Ok, I'll share an experience I had this weekend that raised my heart rate. The plan was to use Activetrack to follow my boat from the Marina out into Cape Cod Bay. I thought my better half was going to come with me, but at the last minute she bailed. Of course since I had already scheduled the flight with the local airport I decided to go solo (first mistake).
The plan was to use my Iphone for this flight so I could utilize the remote as a moving home point (my iPad doesn't have GPS). The plan was also to disable obstacle avoidance because the drone won't fly back to the boat with it on. I took off from the marina dock beside my boat and began to get things set up. When I tried to change the home point to dynamic the software told me the cell signal wasn't strong enough. Then when I tried to set up the activetrack it wouldn't go unless I enabled Obstacle avoidance. Admittedly this now has me a bit flustered but I figure I just pay close attention to the battery and if it goes into RTH I will cancel and fly it back to the boat manually. All of this messing around has my battery down to 70%. I'm such a stubborn son of a B, I should have aborted at this point, but I didn't.
I put the drone up about 60ft and behind my slip, set up activetrack, pressed Go, and when about my normal departure. I navigate through the finger piers and get into the main channel and notice the drone hasn't moved (I mistakenly choose the wrong mode). Of course the marina is busy, lots of boats coming and going from the slips and in the channel & let's not forget, I am alone. Because I'm using my Iphone, I can't really see what the problem is, I used the sticks to fly the drone closer to me out in the channel & I stay there for a while, dodging boat traffic while trying to figure out what the deal is with the drone. I can't really see the screen so I decide to abort.
I cancel the Activetrack mode and then proceed to shut down the obstacle avoidance but it won't shut off. The dam green slide bar will not slide, I tried everything, I could not get it to shut off. My battery is now getting low now and I'm in a moving boat, alone with a drone that is set up to avoid me...not a great feeling. The boat is 24ft with a hard top so the there really isn't that much room for error (even with Obstacle avoidance off). After about the 8th or 9th attempt to get the drone back to the boat, while dodging boat traffic I had this sinking feeling that this wasn't going to end well. I tried again to disable the sensors and it still wouldn't work. I eventually decided to stand on the swim platform to give myself at much distance from the hardtop as possible to fly across the back of the boat. After three or four attempts at this I was able to safely pluck it out of the air. So close to catastrophe, many lessons learned.
