P4P Take off & landing on a boat

[jephoto]

I’m still getting used to the P4p. Only had it 5 weeks.
I do have a case on the iPad- but it’s a thin vinyl magnetic flap case. I wouldn’t think it would block the GPS signal much- but I don’t know.
Need to test it without.
But now that I think about it, I got the same message before I got the case.

And yes- I do have Location services on and allowed for Go app.

 

[1boater]

I usually fly it directly within hand reach and grab the leg with one hand and with the contoler in the other hand hit the left joystick down with my thumb to shut motors off (same hand thats holding the controller)

 

[Meta4]

Funny about the dynamic Home Point. I’ve not had a lot of luck yet with the P4p v2 with resetting the Home Point to the RC position.
Even though I’ve got a new iPad with GPS and have my iPhone’s Personal Hot Spot on, I always get an alert that the GPS signal is too weak to set the new Home Point.
Even if I’m in an open area. Any thoughts on this?

And yes- I do have Location services on and allowed for Go app.

DJI's message about weak GPS signal means no GPS signal.
I don't have an Apple device to check how location services works with them but with Android, you have different settings in Location Services and only one uses GPS.
Is there a way you can tell if GPS is enabled?
In Android you can get GPS apps that show what's going on like this:

 

[Fly Dawg]

Thanks - but What's section 336?

To answer your question.... You can fly at night under Section 336

Option #1. Fly in accordance with the Special Rule for Model Aircraft (Public Law 112-95 Section 336). Under this rule, operators must:

1. Register their UAS with the FAA
2. Fly for hobby or recreational purposes only
3. Follow a community-based set of safety guidelines
4. Fly the UAS within visual line-of-sight
5. Give way to manned aircraft
6. Provide prior notification to the airport and air traffic control tower, if one is present, when flying within 5 miles of an airport
7. Fly UAS that weigh no more than 55 lbs. unless certified by a community-based organization

Option #2. Fly under the FAA's Small UAS Rule (14 CFR part 107). Under this rule, operators must:

1. Register their UAS with the FAA as a "non-modeler"
2. Obtain an FAA Remote Pilot Certificate
3. Follow the operational requirements (PDF) of Part 107

 

[Jack Matthias]

Happy to help if I can- but what are you asking exactly?
There’s confusion here too. you want to keep a low profile. It’s technically legal to fly in many places especially on the lakefront. But if there’s a lot of people around the cops don’t like it. The main parks near downtown Chicago are off-limits for drones.
The park Nazis will be on you pretty quick if they see that you’re flying a drone anywhere around Grant Park and the being and near Michigan Avenue. If I want to fly the lakefront are usually go at sunrise down by Adler planetarium and nobody bothers me that I was beautiful. But the other day I went by North Ave., Beach mid day, around 1 PM and I was just noodling around playing with the new P for P, and a cop on an ATV rolls up to me and says you got to bring that down. And I went excuse me? Says can’t fly that around Here.
I said anywhere on the lakefront?
“Yes, there’s too many people, you could hit someone. “ I said, but I’ll be over water tomshoot skylines...
“There’s boaters ounthere. You could hit one...”

I told him I’d been flying for 4 years , had my 107 Commercial license and never had a problem before.
Told him I was going to only be flying over the water, not people. He pointed out that it was over people NOW- I had just put it up and was checking my settings before setting out.
Wanted to tell him that I’d been there all by myself, no one near, and he saw what I was doing and rolled himself under the drone...

But didn’t. We talked for almost 10 min. Finally he said “well I see you’ve got expensive equipment and talk the talk (about the safety refs & FAA guidelines) so I’ll let it go this time.
But when there’s lots of people around you can’t fly here...

Told him I can see exactly where it’s going, and always tip he lens down to check what’s under me before shooting and am very conscious of what’s under me.


They must be cracking down a bit. I usually have no issue if not in a tourist area.
Also I usually do the lakefront at dawn.

Thanks this is exactly what I’m looking for. Where you can fly downtown. Looks like I’ll start at the Adler Planetarium.

 

[jephoto]

Thanks this is exactly what I’m looking for. Where you can fly downtown. Looks like I’ll start at the Adler Planetarium.

Just check Hover or similar app to make sure there’s no TFR’s that day.
An event at Soldiers Field or even a ball game at Sox park puts the Planetarium in the radius for No Fly from 1 hour before to 1 hour after a game.
It flying at sunrise is almost always ok. Best time anyway for that location.
Right at the edge of the TFR too right.
The screenshots are from Hover

 

[Russ43Phantom]

Launching from a yacht poses several problems. Metal on board can disrupt the compass, rigging can be tricky obstacles, Home Point must be reset regularly while the boat keeps moving and the drones relative speed on takeoff and landing is greater than zero. You can test the compass and rigging issues while the yacht is docked. You can also get ideas, as suggested above, from YouTube. I hope all goes well.

 

[jephoto]

Thanks. And will do some tests.
For the shots I initially asked about (fireworks) ,
Boat will either drop
Anchor or at least stay as much in one spot as possible- not under power anyway.
And I need to test an external Bluetooth GPS device I bought for the P3p- XGPS-150a on the new iPad.
If it works that will be a great help in being able to reset the Home Point.
So far the Go4 app hasn’t been able to do that on the iPad even though it’s the GPS model. Kinda pisses me off....

Tech support at Dual , who makes it, says with updated firmware and latest software it should work fine.

I’ve another client that does want shots of his boat in motion during the day. So I do want to be able to do that.

 

[Lazyjack]

Flying a drone from a boat is one of the easiest ways to loose it and I accept that I will loose my P4 some day.. There is a lot of good advice here.
Some points:
We have to remember that the open ocean is not a river or lake. It is dangerous enough and a drone adds to that risk. MOB at night could be curtains, wear a strobe and a gps transmitter if possible.
There is a lot of wireless equipment and electrical interefrence on a boat. Switch off as much as possible, definately switch of radar.
Dynamic RTH absolutely must work. Check this on land. I use Autopilot, it updates RTH every second. Dynamic RTH does not seem to update automatically on the other apps.
Hand catch comming in backwards, that way either stick forward is safe.
Probably drifting downwind and holding on to the backstay is safest catch point on a sailing vessel.
I leave downward positioning on, many turn this off.
This link contains what little I have learned so far about a drone in the open sea

 

[PaulAB]

Not to the point at hand; flying from boat tonight. But...

In future, if you fly over water a lot or want to fly in precipitation with “no worries”; look into SwellPro Splash drones. I speak as owner and not a salesman but with one of these ( the auto 3 is similar to Phantom) or with the new one due out in July ( more like the Mavic), you can fly in it all and land and takeoff from the water. The new July sportflying model is ideal for FPV and even the transmitter is waterproof ( skiers? Boat racers? Wave runners? Might be interested)

Totally waterproof. As to the Chicago connection that I see in one of the posts: Elmhurst is home to the Midwest distributor of SwellPro in the USA.

Cheers.

 

[bsartist]

There is another consideration for taking off from a moving vessel which hasn’t been mentioned. I will include a screencap from an experienced drone pilot I know.

 

[WetDog]

There is another consideration for taking off from a moving vessel which hasn’t been mentioned. I will include a screencap from an experienced drone pilot I know.

View attachment 100229

If you are persuaded you need to take off from a vessel moving at any speed, the best way to do this is to start in ATTI mode. Then switch to GPS. Update your home point to the RC and, as has been pointed out above, make *very* sure that works before you try it.

 

[Tomas Juricek]

I've been flying from variety of boats, moving or stationary and most important lessons learned would be following:

1. Take off from a place that has no obstructions and none of the boat parts are moving towards the GPS location set by your drone. If the boat is underway, start in the back so that your drone will hover while the boat is moving away. I've almost lost a drone this way, fortunately my reflexes kicked in and drone responded swiftly. No matter what, be ready for a fast take-off and quick corrections.
2. Mind the waves, if your drone hovers one meter over the deck and a wave lifts the boat, it will kill your drone mid-flight.
3. Forget RTH, watch the battery closely and come back in time have enough juice for a few landing attempts. In case of RTH, set location manually in your DJI GO app. Note that following a moving boat creates a distance from RTH point, make sure to re-set the location from time to time to prolong your fly time before RTH is activated. I've almost lost a drone this way, when filming a boat returning from a fishing trip, my drone activated RTH in the harbor and started to return back to the middle of the ocean where we've started filming. Don't panic, cancel RTH and land ASAP
4. On a sailboat, consider turning off the obstacle avoidance sensors as it may not allow you to fly your drone close enough to the boat for a hand landing.
5. I think this one is the most important though, use the kill switch when someone catches your drone. Left stick down-right and RTH button combo. The person catching your drone will have to hold on to it tight and your job is to kill it ASAP. When the boat moves in all directions including up and down, your drone tries to compensate and those could be some hairy moments.
   

I hope this helps. Obviously my experience is from some rough seas and difficult environments. Yours could be totally easy and you may not need to worry about half of these things. Stay safe, make sure your crew is safe and take care of your drones. Good luck!

 

[jephoto]

Flying a drone from a boat is one of the easiest ways to loose it and I accept that I will loose my P4 some day.. There is a lot of good advice here.
Some points:
We have to remember that the open ocean is not a river or lake. It is dangerous enough and a drone adds to that risk. MOB at night could be curtains, wear a strobe and a gps transmitter if possible.
There is a lot of wireless equipment and electrical interefrence on a boat. Switch off as much as possible, definately switch of radar.
Dynamic RTH absolutely must work. Check this on land. I use Autopilot, it updates RTH every second. Dynamic RTH does not seem to update automatically on the other apps.
Hand catch comming in backwards, that way either stick forward is safe.
Probably drifting downwind and holding on to the backstay is safest catch point on a sailing vessel.
I leave downward positioning on, many turn this off.
This link contains what little I have learned so far about a drone in the open sea

Nice video. Great tips.
Question on Auto Pilot/ are there any settings in Go I need to preset or adjust before using Autopilot? Or are all the usual options for all functions available once in Autopilot ?
Also, my guess is I’d want Go OFF, so not to have 2 controlling softwares on simultaneously, with possible conflicts- correct?
Any other tips for Autopilot? I’ve not used it yet.

And- I’ll be on a lake, not Ocean. Very big lake, but lake none the less...
Thx

 

[Phill2]

Hey.
I’ve been invited tonight to go on a 40’ yacht to see the fireworks.

I don’t think I’ll have any problem taking off. If nothing else I’ll have my friend hold it above his head by landline no gear & hand launch - if it isn’t getting a green light while on the deck.

My concern is coming back- especially if it’s after sunset (only 30 Min. of course!) -
Obviously we may not be in the same position as take off- near but not exact.
So I’ll need to steer it back manually, and have my buddy hand catch.

Do I need to worry about the Obstacle avoidance giving us a problem bringing it close enough to grab?
Any other concerns or tips?

Thx!

Use Litchi and enable Dynamic Home Point that way it will always come back to the controller.

 

[jephoto]

Use Litchi and enable Dynamic Home Point that way it will always come back to the controller.

What are the differences between Litchi and Autopilot?
Also can you just fly free form with them or do you have to set a course for it to follow?

 

[umanbean]

What are the differences between Litchi and Autopilot?
Also can you just fly free form with them or do you have to set a course for it to follow?

No experience with Autopilot but with Litchi, yes, you can fly 'free form' - Litchi calls it FPV mode. There are also many other useful flight modes.

Re: Dynamic Homepoint, from the lichi manual:

"When enabled, the homepoint will continuously be updated to the current location of your mobile device. Very useful in Follow mode."

Just make sure the GPS radio in your mobile device is a good one, they're not all created equal!

 

[jephoto]

Re: Dynamic Homepoint, from the lichi manual:

"When enabled, the homepoint will continuously be updated to the current location of your mobile device. Very useful in Follow mode."

Just make sure the GPS radio in your mobile device is a good one, they're not all created equal!

This of course is the big issue. I use an iPad and DJI Go so far hasn't worked for Dyanmic Home Point.
Even tried using my Dual XPGS 150A bluetooth External Bluetooth to augment it, but so far no go. I do need to see if it needs a Firmware upgrade, but it does connect fine to the iPad and it's own software works with it fine - so my guess is it is communicating just fine with the iPad.

I can however reset the HP to the P4P's current location. Better than nothing - but it's not automatic like what you are talking about. That is very cool.

Anyone else out there using Litchi with a newer iPad & the Dynamic HP works fine ?