Man, being new, I get SUPER NERVOUS flying this thing over water.  Obviously a lot of people do it.  
I tried to rig up an orange "floatie" from my GoPro accessories and althought it may work, I have not yet tested it on the Spark in flight.  I can't put it on top, due to the props hitting it.  Not sure on the bottom if it will block the bottom facing sensors.  It will keep my Garmin Rino 755t floating and that's a bit heavier than the spark and about the same size.  It's very light weight, certainly lighter than the four prop guards.  Although it could affect the balance?  

Given that if I have a water landing (crash) and it's toast, I need to reclaim the body to send back for the Care Refresh program.  

Any thoughts on safeguards for water pickup, if all goes wrong?  I've seen enough, "bird attack" videos already on these things!  


Am I just an over anxious new pilot?  It's like putting $700 in the air over the water and hoping the dollar bills don't float away.  {:4_157:}

If you put safety first, you don't have to put nappies on your drone. Practice makes perfect.

Lok Mavic Posted at 2017-6-27 07:21
If you put safety first, you don't have to put nappies on your drone. Practice makes perfect.

Ya, a baby diaper may make it float.  

the "GetterBack" system may work? https://www.amazon.ca/s/?ie=UTF8 ... =pd_sl_28mbxx98oj_e

You could always clip one of these on it.  :-)
http://www.apsltd.com/water-buoy ... e-lift-w-light.html

I'm interested in this too.  I'd like to take the Spark out on the kayak to take some videos and photos.  I don't want to lose my Spark.

Scared the crap out of me to fly over this sand bar when I was kayaking on Saturday. I was out of my boat also.

I hear you, at first I was terrified but I'm so confident in the Spark's abilities that I have been flying it from my boat over the past few days. As long as you are very careful with the RTH settings and pay attention, just have fun with it!

cwe0002 Posted at 2017-6-27 10:53
I hear you, at first I was terrified but I'm so confident in the Spark's abilities that I have been flying it from my boat over the past few days. As long as you are very careful with the RTH settings and pay attention, just have fun with it!

Have you tried to land it on a moving boat.  I don't necessarily mean a speeding boat, but once you are over the boat, does the drone track the floor of the boat and therefore moves along with the boat if it is drifting, or will the GPS try to keep the drone fixed over a specific GPS coordinate (i.e as the boat drifts south, the drone will not stay over the same spot on a boat).

I have been landing it manually (basically have it hover over my bow and I grab it out of the air and flip it upside down to kill motors). The key is even if your RTH is set to controller instead of takeoff point, it doesn't update automatically when you move so I suggest keeping it close and just landing it yourself. I haven't tried RTH on the boat yet and really hope I don't have to.  

How I have found the spark to work is it just hovers in place when there are no inputs/auto-modes active. So no, it doesn't 'track' the boat floor or even the boat itself unless you're using a quick shot or active-track mode.

cwe0002 Posted at 2017-6-27 12:29
I have been landing it manually (basically have it hover over my bow and I grab it out of the air and flip it upside down to kill motors). The key is even if your RTH is set to controller instead of takeoff point, it doesn't update automatically when you move so I suggest keeping it close and just landing it yourself. I haven't tried RTH on the boat yet and really hope I don't have to.  

How I have found the spark to work is it just hovers in place when there are no inputs/auto-modes active. So no, it doesn't 'track' the boat floor or even the boat itself unless you're using a quick shot or active-track mode.

I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about flying it from my kayak , yet it's something that I really want to accomplish.  It's not like I can just stand up and grab it when landing like you can do on a boat.  I'm limited in space and movement on a kayak.  There is more landing area on a boat. I just have to get more confident in flying it and understanding how it responds to different situations.

cwe0002 Posted at 2017-6-27 12:29
I have been landing it manually (basically have it hover over my bow and I grab it out of the air and flip it upside down to kill motors). The key is even if your RTH is set to controller instead of takeoff point, it doesn't update automatically when you move so I suggest keeping it close and just landing it yourself. I haven't tried RTH on the boat yet and really hope I don't have to.  

How I have found the spark to work is it just hovers in place when there are no inputs/auto-modes active. So no, it doesn't 'track' the boat floor or even the boat itself unless you're using a quick shot or active-track mode.

Awesome.  Thanks.  I take a lot of gopro footage of kayak fishing here in Alaska.  So far I have only taken over the water piloted from shore once.  But eventually I want to try and launch and retrieve from my kayak.  Thanks for the info.  I just don't have as much leeway since I don't want to stand up in my kayak to try and retrieve.  Not even sure how I can go about practicing it.  lol.  


I posted some of the videos on this thread here:  http://forum.dji.com/thread-101999-1-2.html

This is what you need haha http://amzn.to/2rZtjWl  Strap 4 of them on and they will make the spark float on water contact

This company makes a float kit for the Mavic. Styrofoam ball system. I'm sure someone will develop same for the Spark. All kinds of homebrew solutions for the Mavic already.

mikeflys.com

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-27 16:05
This company makes a float kit for the Mavic. Styrofoam ball system. I'm sure someone will develop same for the Spark. All kinds of homebrew solutions for the Mavic already.

mikeflys.com

I've seen a similar product but this looks more stable and reliable.  Maybe I'll get these and use the Mavic while kayaking instead of the Spark.

So, I tested my GoPro floatie with the Spark and I should have been video taping. Glad I tested it inside, is all I can say!  

I figured the bottom sensor would either tell me it was blocked or not work at all. I palm launched it and it immediately climbed to the top of my 12' ceiling, stuck there for a moment, then slid down the peak toward the wall, crashing near my girls toy chest.

I can only assume the Spark thought something was below it and raced up to try and avoid. My 4th crash, the props are now, "painted" but no major damage. This little guy takes a pounding. So, that experiment we'll rack up as a failure.

Water still scary!

Homebrew "pontoons"

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:14
Homebrew "pontoons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYlZomFf4I

OMG..I'm speechless.

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:14
Homebrew "pontoons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYlZomFf4I

Need a close up picture of that rig!  

Please, a close-up would be great! Here's a video of my first over-water flight, went pretty well:

cwe0002 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:31
Please, a close-up would be great! Here's a video of my first over-water flight, went pretty well:

https://youtu.be/0THCndF8jvE

Sweet...need more up close images of that lighthouse!

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:14
Homebrew "pontoons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYlZomFf4I

Suppose you could get one of these third-party landing gears and attach styrofoam blocks for a similar setup...Haven't tried it myself though!

mzak Posted at 2017-7-1 07:12
Suppose you could get one of these third-party landing gears and attach styrofoam blocks for a similar setup...Haven't tried it myself though!

I have those landing gears. In my opinion, they're way to close to be stable in the water with "pontoons" attached. You need something that's outboard of the motors. I like the styrofoam ball idea better than blocks. The less surface tension you have to overcome at take off, the better.

Palm launched from my kayak in he water on Satuday night. Was so nervous, didn't record as much as I thought. Landed in my hand, it took a couple times on my part to get there.

Launching/landing on still water and flying over water in general doesn't make me too nervous, the Spark can handle it, but you are taking a risk.

The thing that gets me is launching and landing from a moving boat.  I did this last week, launching and landing from a moving Pontoon Boat, in a fast moving river current (probably about ~8mph alone), and also with a stiff wind.  This was the greatest risk I ever took with the Spark and I was only using the phone Wifi, not my RC--so there was definitely a chance of it getting away from me fast.  I was never really able to get it to lock on very well with ActiveTrac in these conditions, but with recording all the time I did get some usable footage.  Landing was a huge PITA.  I could not palm land because I had to make constant adjustments to keep it over the front of the boat, and I basically ended up grabbing it and ripping it out of the air with my hand.  Clipped my finger tip with a prop, lol.

Here is some of the water footage I have gotten so far.

rick bernotas Posted at 2017-7-10 10:41
Launching/landing on still water and flying over water in general doesn't make me too nervous, the Spark can handle it, but you are taking a risk.

The thing that gets me is launching and landing from a moving boat.  I did this last week, launching and landing from a moving Pontoon Boat, in a fast moving river current (probably about ~8mph alone), and also with a stiff wind.  This was the greatest risk I ever took with the Spark and I was only using the phone Wifi, not my RC--so there was definitely a chance of it getting away from me fast.  I was never really able to get it to lock on very well with ActiveTrac in these conditions, but with recording all the time I did get some usable footage.  Landing was a huge PITA.  I could not palm land because I had to make constant adjustments to keep it over the front of the boat, and I basically ended up grabbing it and ripping it out of the air with my hand.  Clipped my finger tip with a prop, lol.

Wow, with the phone, no way I'd try that on moving water...maybe the local pond, or within range of the dock, but indeed, getting it back in the boat by phone could be a challenge.  Wow...cool videos.  I need to try the, "follow me mode" on the water with the kayak soon...

Love the foam pads. Hopefully we can see someone fork over the injection mold costs to make something like this, or maybe rig something up. All great ideas.

WayneMHK Posted at 2017-6-27 08:21
You could always clip one of these on it.  :-)
http://www.apsltd.com/water-buoy-1kg-auto-inflate-lift-w-light.html

That is awesome

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:14
Homebrew "pontoons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYlZomFf4I

That's just brilliant

So I've taken 4 flights over water so far with my spark.  Two were flying from an anchored houseboat and I was up on the roof.  So no worries other than the fact that when I did return to home it kept wanting to go to an elevation LOWER than where I was standing so I didn't chance it and cancelled return to home and manually had it hover in front of me and did the catch and flip sideways to kill the rotors.  

This is an autoedit that I got from Skypixel:
https://www.skypixel.com/videos/ ... 5-b991-936cf8fb2083

This week I took 2 flights from my wakeboard boat.  My friend is a really good pilot and he has a P4 and a mavic that he's really good with and has started to build racing drones, so I trusted him.  

On the first run, My wife was surfing  and the drone started to return to home (way away from where she started surfing).  We're thinking there was a setting that basically computed battery life and when it realized it was father away than it had juice to return to "home" that it aborted. So we were able to reestablish control and brought the boat over to the drone and my buddy brought it into me and I caught it off the back of the boat's sundeck.  



On the 2nd run, I was surfing and he'd lost video for a couple minutes and was piloting without FPV.  eventually it lost connection and took off again.  GRRR.  I was able to do a quick platform stop on my wakesurf board and he brought it in and I tried to catch it, but it didn't wanna stay as I tried to grab it, so eventually he was able to grab it (and kept his fingers!)



Whew.

Cravenfan Posted at 2017-6-27 17:46
So, I tested my GoPro floatie with the Spark and I should have been video taping. Glad I tested it inside, is all I can say!  

I figured the bottom sensor would either tell me it was blocked or not work at all. I palm launched it and it immediately climbed to the top of my 12' ceiling, stuck there for a moment, then slid down the peak toward the wall, crashing near my girls toy chest.

Hilarious and speechless

Cravenfan Posted at 2017-6-27 10:46
Scared the crap out of me to fly over this sand bar when I was kayaking on Saturday. I was out of my boat also.

Beautiful picture!

Jimmers Posted at 2017-6-27 13:13
I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about flying it from my kayak , yet it's something that I really want to accomplish.  It's not like I can just stand up and grab it when landing like you can do on a boat.  I'm limited in space and movement on a kayak.  There is more landing area on a boat. I just have to get more confident in flying it and understanding how it responds to different situations.

That must be difficult indeed.
Practice on land first

Dragonfly47 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:14
Homebrew "pontoons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYlZomFf4I

Ouch, looks like it had too much suction when taking off.
Still nice concept though.
How did it affect flying?

cwe0002 Posted at 2017-6-30 05:31
Please, a close-up would be great! Here's a video of my first over-water flight, went pretty well:

https://youtu.be/0THCndF8jvE

Nice to see!

rick bernotas Posted at 2017-7-10 10:41
Launching/landing on still water and flying over water in general doesn't make me too nervous, the Spark can handle it, but you are taking a risk.

The thing that gets me is launching and landing from a moving boat.  I did this last week, launching and landing from a moving Pontoon Boat, in a fast moving river current (probably about ~8mph alone), and also with a stiff wind.  This was the greatest risk I ever took with the Spark and I was only using the phone Wifi, not my RC--so there was definitely a chance of it getting away from me fast.  I was never really able to get it to lock on very well with ActiveTrac in these conditions, but with recording all the time I did get some usable footage.  Landing was a huge PITA.  I could not palm land because I had to make constant adjustments to keep it over the front of the boat, and I basically ended up grabbing it and ripping it out of the air with my hand.  Clipped my finger tip with a prop, lol.

Nice video's and movement also!
Have you tried lowering the Exposure compensation to -0.7 or so?
The paddle board is washed out on some clips.

Cravenfan Posted at 2017-7-10 09:42
Palm launched from my kayak in he water on Satuday night. Was so nervous, didn't record as much as I thought. Landed in my hand, it took a couple times on my part to get there.

I would be nervous too!

WayneMHK Posted at 2017-6-27 08:21
You could always clip one of these on it.  :-)
http://www.apsltd.com/water-buoy-1kg-auto-inflate-lift-w-light.html

It would make recovery more easy, but staying dry.....