Catching the Mavic Air from a boat

Mossiback · Jul 30, 2018

I have not tried it, but this video looks interesting.

Ray&Paula · Jul 30, 2018

mad monkey said:
Why disable it? I never turn mine off.. Land on a deck all the time just come in sideways lol

I hear ya....... I'm going to try it both ways to see what work put the best. I would have to assume that disabling the landing protection would bring it down much quicker than having it on due to the slight hesitation as it lands. This would in all likelihood work best if your drifting and/or in higher winds. As for having it on, I have a 36" Hoodman landing pad as well as a great open bow on my deckboat that would work great if everything is calm.

Ray&Paula · Jul 30, 2018

InvisibleName said:
Just remember that you may be rising & falling with the waves, but your Mavic won’t!

Excellant point.........

mad monkey · Jul 30, 2018

It only comes down faster while in sport.. Regular mode it will not matter disabled or not. So be safe and keep enabled.

mad monkey · Jul 30, 2018

Plus remember when you're landing in hand it's no different than bringing it down and lining up your pad. Only you stick your hand out, hold down and she come in after a second.. That holding down is essentially disabling sensor.

ccoltmanm · Jul 31, 2018

I would recommend finding a place on the boat for it to drop on. Make it a soft place like a few towels flat so you can land harder.

I have caught it a few times and one time a wave pushed me up and I knicked my finger forearm and chest pretty bad.

rico341 · Aug 3, 2018

I’ve ended up taking off and landing from the deck. I have to dodge rigging on the boat, but so far so good. I generally stop the boat to make landing easier.

MavicFlyer · Aug 8, 2018

rico341 said:
I'm thinking about flying my Mavic Air off of my sailboat to get some nice video that I've always wanted. There are after market hand guards (for the bottom) available for the Spark to protect your hands when you want to grab it while it is flying. Does anyone know of any hand guards that are available for the bottom of the Mavic Air?

I have prop guards and will use them too, but would like the extra protection like the Spark hand guards.

Lot of good tips here. I do hand launch and recover quite often

Note:
Gloves are a good idea until you get the hang of it...if someone says you don’t need them, I suspect they never had their finger meet a spinning prop...I have.

Ray&Paula · Aug 14, 2018

It's great hearing everyone's experiences, settings, etc. for boating. I'm thinking about making up a field guide for boating in regards to best practices, settings, etc.. I'm sincerely enjoying this conversation. Ray

Lzet · Aug 15, 2018

Just keep your boat not moving when landing. The first attempt lets your MA to jump up due to bottom sensors. It can happen, the next attempt will be outside of your hand/boat

.
I had a previous practise with my P3 PRO firstly ( 3 times bigger and haevier

) so the palm landing with MA is pretty simpler.

Lake_Flyer · Aug 15, 2018

Switch off landing protection and never back on again. It serves nothing. And no, it doesn't come down fast and hard, just normal.

Ray&Paula · Aug 15, 2018

Great advice!! Thanks! Thumbswayup

CanadaDrone · Aug 15, 2018

Lake_Flyer said:
Switch off landing protection and never back on again. It serves nothing. And no, it doesn't come down fast and hard, just normal.

Why switch it off when holding the left stick down for a couple seconds does the same thing? Landing protection has it's benefits, there is no disadvantage to leaving it on IMO, and it doesn't change how you do a palm landing.

Bertrand_HK · Aug 15, 2018

One little suggestion is to properly set up RTH location

JDawg · Aug 15, 2018

CanadaDrone said:
Why switch it off when holding the left stick down for a couple seconds does the same thing? Landing protection has it's benefits, there is no disadvantage to leaving it on IMO, and it doesn't change how you do a palm landing.

Yep. Left stick back and it will land in your hand soft as a feather. Simple as that.

Ray&Paula · Aug 16, 2018

Bertrand_HK said:
One little suggestion is to properly set up RTH location

Exactly what I would like to do.......Unfortunately, Return to Remote Location cannot be relied on. Many users here are experiencing and faced with the same problem as I am. See my recent post here;
GPS Signal on iPad Not Being Recognized?

Lake_Flyer · Aug 16, 2018

CanadaDrone said:
Why switch it off when holding the left stick down for a couple seconds does the same thing? Landing protection has it's benefits, there is no disadvantage to leaving it on IMO, and it doesn't change how you do a palm landing.

With LP on it will fight you and spin up to max RPM. Some users might get panicked when it does. With LP off it doesn't. (this is with the MP, I believe the Air behaves the same).

As far as usefulness...None of the drones I ever had in the last 6 years had the LP feature and I never missed it. Some users lost their MP because it kept hovering in LP mode until the battery died and they didn't know how to get it to land. It really doesn't add a lot, it only adds confusion. Why should it be allowed to decide it's not safe to land for itself? You are the pilot, you decide.

Besides, grabbing it while keeping throttle down is safer then letting it land in your palm, specially on a rocking boat. I have a lot experience with flying from my console boat with Phantoms, Inspire1 and Mavic Pro. LP (landing protection) is definitely NOT what you want on a boat.

mad monkey · Aug 16, 2018

Wrong. Grabbing it causes rpm spin up. Sticking your hand out makes it rise slightly.. Then with left down it will come down and land nice and safe.

Now in a rocking boat you should be more careful agreed..

Lake_Flyer · Aug 16, 2018

mad monkey said:
Wrong. Grabbing it causes rpm spin up. Sticking your hand out makes it rise slightly.. Then with left down it will come down and land nice and safe.

Now in a rocking boat you should be more careful agreed..

We were talking about hand catching ON A BOAT.
Read what I wrote.
Grabbing with LP ON is not what you want because of it spinning up. Exactly what you say as well. However, with LP OFF it won't spin up. Grabbing it is safer that way then letting it land in your hand because you can drop it obviously.

Why are you so fond of Landing Protection? Can you show me an example of why it serves us?
Have you ever switched it off?

mad monkey · Aug 16, 2018

If you say it has no use that means it can't interfere with you. So why bother turning it off. It really protects the device if it's trying to land on a slope etc. Hand catching had nothing to do with disabled sensors etc. It's literally landing in your hand vs the ground. Exact same principles apply.

While hand catching the motor should never Ramp up. That's kinda the point.

Hell, some people believe flipping it onto its side is the way to land..