Near Loss of Phantom 4 From Moving Sailboat - Twice

[Aquadrone]

Hi. This will contain questions and guesses as to what went wrong, twice, while shooting video and photos of a moving sailboat. In both cases I was controlling the drone from the moving sailboat which traveled at least a mile or two while the drone circled around it. If I can I’ll also attach a photo or two.

First, because I was flying over water, I was advised to turn off the Vision Positioning Setting to the Off position. I hope this was good advice.

So here’s how it went. I took off and got the drone quickly away from the boat, and up in the air capturing the footage. All went well for ten minutes or so. Both times it was blowing about ten knots, and the drone appeared fine at all altitudes, (I only went up to about 200 feet). I was able to circle the boat while sailing, which means that at times it was flying into the wind, and at others it was flying with the wind. Again, all well.

The second time I did this I was getting high wind alerts on my screen which I did not get the first time. The wind seemed about the same but it may have been stronger. Still, the drone was doing what I asked so I kept flying.

At some point I noticed the drone seemed to be unable to keep up with the boat. This occurred both times, which were several months apart. The first time was in the British Virgin Islands, and the second time was off the coast of New England. I did a firmware upgrade between these flights.

The drone in both cases was getting further and further behind the boat, seemingly unable to keep up. It was several thousand feet behind the boat. I still had contact, and was able to aim the drone towards the boat thanks to the camera image on my iPad (iPad 2 Mini), but pushing the forward control did not appear to be moving the drone towards the boat, at least not fast enough to make up the widening gap. I now realize I could have aimed the camera straight down to see if I was making progress over the water, but from what I saw the drone did not appear to be moving towards the boat at any reasonable speed.

In both cases we got the boat turned around and sailed it towards the drone as the battery was in the 20% range.

One thing that is clear is that the circle in the lower left corner, with the red dot, was not helpful. When I flew the drone towards the dot I don’t believe it was actually coming towards the controller (me on the boat). Was the dot actually the point from where I launched the drone? Another fact I noticed the second time is that the distance indicator stated the drone was about 4,900 feet away; but the closer we got to the drone on the boat, this number would not come down. Again, maybe it was measuring the drone’s distance from the take off point. Is this possible? Is there a setting I should have used to set the data to the controller and not to the take-off spot (which was now miles behind us)?

I must confess that in both cases I was in semi panic mode. I love this gadget and don’t want to lose it to the deep blue sea. But as a novice in a very taxing situation, I was way out of my element and making big mistakes for sure. I was also not able to consider all the variables and use tools that may have been available to me.

One thing I realized after the first time is that I have a Sport mode available to me, which I figured would allow me to fly faster. When it happened the second time I switched it into Sport mode, but was met with a warning that I needed to change other settings before I could use that. Obviously I was in no position to start drilling into menus, so I canceled out of that. Had I taken off in Sport Mode would I have been able to fly faster to keep up with the boat?

In both cases when the battery got low enough I got the Return Home warning, which I canceled because I didn’t want it flying to the take off point, for obvious reasons.

Despite all this going wrong, in both cases, once we got close enough to the drone, I was able to bring it in over the deck where a friend was able to grab it from underneath. We also had a large round fish net on a pole on hand in case we felt that was a better way to grab it. Luckily my friend is quick-handed and grabbed it despite rather high speed in the first case, slower the second time.

Despite these two near calamities, I want to do more of this, and in higher wind where the sailing is even better. But I don’t want to go through this panic again.

I would greatly appreciate any answers, comments, or follow up questions to help me determine all the things I did wrong. I’d love to know if there’s a “return to base” option where I can get it to fly to me no matter what. I’m pretty sure my iPad Mini has GPS, but how do I check (just in case that would be a factor here)?

I can’t think of any details I’ve missed, so I’ll end this long plea for help. I really appreciate any help any of you can offer.

Thanks.

 

[tevek]

Heck I can almost feel the salt spray on my face, lovely photo by the way. Anyway, a couple of things spring to mind. Unless you are flying relatively close to the water the VPS won't be coming into play unless you are within approx 10 mtrs from the surface. If you had OA turned on any glare from the water or flying into to the sun may have 'tricked' the drone into thinking there was an obstacle in front of it thereby slowing it down.
WRT to your homepoint, you can adjust the drone to return to current controller position (it is not dynamic and needs to be manually set each time) and reset the HP which is also handy for RTH situations.You may have left as your take off point, the homepoint which will obviously change as you sail around. In any case the radar should reflect the change in HP setting and display your controller as the dot on your radar to aim for when lining up the red triangle.
Sport mode is easy to select on your controller toggle switch so I'm not sure what other actions you would need to take. I wouldn't rely on it if you are running out juice as trying to keep it nice and straight, particularly with wind at reasonable heights may gain you speed but drain the battery more quickly than running it back in P mode.

 

[rockydog]

You need to enable Multiple Flight Modes in the app to use Sport mode.

 

[Meta4]

Despite these two near calamities, I want to do more of this, and in higher wind where the sailing is even better. But I don’t want to go through this panic again.

I would greatly appreciate any answers, comments, or follow up questions to help me determine all the things I did wrong. I’d love to know if there’s a “return to base” option where I can get it to fly to me no matter what. I’m pretty sure my iPad Mini has GPS, but how do I check (just in case that would be a factor here)?

Congratulations, that's a great pic of a beautiful schooner. One to be proud of.
Also congratulations on managing to keep your Phantom learning in an unforgiving environment.

By leaving your homepoint unchanged, you run the risk of having your Phantom decide it is getting too far from home and going home before the battery is too low.
You can change home to either the current location of the Phantom or the controller (as long as your tablet is GPS enabled).
Simply resetting to the Phantom's location a few times should be fine to keep it from wanting to zip off astern.
You saw how the radar display and homepoint distance are relative to the homepoint.

Any attempt to have it return to you is going to be tricky as long as you keep moving.
You'll just have to be conservative.
Always allow a good safety margin for any over water flying.

 

[Aquadrone]

Thank you all for your comments.

Yes, the iPad is GPS enabled.

To me it seems more sensible to change the homepoint to the controller and not the drone. I have found the place to do that, it's the first setting on the first screen, makes sense. It sure would be nice if that could update automatically as the controller moves around; this can't be that uncommon.

I also found the place to set the Multiple Flight Modes if I do need to switch to Sport mode.

Alright, now I think I'm prepared to get out there and try this again. Thanks again for all the feedback.

 

[Meta4]

To me it seems more sensible to change the homepoint to the controller and not the drone.

If you are on a moving boat, it doesn't matter much.
Ten seconds after you reset, that new home point is just a patch of water and you don't want the Phantom to RTH and autoland anywhere at sea including on the boat.
The main point is simply to keep the home point somewhere in the vicinity and not back 3 miles away.

 

[Neon Euc]

Lovely pic [emoji4] one tip is if you want to get drone home sooner then lower your altitude as the higher you are, the more powerful the wind [emoji4]

 

[Aquadrone]

If you are on a moving boat, it doesn't matter much.
Ten seconds after you reset, that new home point is just a patch of water and you don't want the Phantom to RTH and autoland anywhere at sea including on the boat.
The main point is simply to keep the home point somewhere in the vicinity and not back 3 miles away.

So would it be better to set the Homepoint to the drone so it's always accurate? Or just update to the controller ever few minutes?

 

[Meta4]

So would it be better to set the Homepoint to the drone so it's always accurate? Or just update to the controller ever few minutes?

Either should be accurate but accuracy isn't the issue, it's just a matter of stopping the Phantom from flying away to an irrelevant home point off in the distance