Made something similar for my P3. These are for recovery only. Made these for the mavic. I fly quite a bit over open water. Mostly launch from the Aft hardtop on the boat out on the Great Lakes. Similar to the getrback concept but you don't have to worry about the depth of the water, will it deploy and waiting 15 minutes plus. Also trying to find a bobber that floats up out on open water.
Tested the mavic today for the first time. First without the flots then with them on. They do not interfere with the bottom sensors in that I can see a change in height on the app. I have not tested the bottom camera for the landing pic it takes. Not sure how you can access that picture if at all. Hand caught no problem. Just reach up from underneath.
It was 15 degrees today so just a short first flight to check the camera. Looks good thus far. No soft edges. Flew next to a brick school building to check. Didn't see any jello effects while flying as well.
I brought the osmo plus to film as I flew. I was going to use Autoframe by autopilot on the osmo to track the drone. (Airspace app links the two) Neat app but after a few minutes in 15 degrees setting that up I handed the osmo to my nine year old to film. Got some great shots of clouds and evething else but the mavic. Lol
Second flight was with the floats. I did not see any changes in flight characteristics. Second flight was a bit more agreesive to see if the floats got in the camera shot which they did not. Total weight is about 1.75 ounces. Tested them by adding 2# of weight on them in water. they are a bit past half way up as they floated in water. They should displace around 3#. The mavic weights a pound and a half but given it has vents on it and a hard crash water will get in increasing the amount of weight you need to displace. The floats are a bit aft of center mass so I would think more often than not it will actually find itself upside down in the event of a hard landing. I did not put them on and try and float it. It would get wet and these are not landing floats. Just recovery.
It's my mavic Life jacket. It will get wet but will not sink down to Davy Jones's locker.
I painted the rear tip black and the rest neon orange plastic dip spray. This I think will help with orientation from a distance. Two orange dots it is facing me. Orange ringes with black centers camera facing away.
I will do some more tests to see if this decrease performance but in a short flight on heathy drones I lost a couple of minutes of battery but then again my second flight with these on was much more aggressive.
These are just piece of mind and a way to quickly recover the drone in case it drops like a brick from the sky. I keep a bottle of denatured alcohol over 95% to quickly displace the water (after removal of battery) since I fly mostly over fresh water it is possible to negate water damage. Saltwater no way. Instant loss but with DJI refresh no drone no chance.
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