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My Homemade Floats

Walleye Hunter

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Rather than clog up someone else's thread and to make it possible to find in a search should anyone in the future want to check it out, I'm starting my own thread on this. If mods would prefer, I will not be offended if it gets merged with another thread.

A friend and I are going fishing in the Inner Passage this summer and he wants some sort of rescue device on his Air 2S, should it end up in the drink. I also have an Air 2s so I can do this. We are each making our own design to see what works. I already own a landing gear, set of skids as can be seen in the pictures, which help with attachment of the raft I put together. I like that landing gear and would recommend it as an accessory. I can also attach a flashlight or two to them if I want.

Of course, the beer cans are empty and the tops are taped together with duck tape, which is waterproof. I have flown it a bit but am still testing its function and characteristics with the floats attached. In a full throttle run, I got about 9 1/2 minutes of flight time. I have landed and launched it in my pool and am even able to taxi it around in the pool. As configured, it will only land in Sport mode but I may modify the raft to give the sensors sight of the ground. I expect that the winds will affect it but have yet to test it in windy conditions.

My first prototype consisted of two tubes but it was unstable, to say the least. The addition of the third tube works wonders. After I read up the pointers I was given on how, I will upload data logs of my flights.

My buddy is making his out of pool noodles but thus far, he is not fairing as well as I am. He's only using two noodles so far but his goes into a spin, he's still going at it. One advantage that mine has is that we don't have to tote it with us to AK, we can drink some beers there and assemble it on site.

I kind of like my own Rube Goldberg inventions. 😁

Oh, and I am trying to get him to bring his over and record mine in action. So far, no videos.

Raft 1.jpg

Raft 2.jpg

Drone Pontoons 3.jpg

Drone Pontoons 2.jpg
 
Interesting idea, but might not be too good if there is any wave action.
I know and I'm not looking forward to any tests in that regard. Our number 1 concern for this is drove recovery. Even then, I wonder how bad a dip into the salt water would be even if we recovered the drone. I guess a question I have is...I know that some drones have gone swimming in fresh water. Do they survive the swim?
 
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I guess a question I have is...I know that some drones have gone swimming in fresh water. Do they survive the swim?

Some do, yes.



I wonder how bad a dip into the salt water would be even if we recovered the drone.

The props would be about the only thing that would survive salt water.

It will get into every nook and cranny, evaporate, and slowly start corroding the boards.

It may fly fine for a while but it will be a matter of time before it fails.

I've seen this product talked about in the past.

Might work for recovery if the floats fail.


Good luck. 👍
.
 
to me the use of cans is raising the center of gravity making it tippy, would think a wide pontoon that was wider would work better, set them wider to increase stability
 
and he wants some sort of rescue device on his Air 2S, should it end up in the drink. I also have an Air 2s so I can do this. We are each making our own design to see what works.


Just in case you didn't know, one of the site vendors sells wetsuits and life jackets for drones JIC.


I have them both for my MA2 and they work.

I don't fly in the rain but occasionally fly around water.

The floats are good for the winter time as well if you need to land in snow.

.
 
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I know, I know, I told Joe that but he wants to go the homemade route.
 
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I got my mini 2 to use on our clubs island in the CA Delta so purchased these floats at the same time. They work very well. After I learned to fly the drone I got rid of them because they cut the flight time to half. And, I realized how easy to control the drone was I would take a chance on not hitting water. Have been successful so far.
 
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After I learned to fly the drone I got rid of them because they cut the flight time to half.

I noticed that too, but about 5 minutes of flight on my MA2.

It is extra weight the drone has to deal with, especially a mini.

I realized how easy to control the drone was I would take a chance on not hitting water.


Land or water, it doesn't matter. The aircraft flies fine.

Unless you fly low enough to affect the VPS, which could trigger a landing sequence from the drone, that could affect the inexperienced pilot that panics and down it goes.


It easier to walk to crashed drone on land than swimming for one without a life jacket. 🙂


.
 
My issue would be the downward sensor with you using 3 it blocks the ground sensor so i feel it would be trying to fly up all the time..you cant turn down off.just my thoughts.
 
Flying close to water doesn't trigger a landing.
Holding the left stick down when close to water does.
 
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My issue would be the downward sensor with you using 3 it blocks the ground sensor so i feel it would be trying to fly up all the time..you cant turn down off.just my thoughts.
I was surprised to find that it didn't seem to mind it being there during flight. It never climbed on its own to get away from the raft and switching to sport mode turns those sensors off.
 
I was surprised to find that it didn't seem to mind it being there during flight. It never climbed on its own to get away from the raft and switching to sport mode turns those sensors off.
OK..i was almost certain sport mode cant turn off the bottom sensor,i would some testing above ground in sport or other modes..it may even make it want to land being so close to a ground type object possible.just another thought..i fly with the payload release but it has a hole in it to be able to see ground.
 
It never climbed on its own to get away from the raft and switching to sport mode turns those sensors off.
OK..i was almost certain sport mode cant turn off the bottom sensor.
I was pretty sure that Sport Mode disables the Obstacle Avoidance sensors, but not the downward facing VPS.
So I did some testing today as I brought the drone in from a photo flight and switched to Sport Mode and flew around at a range of heights down to 5 feet and checked the data.
The data indicates that the VPS is working when the drone is switched to Sport Mode.

@Walleye ... I'd be very careful about flying with the VPS blocked.
It could trigger landing protection and make bringing the drone down very, very slow.
I've seen flight data from flyers who complained their drone wasn't descending at all, but the data showed that it was ... just very, very slowly.
This could be a problem if you need to come down from fairly high and the battery is low.

You could do a little testing by flying at 30 ft and seeing how it descends from there.
Or post some data as I explained in another thread.
 
Last edited:
OK, let's see if I got this right.
And here's my longest flight.
Your Air 2S has a max speed still air speed of 36 mph.
On your test run you achieved a max speed of around 31 mph when flying approximately south,
Doing this the drone was showing a tilt angle in the low-mid 20° range up to 30°, suggesting there was a tailwind making it easier to fly in that direction and boosting speed.
Flying in other directions gave a slower max speed.
Close to north, the speed was down in the low 20s mph with tilt angles around 35° (normally this is Sport Mode tilt angle) showing the drone working harder to make headway, but in doing so, it exposes a greater area to drag through the air.

The added wind resistance will mean that with the raft, the batteries will run down significantly faster.
Flying in strong winds should be avoided, because the raft gives too much area to catch the wind.

As expected, the VPS indicated zero the whole flight
When you tried to descend in normal mode at 7:51, the descent rate was zero even with full left stick down.
But I was surprised to see that in Sport Mode the drone descended fairly well, but at half or less the normal Sport Mode descent rate.
It looks like switching to Sport Mode is a viable solution for flyers who have VPS induced descent problems.
 
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Your Air 2S has a max speed still air speed of 36 mph.
On your test run you achieved a max speed of around 31 mph when flying approximately south,
Doing this the drone was showing a tilt angle in the low-mid 20° range up to 30°, suggesting there was a tailwind making it easier to fly in that direction and boosting speed.
Flying in other directions gave a slower max speed.
Close to north, the speed was down in the low 20s mph with tilt angles around 35° (normally this is Sport Mode tilt angle) showing the drone working harder to make headway, but in doing so, it exposes a greater area to drag through the air.

The added wind resistance will mean that with the raft, the batteries will run down significantly faster.
Flying in strong winds should be avoided, because the raft gives too much area to catch the wind.

As expected, the VPS indicated zero the whole flight
When you tried to descend in normal mode at 7:51, the descent rate was zero even with full left stick down.
But I was surprised to see that in Sport Mode the drone descended fairly well, but at half or less the normal Sport Mode descent rate.
It looks like switching to Sport Mode is a viable solution for flyers who have VPS induced descent problems.
Thank you for the interpretation. I'll take what you got out of it and see if I can reverse understand how you got that information. I may be being overly cautious but I do not descend at max rate, ever. I feel as though it puts excess stress on the props when letting up on the descent.
 
Your Air 2S has a max speed still air speed of 36 mph.
On your test run you achieved a max speed of around 31 mph when flying approximately south,
Doing this the drone was showing a tilt angle in the low-mid 20° range up to 30°, suggesting there was a tailwind making it easier to fly in that direction and boosting speed.
Flying in other directions gave a slower max speed.
Close to north, the speed was down in the low 20s mph with tilt angles around 35° (normally this is Sport Mode tilt angle) showing the drone working harder to make headway, but in doing so, it exposes a greater area to drag through the air.

The added wind resistance will mean that with the raft, the batteries will run down significantly faster.
Flying in strong winds should be avoided, because the raft gives too much area to catch the wind.

As expected, the VPS indicated zero the whole flight
When you tried to descend in normal mode at 7:51, the descent rate was zero even with full left stick down.
But I was surprised to see that in Sport Mode the drone descended fairly well, but at half or less the normal Sport Mode descent rate.
It looks like switching to Sport Mode is a viable solution for flyers who have VPS induced descent problems.
OK where are you seeing the pitch angle of the drone and full down on the left stick? I am not able to see any of that data.
 
OK where are you seeing the pitch angle of the drone and full down on the left stick? I am not able to see any of that data.
What you are looking at is just a short summary.
Click on the Download CSV link and you get a spreadsheet with much more data.
I may be being overly cautious but I do not descend at max rate, ever. I feel as though it puts excess stress on the props when letting up on the descent.
Yes .. you are being overly cautious.
It's no problem to descend at whatever speed DJJ have in their specs.
 
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