From a BOAT??? Oh my, I was not thinking!!

[KirkVoclain]

So I had a job yesterday to photograph a 160 foot boat....no problem....then they wanted RUNNING shots...and a short video clip. All was wonderful, the boat only runs top speed of about 10 Knots so making the video was awesome!

I did all the images and the video and started the landing process.....this boat has a HUGE landing area......I'll post a photo.............

I was literally 4 feet from landing and BOOM, the Mavic Pro 2 kicks into "RETURN HOME" mode.....but HOME is now probably 5 or 6 miles away........because we moved to do the running shots.

So I cancel it, get control....try to land again.....back to RETURN HOME MODE.........this happened at least 4 times....now I'm getting a bit low on battery....I'm at 18%

Next, I tell them to fully shut down the boat and I get close, I was able to snatch the drone out of mid air and get it down.....so I saved it.

But, I DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!! What should I do or should have done before I took off to prevent this????

Your thoughts????

Kirk

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Two things you should do , consider getting a Rescue Jacket for your mavic 2 Pro .
The other is set your Return to home to the controller , you can do that in mid flight or you can reset the home point to a new location by dragging the home point on the map. We do this for Remote landing on the Water.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 2 Pro in the Rain and Land on the Waves.

 

[neggy]

the RTH can be set for where the controller is/last known position of the controller, OR the home point/ place of take off

But if you lose communication and are constantly moving you are NEVER going to get it back except by hand flying... -otherwise it is just going to go for a swim when it gets to the last known point of the controller and there is no longer a boat there

If you are new around here, there are hundreds of horror stories about lost drones that were being operated from boats, the bigger the boat, the more metal, the more electronics, the bigger chance of you not getting it back.

 

[neggy]

PS a life preserver for your drone is a great idea, that way when it tries to turn into a submarine you can watch it float away... the chances of you being able to locate and recover a floating drone from a boat of any substantial size without jumping in after it ( is your drone worth the risk of drowning?) is near zero.

 

[dirkclod]

If you where standing where I see you maybe you were losing
LOS and why it kept going into RTH ?‍

 

[Phantomrain.org]

PS a life preserver for your drone is a great idea, that way when it tries to turn into a submarine you can watch it float away... the chances of you being able to locate and recover a floating drone from a boat of any substantial size without jumping in after it ( is your drone worth the risk of drowning?) is near zero.

The Rescue Jackets are a Great Idea as most Yachts and many ships have smaller boats on deck that allow for easy pick up.

One of the biggest problems is when you have a job to film a yacht or ship and you loose the drone in the Water , not only do you loose the Drone and the Footage that you took , but some of the ships use big $$$ just in Gas just for the shoot.

Hopefully you have a back up drone and can get up again so the gas is not wasted let alone the time for the trip.

When you have to tell your client , not only did i loose the drone and the footage , but your going to have to fill up the tank on the ship again, it does not go over well, and Reputations are ruined quickly in the Marina this way.

No one needs to risk drowning , and finding your drone is really not that hard. if you can spot a seagull on the water you can find your drone if it has a Rescue Jacket as it will still be floating on the top of the water.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic in the Rain and Land on the Waves.

 

[sar104]

So I had a job yesterday to photograph a 160 foot boat....no problem....then they wanted RUNNING shots...and a short video clip. All was wonderful, the boat only runs top speed of about 10 Knots so making the video was awesome!

I did all the images and the video and started the landing process.....this boat has a HUGE landing area......I'll post a photo.............

I was literally 4 feet from landing and BOOM, the Mavic Pro 2 kicks into "RETURN HOME" mode.....but HOME is now probably 5 or 6 miles away........because we moved to do the running shots.

So I cancel it, get control....try to land again.....back to RETURN HOME MODE.........this happened at least 4 times....now I'm getting a bit low on battery....I'm at 18%

Next, I tell them to fully shut down the boat and I get close, I was able to snatch the drone out of mid air and get it down.....so I saved it.

But, I DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!! What should I do or should have done before I took off to prevent this????

Your thoughts????

Kirk

From your description it was probably a smart battery RTH - at that distance from the home point it will have kicked in at a relatively high battery level. The solution, as noted above, would have been to reset the home point to the current location.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Besides setting home point to controller occasionally (this is spasmodic or has to be done manually now and then doesn’t it ?), also if taking off from water level to fly water level, set RTH to a mere height of nearby ship (+ a few metres), one you’re on if nothing else around.
No point flying higher than normal if it kicks in over water, just wastes precious battery.
Oh, and always try and land with at least say 20-25% battery remaining.
Better safer slightly shorter flights than this happening.
Set your first battery low alert to 30%, 2nd critical battery to 25% alert to make sure you don’t miss it.

 

[maintenanceguy]

...No one needs to risk drowning , and finding your drone is really not that hard. if you can spot a seagull on the water you can find your drone if it has a Rescue Jacket as it will still be floating on the top of the water.

Big difference between spotting a seagull when stopping a 20' boat and keeping track of where the seagull was as you bring an 800 ton ship to a stop.

 

[Meta4]

But, I DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!! What should I do or should have done before I took off to prevent this????

Your drone is monitoring the battery level and the distance from the recorded home point.
As you found out, when it gets to the point where it's getting close to where it has to RTH to be able to get back home, it wants to go.

The solution is simple, just reset the home point a few times during the flight to keep the home point close to where you are, rather than back where you started.
Since the boat is moving, it really doesn't matter if you reset to where you are or the drone's current location.
The important thing is that the home point is nearby rather than miles back behind you.
Do that every 5 minutes and you won't get into that situation again.

 

[spamgnome]

PS a life preserver for your drone is a great idea, that way when it tries to turn into a submarine you can watch it float away... the chances of you being able to locate and recover a floating drone from a boat of any substantial size without jumping in after it ( is your drone worth the risk of drowning?) is near zero.

NEAR zero...but not zero. I'd rather have a 1% chance than zero.

 

[Francoisvdm]

So I had a job yesterday to photograph a 160 foot boat....no problem....then they wanted RUNNING shots...and a short video clip. All was wonderful, the boat only runs top speed of about 10 Knots so making the video was awesome!

I did all the images and the video and started the landing process.....this boat has a HUGE landing area......I'll post a photo.............

I was literally 4 feet from landing and BOOM, the Mavic Pro 2 kicks into "RETURN HOME" mode.....but HOME is now probably 5 or 6 miles away........because we moved to do the running shots.

So I cancel it, get control....try to land again.....back to RETURN HOME MODE.........this happened at least 4 times....now I'm getting a bit low on battery....I'm at 18%

Next, I tell them to fully shut down the boat and I get close, I was able to snatch the drone out of mid air and get it down.....so I saved it.

But, I DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!! What should I do or should have done before I took off to prevent this????

Your thoughts????

Kirk

A few weeks ago I received permission to fly over a big 5 game park in South Africa, and I bumped into the same issue flying while I was on the back of a game viewing vehicle. After my first "battery" landed a few km from me, I remembered that you could update the home point. So, for the next 9 batteries, I was just updating the home point in the app from time to time and it worked great. Of course, it was easier to stop the game vehicle than a boat, just had to watch out for the lions and cheetahs ;-)

 

[Pawpaw Woody]

So I had a job yesterday to photograph a 160 foot boat....no problem....then they wanted RUNNING shots...and a short video clip. All was wonderful, the boat only runs top speed of about 10 Knots so making the video was awesome!

I did all the images and the video and started the landing process.....this boat has a HUGE landing area......I'll post a photo.............

I was literally 4 feet from landing and BOOM, the Mavic Pro 2 kicks into "RETURN HOME" mode.....but HOME is now probably 5 or 6 miles away........because we moved to do the running shots.

So I cancel it, get control....try to land again.....back to RETURN HOME MODE.........this happened at least 4 times....now I'm getting a bit low on battery....I'm at 18%

Next, I tell them to fully shut down the boat and I get close, I was able to snatch the drone out of mid air and get it down.....so I saved it.

But, I DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!! What should I do or should have done before I took off to prevent this????

Your thoughts????

Kirk

I’m not sure if cutting the throttles (Both sticks down) would have worked if it was close enough to catch your drone but the runabout in the same frame as the overhead Poseidon shot was brilliant! It is too bad the water was so muddy.... Maybe a little selective color and channel mixing would help the image!

 

[wardtom084]

How is operating a drone illegal in a moving vehicle but it allowed on a boat?

 

[sar104]

How is operating a drone illegal in a moving vehicle but it allowed on a boat?

You should read Part 107. Neither is necessarily illegal and, in the case of a boat with flight over water, it is almost always going to be legal:

§107.25 Operation from a moving vehicle or aircraft.​

No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft system—​

​

(a) From a moving aircraft; or​

​

(b) From a moving land or water-borne vehicle unless the small unmanned aircraft is flown over a sparsely populated area and is not transporting another person's property for compensation or hire.​

 

[Thomas B]

How is operating a drone illegal in a moving vehicle but it allowed on a boat?

Just the way laws are written in the U.S.

 

[dirkclod]

How is operating a drone illegal in a moving vehicle but it allowed on a boat?

Now you know and let’s not take a thread Off Topic.
With that said let’s stay On Topic from here out ?
Thanks guys ?

 

[Paul51]

Nice picture of the boat. Looks like a floating magnet to me ..........

 

[Citizen Flier]

Very enlightening thread - thank you for all the indispensable tips!
I may be asked to do a follow bike video at some point, and probably would’ve made the same mistake.
So if you set RTH to Controller location, will that be remembered for the entire flight or need to be updated? Thnx.

 

[Thomas B]

Very enlightening thread - thank you for all the indispensable tips!
I may be asked to do a follow bike video at some point, and probably would’ve made the same mistake.
So if you set RTH to Controller location, will that be remembered for the entire flight or need to be updated? Thnx.

You must update if you move the controller, but it’s a one button fix.