How to force OPTI mode for boat use?

[Xanth]

^This.

Instead of trying to keep the aircraft "stationary" over the boat deck by using ActiveTrack, which will be problematic at best in this situation, how about trying the Follow mode? So long as you have good GPS on your smart device connected to the RC, you can set it up to follow you and it will then more or less "hover" over the moving deck when you let go of the sticks, but still be able to control and move it around.

Of course, as someone else mentioned, be sure and set RTH to the RC location too, just in case anything goes wrong.

This is worth testing...but not on a boat. I have a flatbed trailer, and once I find a long stretch of empty road, I could have someone drive at ~5 mph while I try flying off the trailer. Regardless of the outcome, it'll be good to be more knowledgeable about the Mavic's follow features.

If I do it first, I'll return and report. If someone else already knows, by all means - spill!

 

[Xanth]

As far as I know, all cruise ships ban drones from being flown on board... If you do have permission to do this, then please try it out and report here so we all know what to do...

I've already reported the testing I did.

As far as flying on a cruise ship... I never heard boo about it, either before, during, or after. Of course, I didn't want to be confronted, so I made a point of only flying over the water. So as far as anyone was concerned, all I was doing was sitting in a deck chair with the Nintendo Switch.

Had I been spontaneous and tried to get an aerial shot of deck chess (before I realized the problem that inspired this thread), I easily could have spent the rest of the trip in the brig...and deserved it. Wouldn't be surprised if that's why (according to the earlier poster) DJI made the whole ocean a NFZ.

 

[MavicAyr]

One of my colleagues tried taking off, with a Mavic in GPS mode, from the deck of my ship and basically slammed the drone into a metal bulkhead at speed as the drone was trying to hover in place with the boat moving under it. He was too slow to start moving forward. Four broken propellers as a result.

My intention was to block the GPS and take off from the deck. If the latest firmware can't get a GPS position it assumes your in a NFZ.

I purchased a 3d printed handle that fits to the bottom of the drone. I also switch off landing protection. So far I've only launched from a drifting boat. As I'm in the North Sea off Norway I haven't had too many opportunities to launch. Radio interference from antennas has been another worry. If I get some suitable weather I'll try again.

 

[dwallersv]

This is worth testing...but not on a boat. I have a flatbed trailer, and once I find a long stretch of empty road, I could have someone drive at ~5 mph while I try flying off the trailer. Regardless of the outcome, it'll be good to be more knowledgeable about the Mavic's follow features.

If I do it first, I'll return and report. If someone else already knows, by all means - spill!

There's a pretty busy thread over on the DJI forum from 2015 where a guy was using Follow Me mode for exactly this (flying on a boat) with his P3 shortly after DJI had first released the feature.

It was definitely workable, but with some limitations. The biggest was simply speed -- limited to P mode, 22mph, so anything faster will outpace the drone.

Also, the tracking performance is not very responsive to rapid changes of direction, etc., so no tracking a jetski whipping about, for example. Active Track actually does a better job there.

For what the OP wants to do, I think Follow Me will work quite well, and make his control much easier so he can focus on what he's trying to film. Especially if the boat is moving at a constant speed and direction. That's when Follow Me shines.

 

[GerdS]

I would recommend switching VPS completely off, as the Mavic may get confused while hovering above the deck. The VPS system tells it that it is hovering above a given point and GPS tells it that it is drifting away very quickly. Nobody knows which sensor will get preference in which situation and at what time.

 

[Robbyg]

Lord knows how you would calibrate the compass on a huge steel ship.

Follow me mode is all well and good for flying the drone but how is that going to hep with the landing?
During landing there is a point when the Mavic is 2 feet off the ground and starts to do a stationary hover. How do you avoid that and land safely?

Rob

 

[GerdS]

During landing there is a point when the Mavic is 2 feet off the ground and starts to do a stationary hover. How do you avoid that and land safely?

Just disable "Landing Protection" within enhanced sensor settings. With VPS off you need to land the Mavic on a moving vessel with pitch stick forward to keep speed until touchdown. Still then you are not safe as the Mavic won't turn off the motors as long as the pitch stick is not centered. And if centered it will maybe takeoff again for holding GPS position in low altitude. Best might be using CSC command immediately after toucdown for stopping the motors, but this must be enabled in settings, too.

 

[dwallersv]

Lord knows how you would calibrate the compass on a huge steel ship.

Follow me mode is all well and good for flying the drone but how is that going to hep with the landing?
During landing there is a point when the Mavic is 2 feet off the ground and starts to do a stationary hover. How do you avoid that and land safely?

Rob

Turn off Landing Protection.

 

[CaliChris]

I wouldn't suggest trying this. I know somebody who took their Mavic on a cruise ship. Just like you are worried about, after launching from his balcony it proceeded to jet to the center of the ship before he could bring it down on the deck near a pool. Luckily it didn't crash and he was able to run down and recover it from a girl. It did lock onto GPS and stay in one place while the ship continued forward....

 

[Capra Vecinului]

There are so many threads reporting issues with the Mavic in the Follow Me mode (just finished reading one by a motorcyclist), that trying this on a moving ship would be a very risky thing to do (not mentioning the landing issues described above by others).

 

[younumpty]

This has been a unique thread. I feel like 2/3 of the participants understand that GPS generates basic location coordinates relative to the globe, and the other 1/3 seem to ascribe GPS and RTH an almost sentient ability to know where you are, were and will be. To help, I would suggest an experiment. Get in your car and place the Mavic on the passenger seat. Power up and idle the props. Wait for GPS mode, then slowly start driving the car and see what your bird does.

Many thanks for the Anthony Cumia story. That confirms everything I suspected would happen. Thank goodness there was enough boat so that when the emergency kill command finally took effect he wasn't over the drink. I think my first instinct in that situation would be to climb and hope to miss heads, smokestacks, etc. (Especially given the fact that holding the GPS lock might cause the Mavic to fly with full prop velocity to the back of the boat.) Then once it was high and clear bring it in for a hand-grab landing.
FWIW

Tin foil and Velcro trick. Block GPS and you're in opti atti mode so it should lock the lower cameras to the deck if you stay under 30 feet. Provided the ships not clipping along at 30 knots! Otherwise it'll have a job keeping that speed I'd imagine unless you manually fly in sports mode but landing would be fine if you had opti lock and cruising at a low speed. Done it

 

[sinxa]

Oh! Then just turn off RTH and have the Mavic hover in place if gps signal is lost. RTH is a very bad idea in that circumstance.

I believe the OP are not considering about how mavic when lost signal. He is thinking about how to make mavic follow the ship while he still able to yaw or tilt the gimbal wherever he wants to record the surounding footage...

And this "hover on lost signal" seem to be not a good idea since he is not on private ship, it means he can't just go back and pick the mavic. Thats why he need mavic to follow the ship.

Why dont you just set the home point as the remote control ??

The OP is thinking about how mavic follow the cruising ship, not where to RTH. Activetrack is not an option since he need to get the surounding footage, not only the ship.

Tin foil and Velcro trick. Block GPS and you're in opti atti mode so it should lock the lower cameras to the deck if you stay under 30 feet. Provided the ships not clipping along at 30 knots! Otherwise it'll have a job keeping that speed I'd imagine unless you manually fly in sports mode but landing would be fine if you had opti lock and cruising at a low speed. Done it

Yes, this is the only option i had in my mind.
But the OP must aware that this is very dangerous trick, since mavic will permanently has no idea on where he will RTH at least until you remove the foil for the next flight. If you lost signal, then say goodbye to the mavic.

 

[Flynz]

Seems risky for the drone. Set the controller as home point in case RTH is initiated and as soon as the drone starts to takes off, hard stick forward to keep up with the cruise ship. When landing again you will have stick forward to keep up and then us a hand recovery. The auto landing system will have you lose the drone off the back as it tries to land in a stationary location. Or take the pics in port! Another worry the ship is large and made mostly of steel. So the compasses could get confused and cause the drone to spin. At that point your photo flight becomes and extreme sport. Good luck!!!

 

[dbyantis]

There is no way to do it except to block the GPS. Funny but Anthony Cumia took his Mavic on a Cruise recently and flew it in his suite without a problem. He took it out on the balcony and as long as it was over the balcony, no problem. The moment he moved it off the balcony, it shot to the back of the ship as the GPS locked on. He was able to quickly stick down land it on the putting green . His suite valet had strong words for him about drone use being prohibited. The Valet also mentioned that the ship has some anti-drone tech, no idea what that means though.

Anti-drone tech, like being made of steel? That can do the trick. Buzz around with a Tiny Whoop.

 

[Flynz]

Basically it is stick forward as soon as you lift.

Another factor is wind speed. If the ambient wind is 10 knots on the bow and the cruise ship is travelling at 18 knots then the effective airspeed is 28 knots or 51km. That means you need to be in sports mode and stick well forward just to stand still.

Even with no sea breeze cruise ships can travel at 20-30 knots. At 20 knots with no breeze vector on the ship's bow the air speed is still 37 km to stand still! Leaving the GPS out OPTI would not keep up with that and you still need to be stick on to keep up.

Active track is a possibility if the air speed is low enough but you still need to lift off and keep up before you can initiate Active Track.

As dbyantis pointed out the steel hull is enough to potentially upset the compass.

 

[kidroc]

Down grade the F.W and do the sport/atti mode hack and be done with it..