Hey guys, so I want to know who flies over water here. I am curious to see how you guys do it and how the Inspire behaves over water...Do you recommend putting some floataion device on the landing skids like foam tubes or something (in case of a water landing)? Have you guys experienced ANY problems over water? Any advice would be helpful to me. Thank you!

Except for my first and second test flights, I have been basically flying over water every time I flew my i1.  This is just my personal opinion, but I think it's safer for a beginner to fly over open water w/o a lot of water craft activities since there are less obstacles you have to worry about (as opposed to on land).  The other thing is flying on open water usually means you are either near the shoreline or in a pretty remote area, hence less signal interference and less chances of your bird behaving in ways that you don't want it to.

The downside is... you are over water, and if your bird drops you are pretty much guaranteed to a total loss (unless you landed in a shallow body of fresh water, even then..)

Hello
I have 250 flights with my Inspire 1 and my Phantom 2 vision+ V3 - and about 50 % of these flights are over water. Have so fare had no problems with that - I never go under 1 meter above the water level - keeping distance from waves - other than that no different from flying over land. Never used any floating gear at all.

I live by the ocean and fly over it daily.  No problems at all other than signs of rust on some screw heads..  When you live in Hawaii, there is no escaping the salt in the air.  I was stoked to see that when you fly a low elevation over the water and then up onto the beach, the vision sensor seemed to adjust the birds elevation to adjust for the rise of the beach without any stick  input.  

oops, deleted a double posting.  My bad

I fly %90 over water and have not had any problems even at 6 feet.

I fly 85% over water and have had no problems. I shoot alot of waterfront homes for listings. No permissions over public waterways.

skyvideoct Posted at 2015-5-14 05:36
I fly 85% over water and have had no problems. I shoot alot of waterfront homes for listings. No per ...

So do I I am In South Florida mostly everything here is ocean or the Everglades. Never had and Issue

some advice to do maintenance to Inspire1 after flying over the sea (i mean about salt, sand,etc)

sebastianreal Posted at 2015-5-14 09:10
some advice to do maintenance to Inspire1 after flying over the sea (i mean about salt, sand,etc)

Florida- over water with at least half my flights and even skimmed it few times. If I could find out how to embed I'd post some.

sebastianreal Posted at 2015-5-14 09:10
some advice to do maintenance to Inspire1 after flying over the sea (i mean about salt, sand,etc)

Florida- over water with at least half my flights and even skimmed it few times. If I could find out how to embed I'd post some.

This is fantastic! Thanks guys! I feel better now hahaha!

mountmotor Posted at 2015-5-14 11:12
This is fantastic! Thanks guys! I feel better now hahaha!

Yeah, no need to worry.   Freaked me out first time I went over water.   After you do it a couple of times you just start flying out over water as if you're 5 feet above grass!

I was out trying different settings on the camera, thought to myself would it not be awesome to capture some birds in flight at 60fps and slow it down to look like a national geo film!  Dam geese were not afraid of the drone and just keep swimming around.  At some points in the video I was less then 2 feet from the water.

I get the nervousness out over water but I've not had any problems. I find you can fly a lot further without loss of signal. I had my Inspire out a 1.5m over Lake Tahoe no loss of signal. I brought it back because it was my 1st time and I was uncertain about the predictably of the battery return margin.

Have flown over water several times now with only one incident which, to be honest, can probably be put down to other factors other than water.
Here are a couple of clips. Sorry but no editing or music. Still trying to get to grips with that malarky!

Dave,

Look a nice place.  Is it in Scotland somewhere or perhaps Northumberland or Lake District.  Nice flight under the bridge.

Here is two over water:

I've flown over water quite a bit, particularly the ocean.  Many people have posted good advice, but something else to keep in mind: if you plan to fly far away and low over the water, it becomes very difficult to judge the height of your bird .  Lets say you are 5 feet above the water and the bird is 50 feet away from you, it is easy to tell by eye that you are not about to dunk in the water.  But as you fly away toward the horizon, assuming that you are looking at your craft the angular distance between your craft and the water decreases, and eventually it will look like you are only inches above the water.  It can be quite scary and at 1000ft of distance it basically looks like you are in the water.

GB44 Posted at 2015-5-16 04:25
Dave,

Look a nice place.  Is it in Scotland somewhere or perhaps Northumberland or Lake District.   ...

Hi GB44, its The Lake District, the bridge is at Grange at the end of Derwentwater and the tarn is Watendlath Tarn. Both are not far out of Keswick. Where are you based?

smcbrearty@roge Posted at 2015-5-15 01:13
I was out trying different settings on the camera, thought to myself would it not be awesome to capt ...

Thank you for further proof how Geese are total D*CKS!  Every other creature on the planet displays at least SOME wariness of drones and yet these guys just don't care.

I'm glad they didn't turn on the drone and come after it.

Nice footage, also.

Just for fun  

electricshadow Posted at 2015-5-16 06:20
I've flown over water quite a bit, particularly the ocean.  Many people have posted good advice, but ...

Great piece of advice! And so so so true!!

I too have flown over water many times. I always get "the nerves" when I fly, water or land, but flying over water is more calming to me now, less obstacles and interference issues means I can focus on my content instead

Dave E Posted at 2015-5-16 16:20
Hi GB44, its The Lake District, the bridge is at Grange at the end of Derwentwater and the tarn is ...

Dave,

I am over on the East coast beside Newcastle

GB44 Posted at 2015-5-18 22:10
Dave,

I am over on the East coast beside Newcastle

Now there you go, its a small world. I'm about 5 miles west of the metro centre.

Dave E Posted at 2015-5-18 23:20
Now there you go, its a small world. I'm about 5 miles west of the metro centre.

Ok we will have to meet up sometime, even at Metro Centre for a coffee one day and we can perhaps plan a day out somewhere with the birds.

GB44 Posted at 2015-5-19 00:23
Ok we will have to meet up sometime, even at Metro Centre for a coffee one day and we can perhaps  ...

Sounds like a plan.

my flight over water