So I woke up to a nice foggy morning. I immediately thought about putting my Air 3 up, and getting some nice shots of the fog nestled in the valleys, and hollows. But was hesitant to do so, wondering about the reliability of the RTH function in foggy conditions. Anyone have any experience with this?
Fog Vs. RTH?
- Thread starter DevilsLuck
- Start date
RTH can bring the drone back at midnight on a moonless night.
All it needs is GPS to find its way home so fog won't worry it.
But fog could make for problems with obstacle avoidance if there are obstacles around, or descending problems if the fog is heavy enough.
I see. So to overcome any problems bringing it down if the fog is between the drone, and home; switching to sport mode will deactivate the obstacle avoidance?
Well... Thas was cool, scary, and awesome!
I sent her up, and the footage as she punched through the fog was cooler than I expected. Beautiful.
The scary... I sent her do do a lap around the water tower, a route I've become comfortable with. And then it happened. Right above the tower my drone lost connection with the RC2 controller. I've never had this happen before...
Trying to stay cool, I moved around, held my controller up, trying to regain connection. Nothing...
The awesome thing came when when my controller told me the forced RTH had been initiated, and a minute or so later, back she came!
I have never put that feature to the test. I'm glad it worked. It would have been impossible to retrieve if it had gone down on top of the water tower.
I sent her up, and the footage as she punched through the fog was cooler than I expected. Beautiful.
The scary... I sent her do do a lap around the water tower, a route I've become comfortable with. And then it happened. Right above the tower my drone lost connection with the RC2 controller. I've never had this happen before...
Trying to stay cool, I moved around, held my controller up, trying to regain connection. Nothing...
The awesome thing came when when my controller told me the forced RTH had been initiated, and a minute or so later, back she came!
I have never put that feature to the test. I'm glad it worked. It would have been impossible to retrieve if it had gone down on top of the water tower.
When I flew in fog I got the audible warning at 100-200' "LANDING"as it mistakenly detected the fog as the ground.I raised altitude and it stopped.
It's illegal to fly in the fog in the U.S. You can't maintain VLOS.
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
I try not to fly in fog any more now my main drone is the M4P, which is lacking in the moisture-resist department in a way that my previous Typhoon H wasn't, but also because XP has taught me that a) VLOS is seriously compromised by it, and b) fog actually isn't very helpful for producing interesting, quality film unless you are above it, or it is some way off in the distance with sun shining through it !
That said, on the few occasions where me and the mini 4 have ventured out in hazier / cloudier climes the things that get affected for me are collision avoidance sensors, which can become occluded with moisture on the lenses and the camera, for similar reasons. And I have seen other people's videos (most notably that PhillyDroneLife one, where he climbs up through a cloud bank (sigh), after which his Mini (3 Pro I think) was unable to descend because his downward sensors thought they were over something solid. All very stress-inducing, but eventually Sports Mode was there to save him, which disabled his OA sensors, allowing their faulty inputs to be ignored.
That said, on the few occasions where me and the mini 4 have ventured out in hazier / cloudier climes the things that get affected for me are collision avoidance sensors, which can become occluded with moisture on the lenses and the camera, for similar reasons. And I have seen other people's videos (most notably that PhillyDroneLife one, where he climbs up through a cloud bank (sigh), after which his Mini (3 Pro I think) was unable to descend because his downward sensors thought they were over something solid. All very stress-inducing, but eventually Sports Mode was there to save him, which disabled his OA sensors, allowing their faulty inputs to be ignored.
Obstacle avoidance isn't the problem.
It's the downward sensors that get fooled by heavy fog.
They falsely interpret heavy fog as the ground being close below the drone and landing protection will slow the descent rate to very slow.
If you were up high that could mean a much longer time to descend that you expected.
Sport Mode doesn't disable the downward sensors.
Perhaps your drone allows disabling VPS through the app?
In general it's not a good idea to fly in or over heavy fog.
You need to be able to see the drone and the area it's flying through.
Obstacle Avoidance has no problems in fog BUT
That's the biggest problem with it. Besides you are flying in a sheet of moisture!!
Water towers present two problems. First, they are a gigantic ground rod. Second, because of their height and ground properties, many municipalities stick antenna's on top, which depending on their function, may also interfere with your signal. Unless I could maintain LOS, I would be very cautious flying around one.
In real life ground fog means you can’t see adequately down the runway nor do you know how high the obscuration is. Long Beach airport will suspend flight - ops sometimes departures AND arrivals with inadequate runway visibility due to heavy fog Our birds are for VFR flight only because of VLOS.
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
You say that, but you seem to be talking as if we are always flying above fog, If you are IN it, and you get a little drop of moisture on one of those sensors, and the craft thinks there is something next to it it needs to fast move away from then you'd better get into Sports mode fast so those inputs get ignored ! And if your RTH mode tries to avoid collisions on the way home, and is constantly confused by either droplets on the sensors or a solid wall of grey in multiple directions, then I'd say that was a recipe for disaster, possibly only compounded by all the VLOS risks !!
In addition to VLOS noted by Vic in 6, and the moisture noted by Cafguy in 9, if my 107 memory serves me correctly, we’re required to stay 500’ below a cloud and 2,000’ horizontally from one. If I’m wrong, someone correct me. It’s been a while.
I was talking about the problem of a drone descending so slowly that flyers think their drone isn't descending at all.
That's compounded when they have flown too high and are likely to run out of battery while still up there.
That's the issue that has shown up several times for fog flyers.
I've not seen any cases of issues due to OA in fog.
I'm fully aware that none of you have ever even considered flying outside the bounds. Knowingly, or otherwise.. No dirty boots will be found here.
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
And by contrast, one where where it does all go a bit tits-up...
(sometimes I find myself grateful for Youtube's Mute button)
At the time I linked you can see his OA sensors start going off when they shouldn't and he has the descent problem later.
It's not trying to be big brother / drone police to advise you of the potential issues you may face when flying in this sort of thing and that's gonna include everything; legal, technical and otherwise !
As posted by Meta 4, it may disable OA and can't you independantly switch OA off?
But sport mode does not switch off the landing-protection downward looking sensors and it is those that can problems during the descent.
Drones have been stuck at height because of such problems and their batteries have been emptied, resulting in a mid-air motor-stop and subsequent freefall.
With regards to disabling the downwards looking sensors, have a look at post #3 in
How to turn off the bottom sensor dji air 3 ?
Hi there, I am a Mavic Pro 2 user and I just bought the new DJI Air 3. I am using my drone on sailing boat and need to turn off bottom sensor in order to grabe it with handle during the landing. Unfortunatly the is no way for now to unable downward sensor. Please DJI engineers, let us know...
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