Hy there

I was trying to discover which was the best way to launch spark from a boat...after some tests i think the best way is launch and land with the automatic app launch/land and it will hover 1 meter above the palm , and land softly when activated the land function on app and it easy to catch it.

Whats is your opion?


When i was trying palm launch i tryed to abort it by activating the turn off the spark button. By clicking once and again many time but the only thing that the spark did was making more and more power in the propellers and gave me the alert that the motors where on its maximum power. After a few seconds 15 i think the motor stoped and spark jumped from my hand to 2 meters distance once i was doing the oposite force of the motors. ( if i was on a boat it whould go to the water( outside the boat) one i was on big field nothing happened.

So:
1
Whats is the best way to launch and land on a small boat

2  Shouldnt the palm launch aborted when tryied to turn off spark?

in this situation just grab the spark and tilt it until it shuts off, its very easy, you can find this info in the manual.

If the boat is not moving you can do any of these I guess, but if the boat is moving read the following...

If you have RC, it is sort-of safe to fly from the boat, but if you are using just the phone as controller bear in mind that home point is locked and you need to reset it as the ship is moving. If you don't reset and Spark will be too far away from the home point - it will go back, and you will end up losing it. It is not related to the signal, but to the limit set by Spark when using a phone as the controller. There is already one thread for this where the user lost his Spark on a boat just because of this (see this thread).

So in short - make sure to "refresh" the home point often enough so Spark won't decide to "go home" to Waterworld.

Bobesh Posted at 2017-8-14 05:24
If the boat is not moving you can do any of these I guess, but if the boat is moving read the following...

If you have RC, it is sort-of safe to fly from the boat, but if you are using just the phone as controller bear in mind that home point is locked and you need to reset it as the ship is moving. If you don't reset and Spark will be too far away from the home point - it will go back, and you will end up losing it. It is not related to the signal, but to the limit set by Spark when using a phone as the controller. There is already one thread for this where the user lost his Spark on a boat just because of this (see this thread).

no offense but the post had nothing to do with RTH.

The flight log does not have the warning that was something like " the motors reached the maximum power" why?

Thor1 Posted at 2017-8-14 05:30
no offense but the post had nothing to do with RTH.

I know, but that's the thing - if the boat is moving and Spark will eventually reach its limit from home point - it will go back and there is nothing you can do about it. It is just something to have on your mind.

You will almost have to grab hand catch , you try to land in your hand you will have problems on a moving boat.
so as thor said just grab and turn 90 degrees motors will stop and you can turn off the AC. RTH is always going to cause you a problem you will have to continually reset RTH because you can't set to hover, and if you lose radio contact for any reason you will find yourself in real trouble on a moving boat.

So be careful, good luck.

I've two boats (a pontoon and a cabin cruiser).  When I started flying the spark I used palm landing.  But I've found that it's easier for me to land on a flat surface on the boat.  The back of the pontoon has a flat sun-deck, and the back of the cabin cruiser has an oversized swim platform.

I usually come at the boat sideways (collision detection can sometimes go off when approaching the boat straight on).  Because I don't want to use RTH or have it auto-activate, I monitor the battery closely and manually return home between 40-50%, and usually land with 30% left.  That's a lot of battery I'm not using, but it's my safety margin/comfort zone.

Bobesh Posted at 2017-8-14 05:41
I know, but that's the thing - if the boat is moving and Spark will eventually reach its limit from home point - it will go back and there is nothing you can do about it. It is just something to have on your mind.

i agree! i apologize if i sounded arrogant!

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-14 06:38
I've two boats (a pontoon and a cabin cruiser).  When I started flying the spark I used palm landing.  But I've found that it's easier for me to land on a flat surface on the boat.  The back of the pontoon has a flat sun-deck, and the back of the cabin cruiser has an oversized swim platform.

I usually come at the boat sideways (collision detection can sometimes go off when approaching the boat straight on).  Because I don't want to use RTH or have it auto-activate, I monitor the battery closely and manually return home between 40-50%, and usually land with 30% left.  That's a lot of battery I'm not using, but it's my safety margin/comfort zone.

That goes for take-off as well.  I take off and land from a flat surface on the boats.

I only fly with the RC and wouldn't trust palm launch on a boat  in case something happens in the first seconds of flight

I always take off from the sun pad on the bow of the boat where there is no clutter and less turbulence. I retrieve by hover-grab-flip

And yes RTH Is a problem. I had a connection glitch yesterday and twice the Spark tried to return home which was fine as we were anchored but twice went into auto landing before reaching the boat. Luckily the RC let me cnscelled auto landing, twice, and I was able to bring it back

Thor1 Posted at 2017-8-14 06:40
i agree! i apologize if i sounded arrogant!

No worries. I just wanna help .)

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-14 06:46
That goes for take-off as well.  I take off and land from a flat surface on the boats.

if you lose RC signal, have you a redundancy.

The reason I've abandoned palm launch and land from boat is because I don't want to fiddle with remote and phone and drone all at the same time.  Landing is the same for me.  I have to put it back in gesture mode, position it carefully, then place the rc and phone down and then "palm land".

I would use palm landing in "rough seas", but as long as my boat is steady my preference is to manually land.

Please be careful when you fly the drone on a small boat. Check and ensure there is a strong GPS signal, it is suggested manually updating the Homepoint to the RC current location. If there is a weak GPS signal and strong interference, I don't recommend flying the drone.