when it detects it is close to the ground.
Regards,
-d.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Disable the VPS for the bottom sensors as well. That will prevent the drone from sinking into the water on its own.

 

[aringhof]

If you disable landing protection you should be fine, all you have to worry about then is (you) physically flying it into the ground. Landing protection causes the drone to slow, stop, hover and land when it detects it is close to the ground.
Regards,
-d.

If I disable landing protection, does that alter my ability to RTH?

 

[Bunny Too]

If I disable landing protection, does that alter my ability to RTH?

No, all landing protection does is help prevent you from flying it straight into the ground, so you would have to be careful if you are doing very low (two or three meter) filming.
Regards,
-d.

 

[tcope]

I have no idea what "landing protection" is (there is no such thing named this).

I'd recommend not disabling anything. Many people would recommend disabling VPS but I don't see that this is an issue. GPS over-rides VPS so as long as you have a good GPS signal, VPS should not cause an issue.

However, with that said... I don't see that it would create a problem if it was disabled.

 

[AyeYo]

You don't need to disable anything. If you have VPS enabled over water, the Mavic tends to hunt altitude at low altitude (<30ft), which can be annoying but isn't a danger unless you aren't paying attention. I have never had any issues flying over snow with everything enabled.

Keep in mind that RTH has a 16ft acceptable radius of engagement - i.e. if you take off on the shore and for whatever reason hit RTH 15ft out over the water, the Mavic will land in the water rather than returning to the landing spot. Not a likely scenario, but it is possible and needs to be kept in mind.

 

[tcope]

Let me also add that most people who state you should disable VPS over water are probably going back to the P3 days when some people reported this as an issue. The P4 and Mavic no longer adjust altitude based on VPS readings in normal flight mode (only Active Track and Terrain mode). So incorrect VPS readings won't cause your Mavic is adjust it's altitude.

 

[AyeYo]

The P4 and Mavic no longer adjust altitude based on VPS readings in normal flight mode (only Active Track and Terrain mode). So incorrect VPS readings won't cause your Mavic is adjust it's altitude.

Is that confirmed somewhere by DJI? Both my Mavic and P4P hunt altitude like crazy over water, especially moving water.

 

[Bunny Too]

I have no idea what "landing protection" is (there is no such thing named this).

I'd recommend not disabling anything. Many people would recommend disabling VPS but I don't see that this is an issue. GPS over-rides VPS so as long as you have a good GPS signal, VPS should not cause an issue.

However, with that said... I don't see that it would create a problem if it was disabled.

Landing protection is the term used in the manual pg.53 I try not to be cavalier with semantics on forums.
Regards,
-d.

 

[tcope]

Is that confirmed somewhere by DJI? Both my Mavic and P4P hunt altitude like crazy over water, especially moving water.

I have a video showing this to be the case. It's about 95% (just needs voice dubb'ed in). I'm hoping to get it done this evening. But I've tested it out and that is how it works. If you want to confirm, simply find a small hill, hover the Mavic at something like 10-15' and fly it into the hill. It won't change altitude in normal flight and the forward collision sensors will stop it's slight into the ground. I _suspect_ that with the addition of collision avoidance DJI felt the need to remove the altitude height adjustment feature. Personally, I think it should have been left in.

 

[tcope]

Landing protection is the term used in the manual pg.53 I try not to be cavalier with semantics on forums.

Thanks for the education.

Terrible wording in the manual as it's actually the Visual Positioning System... for which, there is a setting. Leave it up to DJI to screw up their own feature names.

 

[JLane]

Thanks for the education.

Terrible wording in the manual as it's actually the Visual Positioning System... for which, there is a setting. Leave it up to DJI to screw up their own feature names.

While I totally agree that the naming of "Landing Protection" is terrible, it's not simply the VPS as you have stated. Landing Protection is a completely separate option available in the Advanced settings of the Vision Settings.

Now, aside from whatever strange descriptions DJI might give it in the manual or app, here's a brief overview of why it's important and especially relevant when flying over water:

1. Landing Protection basically prevents you from flying the Mavic closer than 0.5m above the ground/objects below. With LP enabled (the default setup), the Mavic will automatically rise if it detects anything closer than 0.5m below it. With LP disabled, you can fly your Mavic as close as you want to the ground/objects and it won't try to ascend.

2. With LP enabled, a side-effect is the ability to initiate a forced auto-landing by holding the left stick down when the Mavic is at or below 0.5m. This is handy when you're doing it intentionally, but not so great if the VPS system is falsely reading the Mavic's height at less than 0.5m and initiates an auto-landing over water when you don't expect it.

3. In the two most recent versions of the firmware (.0500 and .0550), this forced auto-landing can't be aborted by using the throttle or the Pause button. The only way to abort this landing is by flicking the Sport mode switch.

 

[AyeYo]

I have a video showing this to be the case. It's about 95% (just needs voice dubb'ed in). I'm hoping to get it done this evening. But I've tested it out and that is how it works. If you want to confirm, simply find a small hill, hover the Mavic at something like 10-15' and fly it into the hill. It won't change altitude in normal flight and the forward collision sensors will stop it's slight into the ground. I _suspect_ that with the addition of collision avoidance DJI felt the need to remove the altitude height adjustment feature. Personally, I think it should have been left in.

That's only showing it doesn't use VPS for altitude in forward flight. In hover it uses VPS to hold position AND seemingly to hold altitude.

 

[aringhof]

While I totally agree that the naming of "Landing Protection" is terrible, it's not simply the VPS as you have stated. Landing Protection is a completely separate option available in the Advanced settings of the Vision Settings.

Now, aside from whatever strange descriptions DJI might give it in the manual or app, here's a brief overview of why it's important and especially relevant when flying over water:

1. Landing Protection basically prevents you from flying the Mavic closer than 0.5m above the ground/objects below. With LP enabled (the default setup), the Mavic will automatically rise if it detects anything closer than 0.5m below it. With LP disabled, you can fly your Mavic as close as you want to the ground/objects and it won't try to ascend.

2. With LP enabled, a side-effect is the ability to initiate a forced auto-landing by holding the left stick down when the Mavic is at or below 0.5m. This is handy when you're doing it intentionally, but not so great if the VPS system is falsely reading the Mavic's height at less than 0.5m and initiates an auto-landing over water when you don't expect it.

3. In the two most recent versions of the firmware (.0500 and .0550), this forced auto-landing can't be aborted by using the throttle or the Pause button. The only way to abort this landing is by flicking the Sport mode switch.

Excellent reply, thank you. So if I'm flying no less than 10-15 feet above the water, I should be fine leaving everything on? I dont need to get lower than that

 

[Kestrel]

I disable all the sensors when I fly over water, never had a problem. It flys faster too, around 30mph.

 

[JLane]

Excellent reply, thank you. So if I'm flying no less than 10-15 feet above the water, I should be fine leaving everything on? I dont need to get lower than that

I would personally disable Landing Protection, because there are several possible situations that can cause the Mavic to erroneously enter an auto landing from any height. In fact, I pretty much just leave LP disabled all the time.

 

[tcope]

That's only showing it doesn't use VPS for altitude in forward flight. In hover it uses VPS to hold position AND seemingly to hold altitude.

Yes. I think most people still think turning off VPS is better over water as there were many complaints back in the P3 days (last week?) about this affecting the P3. This was because on the P3, VPS attempted to maintain the P3's altitude above ground. As this is not true on the Mavic (in normal flight mode), it's not a valid reason to turn VPS off.

As far as your reply to me.... great info! Now I need to go back and look through the settings for more information. I LOVE when I learn something new/get corrected.

 

[aringhof]

Ok. I turned off VPS and Landing Assist. I flew this mission completely by hand.... I noticed a few discrepancies in the altitude readings however. I flew the drone up to an iceberg at about 5-10feet above the water (all sensors were off)... the depth on my controller read -3 feet. I saw this happen more than once where my altitude was actually a "negative" number. I didn't stay that low for long and I'm glad I powered off my sensors.

 

[Dragonfly]

While I totally agree that the naming of "Landing Protection" is terrible, it's not simply the VPS as you have stated. Landing Protection is a completely separate option available in the Advanced settings of the Vision Settings.

Now, aside from whatever strange descriptions DJI might give it in the manual or app, here's a brief overview of why it's important and especially relevant when flying over water:

1. Landing Protection basically prevents you from flying the Mavic closer than 0.5m above the ground/objects below. With LP enabled (the default setup), the Mavic will automatically rise if it detects anything closer than 0.5m below it. With LP disabled, you can fly your Mavic as close as you want to the ground/objects and it won't try to ascend.

2. With LP enabled, a side-effect is the ability to initiate a forced auto-landing by holding the left stick down when the Mavic is at or below 0.5m. This is handy when you're doing it intentionally, but not so great if the VPS system is falsely reading the Mavic's height at less than 0.5m and initiates an auto-landing over water when you don't expect it.

3. In the two most recent versions of the firmware (.0500 and .0550), this forced auto-landing can't be aborted by using the throttle or the Pause button. The only way to abort this landing is by flicking the Sport mode switch.

Also added to this is the fact that the VPS while over water is well known to give false readings due to the water surface (and is documented by DJI) and even though your Mavic may be 15 or 20 feet above the water the VPS may indicate a reading off less than the 0.3 feet thereby forcing the Mavic to rise. You then command a down stick and force the auto land to initiate. Bye bye Mavic. That is why we say turn off "Landing Protection" while flying over water to eliminate the possibility of this happening. Which has happened to more than 5 Mavics in the last month so is not a rare occurance.