Pretty much launched the drone as an afterthought to an initial goal of monitoring the compass at various points on the boat. Before I knew it the thing was in the air and my level of agitation increased as it came closer to landing time. Made pretty much every mistake possible...well... maybe not but certainly made a few. Once it was up I fiddled with active tracking mostly then headed for the boat with 60% battery left.


19' foot aluminum outboard, trolling at 2.5 miles per hour.

Were I to do it again:

I would be sure to hand launch manually, I hand auto launched and the drone was a bit squirelly for a few seconds right after I let it go.

I would turn off collision avoidance before I tool off.

I would not let myself get too wrapped up in app adjustments while the drone slowly descends towrds the water....it hovered of it's own accord about 3' above the surface, patiently, while I fiddled then scared myself looking up at it hanging there...waiting for some direction.

All in all kinda scary. PLease excuse the audio and dorky laugh but the audio gives a little insight at points what is happening. Interstinly the audio mp4 is not as good a quality as the non audio version when it comes to image quality.

Good learning experience.  Nice video, nice boat, great laugh...  

Oracle Miata Posted at 2017-8-14 18:36
Good learning experience.  Nice video, nice boat, great laugh...

It was indeed. Amazing how worked up I got trying to get back into the boat. Fun though.

Thanks.

These aren't cheap toys... I always swear a bit.  

After watching the video, a piece of advice...  come to the deck of the boat sideways.  If you approach head on (like you did), you will get obstacle detection (like you did), and at times your drone will pause (like it should) and remain a bit too far from the boat.  If you approach sideways, you'll avoid the obstacle detection, and can get fully over the deck.  That will make the lady less nervous

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-14 19:17
After watching the video, a piece of advice...  come to the deck of the boat sideways.  If you approach head on (like you did), you will get obstacle detection (like you did), and at times your drone will pause (like it should) and remain a bit too far from the boat.  If you approach sideways, you'll avoid the obstacle detection, and can get fully over the deck.  That will make the lady less nervous

Thanks. It was much better after disabling the obstacle avoidance. I think there was a plan B in the back of my head that involved simply crashing it into the back of the boat. Plan C was to use the net as my wife suggested in the vid.

ThirdEyeFlyin' Posted at 2017-8-14 19:33
Thanks. It was much better after disabling the obstacle avoidance. I think there was a plan B in the back of my head that involved simply crashing it into the back of the boat. Plan C was to use the net as my wife suggested in the vid.

I'm too worried to disable obstacle avoidance.

Your deck looked like it had a reasonable amount of surface area on which to land.  No nets, no chopped fingers, no crashing.

ThirdEyeFlyin' Posted at 2017-8-14 19:33
Thanks. It was much better after disabling the obstacle avoidance. I think there was a plan B in the back of my head that involved simply crashing it into the back of the boat. Plan C was to use the net as my wife suggested in the vid.

Also, I've not been waiting for battery to get to 30% before I decide to return.  I've been manually returning at 40-50%.  I know that's extremely cautious, but should somebody's wake suddenly hit us, or should we get some sudden and unexpected gusts, that gives me a lot of time to react.  Over land I'm willing to use more battery, but over water I just think (for me) it's not worth the risk.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-14 19:40
I'm too worried to disable obstacle avoidance.

Your deck looked like it had a reasonable amount of surface area on which to land.  No nets, no chopped fingers, no crashing.

I want to try landing it on the deck but not sure how the boat moving will affect the drone as it goes to touch down. Seems like it could get confused at a command to land while it is in fact travelling at 2.5 miles per hour. I've been mostly hand launching even on land just to get used to grabbing the thing from the air....no cut fingers yet.

Also have noticed a few references to not using the 90 degree twist thing to shut down the bird unless it's an emergency....i wonder if it is hard on it in some way?

ThirdEyeFlyin' Posted at 2017-8-14 19:50
I want to try landing it on the deck but not sure how the boat moving will affect the drone as it goes to touch down. Seems like it could get confused at a command to land while it is in fact travelling at 2.5 miles per hour. I've been mostly hand launching even on land just to get used to grabbing the thing from the air....no cut fingers yet.

Also have noticed a few references to not using the 90 degree twist thing to shut down the bird unless it's an emergency....i wonder if it is hard on it in some way?

I've not landed on a moving target.  My boats have been stationary.  I'm not bold enough to try (yet).  Were I to try, I'd do it the way you did, grab the spark and tilt it to shut it down.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-14 19:55
I've not landed on a moving target.  My boats have been stationary.  I'm not bold enough to try (yet).  Were I to try, I'd do it the way you did, grab the spark and tilt it to shut it down.

I just wanted it all to stop! lol

Scares the #$$% out of you doesn't it?  I still have anxiety flying over water, but the RTB (return to boat) I've got down!

Practice makes perfect. Look forward more wonderful videos from you.

come to boat turn around reverse in works great

Great video!... Congrats...

lafoto Posted at 2017-8-16 12:33
Great video!... Congrats...

As a sort of follow-up to an offline discussion I have had with Charles in which he has offered useful information, where would the Jury consider the best point to launch and recover from my boat.



Big lump of metal V8 in the back, big stainless wakeboard tower with aerials, forward cabin with electronics, wifi unit,  stereo system with bluetooth and speakers.

Current plan is to start by me being on the shore and my son doing drive pasts and then perhaps a compass check around the boat looking for interference?

I see three launch options and two landing options.

Launch Option 1:  Cockpit launch.  I can't see inside your cockpit, but if there's a flat surface, and if your spark doesn't complain about magnetic interference (compass problems), that might be a good option.  I see you have a Bimini top, and the frame could be an obstacle taking off.  I take off from under a Bimini top, and I fly my craft out from under it as it rises, and then immediately set home point.  More on home point later.

Launch Option 2:  The bow of your boat.  It appears that while at rest, the bow would slope into the water.  Not good.  But it looks like you've got a port on the bow.  If you can lock the port cover into a position that is relatively level, that would be a great place to launch.

Launch Option 3:  Palm launch.  I'm not a big fan of palm launches, as I've seen the craft drift unexpectedly, and there's the video of the drone flopping to the ground after launch.  But if we get confidence in palm launches, you can engage gesture controls from the drone and immediately take over with the RC.  I've done this before.  I don't need to switch any mode, as the craft responds immediately to RC controls.

Landing Option 1:  Cockpit of boat.  If you are able to launch from the cockpit, you'll also be able to land there.  I'd fly in from the back sideways, so that obstacle detection doesn't engage.

Landing option 2:  Palm landing.  I've a LOT of confidence in palm landing.  A lot more than palm launching.  You can turn on gesture control from the phone, bring in the craft close enough to reach, and then use your palm to capture the craft.  I've done this a number of times.  I don't use it regularly because I've lots of good landing surfaces on my boats, but it works rather well.

No landing option 3:  You COULD try and put it back on the port cover, but that's some very precise landing.  If it goes astray at all, it could land on a sloped portion of the bow and slide away.  That would stink.  If your bow is your only realistic option, I'd stick some obstacles on the sides of the bow that would prevent the spark from sliding all the way down.  I use to put obstacles up on my boats when landing, but I've gained enough confidence in my skills and the craft to where I don't worry about it.

RTH:  Setting the point is good.  Relying on it for return is bad.  Your boat will probably drift away from the home point.  I do not rely on RTH functionality for coming back to the boat.  I always fly back manually.  But if the craft decides that it must RTH for some reason, setting it close to the boat gives me some hope of reacting in time.

Battery:  I do not exhaust the battery when flying from my boat.  I don't wait for the 30% alarm.  I start returning to my boat when I hit 40-50% battery, and I usually land with 30% battery left.  That's a LOT of battery I'm not using.  But that's my "reserves" in the event that something unexpected happens when attempting to land.  Say gusts of wind, or waves/wake from other boats.  Saving all that battery gives me opportunity to abort and retry.

That's how I do it, and how I'd try from your boat.  I fly from my boats every weekend.  I've tested cautiously ahead of time, and I've gained confidence in my skills and in the spark.

One more thing I forgot to mention.  Since I'm not using all the battery, that really limits the flight time.  What I try to do is decide on what my intent is first, and then create a mental flight plan which supports my intent.  That way I'm not spending time thinking about what I want to do while I'm in the air.

If the boat is sitting or drifting I would hand launch and catch off the bow were it me. Practice this on land. Even though I thought I had practiced the technique I would use on the boat I found I hadn't allowed for the "scary" factor of operating from a moving platform. I auto launched while moving and I would not do this again...the drone seemed confused as we trolled away from it at 2.5 mph, or more accurately forced it to auto launch while actually moving then asking it to hover from that moving launch point. It was weird. A manual launch seems much safer in retrospect. You could even do a combination of the two: tell it to auto launch then cancel...if the machine is still spinning the props then just up stick it. The problem for me is manually starting the bird while holding it....just awkward is all.

I'm intrigued with landing the craft in reverse and may try this. The only drawback to this for me is the loss of vanity in flying the drone backwards to compensate for the reversed  left / right while flying forwards towards yourself. I want to be able to confidently  fly it at myself....still...I'm into this thing for 1100 bucks canuck so maybe I should turn down my pride 'till the bird's inside. lol

We are fortunate that the whole boat is aluminum basically so not much interference compass-wise.

I was asked to give lessons on boating to a new boat owner.  One of my lessons was that damaged pride is cheaper than fiberglass.

Does it recognise a "Palm Land" when it is facing sideways or backwards - ie away from you as a person

As an update. Pursuant to landing the AC on a moving target, I literally flew the spark into the ground. Down stick down, forward stick forward, it flew right into the ground and said "landing" just before touchdown and skid. I may indeed be able to fly this thing right onto a moving boat.

Cool, Thanks for sharing!