Flying in/around fog?

[Citizen Flier]

Was planning to get some fog stills/video today at the CA coast -where the fog might be fairly thick. I'm used to shooting with land cameras that are weather sealed. But I'm concerned the an M2P might not fare so well in thick, moist fog. The gap around the battery does not seem well protected for a moist environment. It is often possible to get above a layer of fog for a flyover. But of course fog cover changes quickly. Anyone with experience/advice on this? Sounds like a situation that would require extreme caution & a conservative approach. Thanks

 

[MPPilot]

Visual line of sight. If you are going into the fog you may need some strong strobes to be able to track it and still fly legal.

If it is the battery compartment you are worried about you may be able to seal it with some gaffers/duct/painter tape (in order of preference) to keep the moisture out during the flight.

Good luck and post the pictures here when done. I miss California.

 

[waylander]

Yo Citizen
You do realise that the down wash from the props and possibly the internal cooling fan is going to suck a considerable amount of water vapour inside the drone, which of course is full of delicate electronics, some other guys on this forum have posted flights in fog, search for their posts.
Good Luck

PS MPPilot posted seconds before me......

Waylander

 

[Citizen Flier]

Yo Citizen
You do realise that the down wash from the props and possibly the internal cooling fan is going to suck a considerable amount of water vapour inside the drone, which of course is full of delicate electronics, some other guys on this forum have posted flights in fog, search for their posts.
Good Luck

PS MPPilot posted seconds before me......

Waylander

Exactly the type of issue that concerns me. Thinking I need to stay well above fog layer. And yes to prev post re: VLOS

I thought about tape seal. But if it blew lose could be a worse hazard.
Fair weather flyer!

 

[MPPilot]

One other thought and I have no idea if it will work. @waylander brought up some concerns. Perhaps running it for a while to let it warm up inside will help, maybe run through a battery before hitting the fog. Water condenses on cool surfaces, if the electronics are warm it may avoid this problem? I don't know, perhaps someone with fog experience, or a real physics background, could help us out.

 

[waylander]

Hi Citizen Flier
Type "Fog" or "Flying in fog" into the search magnifying glass top left of screen, to see what other pilots have said/done
Cheers Waylander

 

[The Editor]

Was planning to get some fog stills/video today at the CA coast -where the fog might be fairly thick. I'm used to shooting with land cameras that are weather sealed. But I'm concerned the an M2P might not fare so well in thick, moist fog. The gap around the battery does not seem well protected for a moist environment. It is often possible to get above a layer of fog for a flyover. But of course fog cover changes quickly. Anyone with experience/advice on this? Sounds like a situation that would require extreme caution & a conservative approach. Thanks

Hmmm......

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[Phantomrain.org]

Was planning to get some fog stills/video today at the CA coast -where the fog might be fairly thick. I'm used to shooting with land cameras that are weather sealed. But I'm concerned the an M2P might not fare so well in thick, moist fog. The gap around the battery does not seem well protected for a moist environment. It is often possible to get above a layer of fog for a flyover. But of course fog cover changes quickly. Anyone with experience/advice on this? Sounds like a situation that would require extreme caution & a conservative approach. Thanks

You might want to consider a Mavic wet Suit for the fog , rain or snow. Left you a pm.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the rain
Coal

 

[johnmeyer]

As "The Editor" implied with his post, you can search this forum and find answers.

I would not normally fly in fog (and would not recommend doing so), but two days ago, while trying to capture a sunset picture along the central California coast (and test out my M2P Hasselblad low-light performance), the fog developed, literally in front of my eyes. I couldn't see it on the ground because it was quite thin, but I looked at my flight display, saw the fog bank, uttered an expletive, and zoomed back home right away.

I didn't want to mess with all that moisture.

I did get this nice shot, just before I returned:

 

[The Editor]

There is also something that I believe people have overlooked.
Correct me if I am wrong (since I'm not American) but does the FAA not require at least 3 miles clear visibility to undertake a UAV flight?
Fog would obscure that clear visabilty and would violate FAA rules would it not?

 

[Deleted member 3792]

Vaseline is often used as a preventer against moisture on electrical conductors and can probably be used ever here on the battery connections. The motors will survive when they will heat up anyway. If you only wan’t to test this once I don’t see any problems so far.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Fantastic shot, , I went ahead an cropped this for a nice widescreen wallpaper for you.
When it comes to the Fog , getting up and over it like this and can really present a nice view below.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the rain.
Coal

 

[MAVIC_2_YTS]

You might want to consider a Mavic wet Suit for the fog , rain or snow. Left you a pm.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the rain
Coal

Mind sharing with me too living in a place that is primarily winter 8 months of the year, this is of interest to me

 

[Citizen Flier]

Nice work Phantomrain. Low fog with color in the sky is the holy grail, and all to rare to expect. I live at the edge of fog land, but only had the M2P a short time. Need to make the best of it before the fog goes on vacation for winter!

 

[johnmeyer]

The ultimate fog drone shot was taken by a professional drone operator and good friend of my daughter and her adventure photographer husband. My son-in-law hired him to do the aerial part of the commercial photography he was doing in Iceland. At about midnight, they were capturing photos and video of the car, and he climbed up through the fog to reveal the midnight sun on the mountains. Make sure you rewind to the beginning, in case it is already playing. Whoever edited it screwed up the effect because they didn't allow enough "head" at the beginning to set up the shot, and then decided to do a "speed jump" to get up to altitude which eliminates the wonder of seeing the mountains emerge from nothing.

Despite this, the effect is still stunning.

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If you watch the whole two-minute video, you'll see how much fun it is to be a professional drone operator, flying all over the world and filming things that the rest of us couldn't get near.

 

[gnirtS]

Large chunks of that are from Amazon's Grand Tour (ie the new top gear) series so thats a decent job to film!
I really dislike speed jump effects though!

 

[Cymruflyer]

I had an open cockpit plane and flew through some very tiny clouds at some points in my flying life, both winter in Colorado and summer in the USA and the UK. I can tell you there are a number of types of clouds, which is basically what fog is anyway. The winter clouds would form ice crystals on my goggles as I flew through them, the summer clouds would sometimes be non events and other times would feel soaking wet and leave a thin line of condensation on all the leading edge surfaces, including the cables on the wing. My goggles sometimes became so saturated in seconds that I had to wipe them clear.

I'm telling you this so that you can understand that there will be varying amounts of moisture in a fog cloud, so some could be almost a non event and others could be enough to make your drone look like it went through a hose spraying water. Therefore, it may or may not affect the electronics. Flying IN fog is not going to give you anything to view anyway, so basically, you are going to be flying just above or just below the layer for best image results, which will not cause you any problems. It will be the actual going through it, that will cause you condensation problems.

 

[lrsn]

The Editor posted the following regarding flying in fog:
"Fog would obscure that clear visabilty and would violate FAA rules would it not?"
I wholly agree with the Editor! I've flown along the California Coast making many zero-zero takeoffs into the thick coastal fog from uncontrolled airports such as the Watsonville Airport and controlled airports such as the Hayward Airport in small airplanes up thru heavy multi-engine airplanes since the 1960s and I don't recommend flying up into the Pacific Costal Fog. I've had some of my closest almost mid-air collisions with idiots taking off in small airplanes into the fog and into controlled airspace where I'd be on an Instrument Departure or Instrument Approach. You could put a dozen strobes on your quadcopter that a airplane pilot would never even see. I doubt that a small quadcopter would be able to take out even a small airplane but why risk it!!

 

[GB1Yorkshire1]

I have been getting good results by spraying “Never Wet” on my Mavic. It is a inert silicon based spray that will make any surface Super Hydrophobic, it’s made by Rustleum and is available in Home Depot
I use it both with my Mavic and when out taking wildlife photos with my DSLM water is simply repelled from any surface including electronics, though I would avoid any lens.

 

[Oconnb910]

Okay I did not finish reading the responses but I have long thin so much fog snow and other moisture base environments.
I think most people are way too paranoid about they're drones. I have flown through so much stuff and all of my drones are in perfect condition still.
If you fly an environment thats heavily moisture just bring the Drone home and let it sit in a dry environment.
The reason I know that these drones are designed for this is because I have a drone sat up in a tree for 4 months through rain storms hurricanes winter snow storm and it was perfectly fine why am I got it back.
Do not worry about them being so fragile because they are not.
Two of my drones have been exposed to everything and they are totally flying perfectly today