Flying low over water

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Hi

Have had my P3A for a week or so now....getting more confident about its abilities (and mine!).

In the instructions it says to be careful over water, particularly at low heights when the sensors on the underside are being used. I have flown it 5m above water without issue but want to go in much lower(maybe 1 meter) has anyone had issues with this? Shoudl I switch off some of the sensors before doing this?

Perhaps I am worrying unecessarily but concerned that those sensors have some sort of flake-out, think the aircraft is going up and so drop the revs to compensate...putting me in the drink!
 
Hi

Have had my P3A for a week or so now....getting more confident about its abilities (and mine!).

In the instructions it says to be careful over water, particularly at low heights when the sensors on the underside are being used. I have flown it 5m above water without issue but want to go in much lower(maybe 1 meter) has anyone had issues with this? Shoudl I switch off some of the sensors before doing this?

Perhaps I am worrying unecessarily but concerned that those sensors have some sort of flake-out, think the aircraft is going up and so drop the revs to compensate...putting me in the drink!
Just turn off VPS in the app if it's concerning you.
 
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I setup my flight path carefully, had great satellite lock and flew approximately 1m over the water with no issues. VPS is turned on. I won't do that very often but I wanted to see the effect on film.
 
Makes for a nice shot. However I don't think the technology is reliable enough to maintain 1 meter again and again. Probably get away with it a few times and then go in the drink another.

Post video !
 
here is a link to a video I did with some scenes over water (VPS off). height was constant 0.4m!

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enjoy and don't forget to switch to 1080p
 
here is a link to a video I did with some scenes over water (VPS off). height was constant 0.4m!
How do you know it was .4 meters? Seems higher than that although lower over water than I have been.
 
I started on land and entered the water at the same level still holding it. The bush on the left side at 1:47 has a total hight of 1m.
 
OK. I have a terrible time judging distance FPV. This is small clip from video a couple hours ago. It seemed REALLY close to me but maybe not. LOL

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here is a link to a video I did with some scenes over water (VPS off). height was constant 0.4m!

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

enjoy and don't forget to switch to 1080p
nice video, the water shot is pretty. Have you tried pulling some details out of the shadows of those trees in post?
 
OK. I have a terrible time judging distance FPV. This is small clip from video a couple hours ago. It seemed REALLY close to me but maybe not. LOL

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you are VERY close to those trees!
 
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nice video, the water shot is pretty. Have you tried pulling some details out of the shadows of those trees in post?

No, these shots were edited without any corrections/adjustments in post!

Here is another video where I used some of these shots again but this time with some color corrections:
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Here is the video I made last weekend over water. I took the Phantom 3 pretty far from the boat and had no problems.

But another guy from another boat was flying a Phantom 3 Professional and the worst thing happened!!. It was about 50ft up filming people in the water and suddenly the Phantom powered off and crashed like a rock in the water. MY HEART STOPED for a moment even that it was not my drone!! When the guy jumped in the water to retrieve it, he came back up with the drone in one hand and the battery on the other. So I guess the battery got loose and shut down the drone. I don't know if this has happened to anyone. After this incident I decided to ground my drone, didn't want to have the same experience of that dude!
 
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How do you know it was .4 meters? Seems higher than that although lower over water than I have been.
Yes, objects like trees and water always appear further away on the camera but are closer than you think and that's where accidents happen. I suggest never be tempted, whilst flying and viewing on your tablet/phone, to get too close to an object as it may be much closer than you think and if it involves water then game over!
 

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