Mavic Air Pontoons

[ajkm]

E) Drone is insured

Does the insurance policy include modifications. Glueing something to an undetachable party of the drone would usually be considered a permanent modification and is likely to invalidate both warranty and insurance.

 

[tribar]

Now that I've experienced an unplanned auto-landing due to a bad battery, I'm suddenly afraid to fly over water. The issue is that THAT'S WHERE THE FUN IS! Flying over water can be quite dramatic and it's typically wide open so one doesn't have to worry about hitting anything...maybe a seagull
Anyway, bought a handful of Styrofoam balls at Wally World, and by pressing in the landing gear extensions into the ball, I was very easily able to create pontoons for the Air. To make sure they stay in, I put a bead of hot glue at the intersection of the plastic legs and the Styrofoam balls. Seems to work well. In a "sink (kitchen) test" the drone floated quite nicely. I'm not planning on doing any planned water landings, but I'm hoping that if it happens accidentally, I'll have a fighting chance at drone recovery. Here are a couple of pics of what she looks like. In flight, it's about a 3-5 MPH reduction in speed, but no errors of any kind on the screen.

At 8:02 minutes.

 

[DanMan32]

Does the insurance policy include modifications. Glueing something to an undetachable party of the drone would usually be considered a permanent modification and is likely to invalidate both warranty and insurance.

The pontoons are not permanently attached. At least not to the AC. He's using commercially available removable leg extensions and permanently attached the pontoons to them.

 

[ajkm]

High CoG of the drone is also likely to turn it upside down if there’s any disturbance at all on the water surface. Plenty of videos demonstrating this.

 

[spamgnome]

True. But better a wet drone than one in 200' of water

High CoG of the drone is also likely to turn it upside down if there’s any disturbance at all on the water surface. Plenty of videos demonstrating this.

 

[Meta4]

True. But better a wet drone than one in 200' of water

If it's seawater it's dead, not just wet. It may as well be on the bottom of the sea.
Why do all the floatie supporters imagine a floating drone is going to be easy to recover?
Perhaps they only fly over very small ponds?

 

[spamgnome]

If it's seawater it's dead, not just wet. It may as well be on the bottom of the sea.
Why do all the floatie supporters imagine a floating drone is going to be easy to recover?
Perhaps they only fly over very small ponds?

Because a 1% chance is better than a 0% chance. Also, what's the downside? That's a rhetorical question

 

[Meta4]

Also, what's the downside? That's a rhetorical question

The downside is far from rhetorical.
Floatie contraptions significantly affect your drone's aerodynamic performance.
Handicapping your drone with pontoons could well contribute to losing your drone rather than making flying safer.
Floatie contraptions are great for giving nervous flyers a false sense of security and might be useful if you need to land on still water (who does?).
They are useless for flight safety.

 

[spamgnome]

If you read my opening post, that will explain why I'm a nervous over water flyer.