Best water landing products?

Joined
Jun 29, 2014
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
I feel that somewhere these is a physicist / oceanologist who can explain the weird air quality that exists just above water, which would likely explain how so many Phantoms end up in the bottom of a lake. It's like theres suddenly no air pressure and down she goes.

Which is why my Phantom now rests peacefully in the bottom of the Ohio river.

While I work on getting a replacement, I'm investigating all the various DIY and for purchase water landing kits. Does anyone have any experience with these, or have feelings for designs that arent that great?
 
When I fly over water I put yellow foam floats on my landing gear.
 
I had planned on doing something similar, seems to be the best combo of cheap and effective. Have you done water landings with this approach? I'm concerned about stability. I've got this picture in my head of the quad touching down and flipping over.
 
rightoncue said:
While I work on getting a replacement, I'm investigating all the various DIY and for purchase water landing kits. Does anyone have any experience with these, or have feelings for designs that arent that great?
Transplant the Phantom guts to a waterproof shell like the Dex.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jayx-b9hI
 
rightoncue said:
I had planned on doing something similar, seems to be the best combo of cheap and effective. Have you done water landings with this approach? I'm concerned about stability. I've got this picture in my head of the quad touching down and flipping over.
There have been numerous threads here about adding floats. Here is one with several examples:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=15903&hilit=floats
Several of my attempts are posted in that thread. My final conclusion is that any floats large enough to keep the Phantom from sinking are going to be pushed around by the wind or propwash. They are difficult to keep out of the camera's view. Also you would be very lucky if the bird remained upright. I often fly over fast moving whitewater so floats would serve as a recovery aid at best.
I am building a waterproof quad now.
 
I finally got a chance yesterday to strap two empty 500ml water bottles to the bottom of the skids and go for a quick flight. It definitely affected the flight characteristics of the Phantom, but nothing too bad. It didn't help that it was pretty windy too.

I previously did a test in the tub to make sure the two water bottles would keep the weight afloat, and they will support a lot more weight than what my Phantom weighs (1200g).

I'm not planning on any water landings - these are only for recovery in case the Phantom decides to go for a swim. Cheap solution. I wish I would have taken a pic to post though.
 
Total weight less than I expected!

I put all of the parts in the shell and mounted the props, added the camera in housing on top.
All up weight 1099 g. This includes the Vector flight controller, GPS, OSD module, ESC's, receiver, all wires and 2700 Mah Maddog battery.
The only thing missing is video transmitter, about 25g. Later I may add a waterproof gimbal.
This will be my solution to water landings.
 

Attachments

  • AUW Dex.jpg
    AUW Dex.jpg
    126.3 KB · Views: 1,744
Jebus said:
I previously did a test in the tub to make sure the two water bottles would keep the weight afloat, and they will support a lot more weight than what my Phantom weighs (1200g).

I'm not planning on any water landings - these are only for recovery in case the Phantom decides to go for a swim. Cheap solution. I wish I would have taken a pic to post though.

Two 500 ml bottles will displace 1 litre of water when submerged. That's 1kg or 1000g.
They will not float a phantom high and dry.
As mentioned above any float system that would keep a Phantom safely above water is going to be too big to fly properly.
I'm not sure what good half-arsed float systems would be anyway. I lost a camera/gimbal because of a few drops of water on the gimbal control board. There's not going to be much value in a phantom that has had a good splashdown.
Better to avoid going in the drink than to try to make your Phantom an amphibian.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Falcon900
I'm just looking to keep the Phantom at the surface of the water for a minute or two until I can retrieve it. I dunno about your math, but the two bottles held up 1200g just fine and I could push down with my hand and apply quite a bit more force, so I'm pretty sure that they'll keep the Phantom floating (for a bit anyway).
 
Something that just popped into my head while reading this is I wonder if you couldn't just take a piece of high density foam (won't absorb water) insulation say 1" or 1-½" thick cut a little larger than the foot print of the Phantom and zip tie it to the bottom of the landing gear. Like I said this just came to me when reading this thread and I haven't tried it but it might be worth giving it a shot, it might just be enough to keep it from sinking. What do you guys think ?
 
Meta4 said:
Jebus said:
I previously did a test in the tub to make sure the two water bottles would keep the weight afloat, and they will support a lot more weight than what my Phantom weighs (1200g).

I'm not planning on any water landings - these are only for recovery in case the Phantom decides to go for a swim. Cheap solution. I wish I would have taken a pic to post though.

Two 500 ml bottles will displace 1 litre of water when submerged. That's 1kg or 1000g.
They will not float a phantom high and dry.
quote]
Four 8 oz bottles were enough to float a Phantom 1 with GoPro and housing.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/arUHiDu_8IM? It was actually pretty stable on the water since the bottles were under the motors. I think the bottles have bit more volume than the liquid size listed since there is typically air space over the liquid.
 
madsonp said:
Something that just popped into my head while reading this is I wonder if you couldn't just take a piece of high density foam (won't absorb water) insulation say 1" or 1-½" thick cut a little larger than the foot print of the Phantom and zip tie it to the bottom of the landing gear. Like I said this just came to me when reading this thread and I haven't tried it but it might be worth giving it a shot, it might just be enough to keep it from sinking. What do you guys think ?
Several Phantom users have tried something like this. It takes more foam than you would imagine. A 1" thick block would have to be 9 1/4" square to float 1400 grams (allowing some extra since you want to be more than just neutral buoyancy.) If it is just under the center of the landing gear, it will easily tip over. Any float positioned far from the center of gravity will really make the Phantom react badly to the slightest wind.
 
rightoncue said:
I feel that somewhere these is a physicist / oceanologist who can explain the weird air quality that exists just above water, which would likely explain how so many Phantoms end up in the bottom of a lake. It's like theres suddenly no air pressure and down she goes.

Which is why my Phantom now rests peacefully in the bottom of the Ohio river.

While I work on getting a replacement, I'm investigating all the various DIY and for purchase water landing kits. Does anyone have any experience with these, or have feelings for designs that arent that great?

I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I read somewhere that an anomaly can occur when flying over water, particularly calm water with a mirror like surface. The GPS signal 'bounces' or is reflected off the surface so the Phantom is receiving GPS signals from above and below, causing its tiny electronic brain much confusion. Often resulting in an unscheduled swim.... Having said that however, I have seen many videos of Phantoms flying successfully over water, I've even done it myself albeit not calm water..
 
Phantom_Menace66 said:
rightoncue said:
I feel that somewhere these is a physicist / oceanologist who can explain the weird air quality that exists just above water, which would likely explain how so many Phantoms end up in the bottom of a lake. It's like theres suddenly no air pressure and down she goes.

Which is why my Phantom now rests peacefully in the bottom of the Ohio river.

While I work on getting a replacement, I'm investigating all the various DIY and for purchase water landing kits. Does anyone have any experience with these, or have feelings for designs that arent that great?

I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I read somewhere that an anomaly can occur when flying over water, particularly calm water with a mirror like surface. The GPS signal 'bounces' or is reflected off the surface so the Phantom is receiving GPS signals from above and below, causing its tiny electronic brain much confusion. Often resulting in an unscheduled swim
I read somewhere that trees are magnetic and will pull your phantom right into them :lol: ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Falcon900
syotr said:
I read somewhere that trees are magnetic and will pull your phantom right into them :lol: ;)
OH, you got that right!
 
Happyflyer said:
syotr said:
I read somewhere that trees are magnetic and will pull your phantom right into them :lol: ;)
OH, you got that right!

I'm more worried about the weird principles that unexpectedly pull Phantoms straight towards the ground. I believe the scientific names for them are design flaws and manufacturing defects. :|
 
I feel that somewhere these is a physicist / oceanologist who can explain the weird air quality that exists just above water, which would likely explain how so many Phantoms end up in the bottom of a lake. It's like theres suddenly no air pressure and down she goes.

Which is why my Phantom now rests peacefully in the bottom of the Ohio river.

While I work on getting a replacement, I'm investigating all the various DIY and for purchase water landing kits. Does anyone have any experience with these, or have feelings for designs that arent that great?



Does that exact same thing with my Golf Balls! :) When ever there is a Water Hazard Plop goes my ball! Sorry couldn't resist! :)
 
I had planned on doing something similar, seems to be the best combo of cheap and effective. Have you done water landings with this approach? I'm concerned about stability. I've got this picture in my head of the quad touching down and flipping over.
Yep, that's what it will do, coz the weights upstairs !
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,936
Latest member
hirehackers