My P3S went down in 5" of water, and found with camera up and out of water.  I puller the battery and have been letting both the battery and aircraft dry out for the last 5 days. The drone has been in with a rice bed, and humidity in the environment is about 50%, which is lower than current daily humidity readings...     I have a new battery arriving tomorrow and wondering if I dare plug it in and try to see if the drone will fire up.  Looking for feedback from anyone else that has had a similar experience and what the outcome was.  

First piece of advice is to throw away the wet battery, and the next is to make sure the aircraft has thoroughly dried out before you try inserting a battery into it. Personally, I would be waiting 7 days or longer to make sureit is dried out.

Geebax Posted at 2016-6-30 19:01
First piece of advice is to throw away the wet battery, and the next is to make sure the aircraft ha ...

Battery has been recycled and awaiting new today.  Hopefully the new battery will restore the ship....  XXXX

Where did you dispose of the bad battery?

You didn't specify fresh or salt water...just "5 inches" of water.   Could be at the beach.   Salt water is far more damaging than fresh water because it is both corrosive and more conductive.  If it went down in salt water....a dunking and rinse with FRESH water is recommended before drying.
I would heed the advice of the 7 day wait to try to power up the Phantom after sitting in rice or whatever method you use.   
Any shorts caused by residual water would cause the most damage.
A warm air dry by ventilating the phantom internal cavities with constant warm air is also very good.


Lipos are environmentally friendly and can be disposed in common garbage once discharged.
A salt water "bath" also helps neutralize them.

http://www.rcsoup.com/2012/09/proper-disposal-of-lithium-polymer-lipo-batteries/


Good luck

Once the aircraft hits the water, it rarely able to recover from the damage. Corrosion is most likely to set in and can short circuit the electronics should you try to use another battery.

Actually, quite a number of people on here have successfully recovered an aircraft that went into water. It depends upon whether it was fresh or salt water and how the owner performed the recovery.

SUCCESS  ! ! !  My P3s is back in the air.   After giving it a bath in 5" of rain water, I brought the craft home and removed the old battery.  It didn't charge normally so I dispose of it.  Bought a new one and prior to inserting, I did a small humidity/temperature test in a controlled environment.  More details on that....  I'm fortunate to have access to a test room at work which has temperature and humidity controls to +/-1%.     First test was to understand how much humidity was in the craft from the crash and it was reading 78% (after 2nd day of recovery at 72 degrees F.  Normal humidity in my area is around 55 - 60% outside so I consider that to be a normal operating temperature or target for my test.v. Next I reduce the controlled environment to 55% and the craft remained in test room for 3 days..  After 2 days the craft was at 55%.  Then took it home and waited for new battery to arrive.  I was going to take it apart as I thought the material covering the GPS antenna (under top cover) was made of some sort of absorbent material (but not sure).  So I decided not to crack the covers apart.  Anywho, yesterday I inserted the new battery and everything seems to be functioning as designed.  I still need to verify all capabilities before I'm convinced I'm as lucky as I think I am....