Launch from a moving ship?

[Lv2fly2]

Hi there,
With models like the Phantom, I've once read that you could launch the drone from a moving ship if you set it to Atti mode instead of GPS, to avoid the drone hovering away.

I launched my Mavic Pro from a fishing boat in the Baja. I had it in gps mode and I hand launched it. I kept it close and in line of sight. When I brought it back, at first I had trouble getting it close enough for a hand catch landing because the collision sensors kept it out of reach, so I turned it around and flew it backwards to me and the hand catch landing was not a problem.

 

[Vaisraitor]

Soo.. Succes-ish!

Last Saturday i launched my Mavic Pro from a moving vessel and went okay.
I applied my propguards but somehow it took off and within a few centimeters dropt back on deck again with these on. Couldn't find anything strange so tried again, same thing. Took them off and launched into the air.

We were doing 16kts (+/- 30km/h) so keeping up in normal fly mode was hard. So flown around in sport mode, switched to normal when i wanted to film, and move back in front of the vessel again in sport mode. This resulted obviously in less flight time.

Now the landing... Well.. Since the drone prefers landing vertical (level) and i had to keep up with the vessel whilst descending this was hard. Since in normal mode i could just not keep up and didn't have the quick responses of sport mode if i had to abort the landing...
So landing in sport mode, whilst flying forward, and manoeuvre it from the seaside to the deck on a relatively small area without containers, resulted in multiple attempts after which the battery drained more and more so i just had to land it. Because of the angle it made whilst flying forward, the props hit the deck, tumbled over and crashed into a container.. Battery popped out, all props shattered. But! Replaced to props, turned it on again with a fresh battery. No issue's notable! Haven't flown it yet but it seems okay!

So.. Landing on a relatively fast going vessel.. Tricky to no doable at all imho. Taking of is not much trouble, just fly away and up immediately!

Grtz

 

[corchard]

Was there spot that was sheltered from the wind that you could land in? Maybe behind a container? I was wondering if reducing the apparent wind from the ship might make manoeuvring a little less dicey and remove the gust factor out of the variables.

 

[Vaisraitor]

Wind was ideal, 2 to 3 knots only.. It was the speed of the vessel for the most which made it hard. Ofc headwind due to the motion of the vessel occurs tho, but i was not able to shelter from that

 

[arkay]

Wont setting a dynamic HP and then initiating RTH work in this situation?

 

[MrRobville]

I appreciate the shared experiences. Seems like quite the challenge indeed.
Would it be easier if there was a 16kts wind flowing in the same direction as the ship? Or is that a very rare and ideal situation? I guess with more wind comes a lot more turbulence around the ship as well. But I'm wondering how the drone would act if it were pushed in the favorable direction.

 

[Simmo]

Wont setting a dynamic HP and then initiating RTH work in this situation?

In Go 4 Dynamic homepoint is only available in Active track, and updates to the position of the aircraft.... every 15 mtrs or so..

 

[msinger]

In Go 4 Dynamic homepoint is only available in Active track

And it's only currently available if flying a Mavic Pro.

 

[Simmo]

And it's only currently available if flying a Mavic Pro.

Good point Sir, I dont have experience with the other platforms, I just try to help..

 

[Vaisraitor]

I appreciate the shared experiences. Seems like quite the challenge indeed.
Would it be easier if there was a 16kts wind flowing in the same direction as the ship? Or is that a very rare and ideal situation? I guess with more wind comes a lot more turbulence around the ship as well. But I'm wondering how the drone would act if it were pushed in the favorable direction.

Not sure.. In the air it would be better indeed (just an assumption).. But landing, not sure.. At least in my situation i have to land between cargo. Which is not hard when the vessel is not moving but.. Even with the wind at an equal speed and direction of the vessel, when landing, the drone will come down between cargo, which will mean that there is almost not wind or indeed turbulence,, so the vessel will still move quite fast below the drone so flying forward is necessary when landing. And this is far from ideal as i experienced

 

[Eduard]

Not sure.. In the air it would be better indeed (just an assumption).. But landing, not sure.. At least in my situation i have to land between cargo. Which is not hard when the vessel is not moving but.. Even with the wind at an equal speed and direction of the vessel, when landing, the drone will come down between cargo, which will mean that there is almost not wind or indeed turbulence,, so the vessel will still move quite fast below the drone so flying forward is necessary when landing. And this is far from ideal as i experienced

Hi, I'm also thinking about doing the same in a research vessel (75m long), so full of electronic equipment. How severe was your magnetic intereference when taking off? And did you have any issue with the radars? Were they switched off during your flight? Thanks in advance

 

[MavicAyr]

Hi, I work on oil exploration vessels. I've taken off from a metal deck (on a stationary ship) with compass errors but preferred to hand launch the Mavic by holding a couple of meters off the deck to avoid any errors. I have only risked a Spark offshore at speed. Taking off and hand catching is easy at 1 - 2 knots. At 8 knots a different proposition - Ideally you should have some willing colleague able to hand catch for you while you brought it in close. I've had one panic moment where as I was about to land the spark it decided to RTH due to just enough battery to return to a point several hundred meters behind the ship. Quickly hit pause and back into Sports mode and brought it in really quick.
I thought radars would be an issue but it was no problem at all, and that was with a spark wifi instead of Ocusync.

 

[Eduard]

Hi, I work on oil exploration vessels. I've taken off from a metal deck (on a stationary ship) with compass errors but preferred to hand launch the Mavic by holding a couple of meters off the deck to avoid any errors. I have only risked a Spark offshore at speed. Taking off and hand catching is easy at 1 - 2 knots. At 8 knots a different proposition - Ideally you should have some willing colleague able to hand catch for you while you brought it in close. I've had one panic moment where as I was about to land the spark it decided to RTH due to just enough battery to return to a point several hundred meters behind the ship. Quickly hit pause and back into Sports mode and brought it in really quick.
I thought radars would be an issue but it was no problem at all, and that was with a spark wifi instead of Ocusync.

Thanks for the info MavicAyr!