Flying over water

[Vaideeshwar]

Pay Attention to Visual Line of Sight as birds can and will bring your drone down quickly.

Remember the best way to avoid the bird collision is to ramp straight up.

This is honestly my worst fear while flying. Even if you do everything correctly, you can still get knocked out of the sky by a bird. Although my instinct whenever I see a bird is to fly up, I think it may not always work, especially if it is a bird of prey determined to steal your drone away (I had such an experience recently).

Extremely close encounter with a bird!

I would've almost lost my MA2 yesterday to a bird! It is definitely not the first time I encountered a bird, but definitely the most scariest! I usually fly up to 100m right after takeoff to avoid any birds flying the Dallas area. My protocol when I encounter a bird is to switch the aircraft to...

mavicpilots.com

 

[Ron Caballero CAP]

I'm heading on a road trip to the Canadian Rockies in a couple of days and have chalked up some spots to do some flying and filming. Some of these spots are over rivers and open water and I'm slightly nervous at the prospect of something going wrong and losing the drone. Whats everyone's experiences so far with open water and any tips they have?

Thanks in advance

I do not have any experience, yet, flying over water, but I have three suggestions: Keep your drone in your Line of Sight and stay well above the water. Also, be sure not to let your battery run down. Best to start returning to home at 30% remaining (That is a good rule on any flight)..

 

[E90RAW]

In the 11 days since I got my MA2, I'd say close to 80% of my flying has been over the Hudson river. I've experienced no issues at all. As a general rule when over water you don't want to be down too close to the surface, as reflections off the water may mess with the bottom sensors. This was an issue on my Mavic Mini, it would sometimes begin to descend over water. Not a huge issue, but something to watch for. I have not experienced this at all with my MA2, in fact my level of confidence flying over water is MUCH higher now.

Here are a couple vids over water I've taken in the last week or two:

VERY COOL. Now thats what a drone is for. Nice exploring. Love the shots.

 

[E90RAW]

I'm heading on a road trip to the Canadian Rockies in a couple of days and have chalked up some spots to do some flying and filming. Some of these spots are over rivers and open water and I'm slightly nervous at the prospect of something going wrong and losing the drone. Whats everyone's experiences so far with open water and any tips they have?

Thanks in advance

Its the only place to fly. No people, no one to bother, great stuff to explore like the video above. Go H2O.

 

[WolfSpring]

I fly over the water often, only twice with the MA2, mostly with the mini and I take off about 6 Meters higher than the water I am flying over and i"ve been as low as 3 meters above the water and I've seen height say negative something a couple times when it first drops down but then it fixes itself and when I go to land it is saying it's at 6 meters, so I don't know if it auto adjusts for AGL but after the first few minutes of flying I stop seeing negative and I've flown as low as 3 meters and as high as 45 over water with no issues with sensors. With the mini I did have an issue where it acted like it wanted to land in the water the first time I was flying and i looked and it said 0.something meters even though it was a good 10 feet up and I throttled up brought it back quick and learned to watch the readings more carefully.

 

[molson]

Can you share more detail, like what did the flight logs indicate? I have flown over the water extensively, but at considerable height.

How do i download the flight logs? (I have smart controller)

 

[pietdv]

Sorry, don’t understand what you are advising

Try stay around 10-15 min above water if you want to stay low. I find the ToF sensors start to act up <10m above water.

Thanks but please make your post clearer. 10-15 what? Feet, meters? “<10m above water”?? So this is meters?

 

[Trevlam]

A lot of this was shot over water. And midway you can also see I am very low over a creek bed.

 

[Sheppie]

What water?

 

[mavicn00b]

Thanks but please make your post clearer. 10-15 what? Feet, meters? “<10m above water”?? So this is meters?

Meters. You basically want to operate the drone outside of the operational range of the sensor so it doesn't try to autoland unexpectedly.