P4 over water, stopped forward movement

[blmeanie]

today we took my P4 out over the lake. I have flown it a bunch of times over the water previously. Today all seemed fine, was following my boat when it stopped the forward movement and when we turned around and went back to it I could go left, right, backwards, up and down.

We retrieved it and went in to the dock. I looked for some setting that maybe was off, saw nothing. Took off from the dock and flew up 250 feet and out 300-400 ft, no issues, all controls worked fine. Put it through some drills, all seems fine.

Any ideas why the forward movement stopped while I was on the boat? Antenna point direction off? Blocked by the tower on the boat maybe? Didn't seem to correct itself when we drove back to it though.

Help appreciated,

Steve

 

[tevek]

Would OA have been turned on and being affected by the glare of the water or facing towards the sun and seeing either as an obstacle?

 

[blmeanie]

Not sure, just watched the flight on the phone (device I use in flight) and at point where it stopped it says Max flight distance reached and then a second warning of Aircraft out of range. How did I fly much much further away later from my dock though? It appears that is is measuring from where we took off from (home). Is there a way to set it as dynamic and know where the controller is?

Confused.

 

[tevek]

Not sure, just watched the flight on the phone (device I use in flight) and at point where it stopped it says Max flight distance reached and then a second warning of Aircraft out of range. How did I fly much much further away later from my dock though? It appears that is is measuring from where we took off from (home). Is there a way to set it as dynamic and know where the controller is?

Confused.

Firstly you can check to see if you have OA enabled, it's icon is on the top of the camera view screen, you can disable it from there or in the general settings.
If you disable the max distance slider switch in your general settings you can fly as far as the control signal will let you, you may have a fixed flight distance setting and this is what you are experiencing. You can also reset your homepoint to your current controller location if on the move. Sorry I am no where near my device to post up screen shots. If you use the search engine on the forum (magnifying glass) and type in 'enable maximum distance' or similar and 'reset homepoint' it should take you to some excellent info from @msinger.

 

[tevek]

This might help a bit:
500 Meter Distance Limit
Can't find a screen shot of the homepoint settings but it's at the top of the main settings page in camera view. You need a GPS enabled device to use this function.

 

[blmeanie]

Thanks to all, from what I've read, while flying from a moving boat , best to:

- enable max distance
- set to hover on RTH
- possibly turn off OA
- plan to hand catch

Sound about right?

 

[tevek]

Thanks to all, from what I've read, while flying from a moving boat , best to:

- enable max distance
- set to hover on RTH
- possibly turn off OA
- plan to hand catch

Sound about right?

Pretty close, turn off 'enable max distance', hand catching is your best outcome on a boat, many people also hand launch (easier if you have a friend to help). I would turn off OA unless you plan on flying close to an immovable object, and as mentioned earlier the sun or glare from the water may give you grief.

 

[With The Birds]

If your flying with a GPS enabled tablet more than 500m from land (particularity launching from land and/or the boat is moving) best option would be to use dynamic home point also. Probably not desirable to have the AC returning to land or even worse the position the boat was when you launched if you have a Signal loss and RTH initiates.