Imagine, I want to fly my Spark, but it's winter, the ground is wet and mushy, and there is no obvious place to take off or land. I am flying with the remote controller, iPhone 7 clamped in its jaws. I'd like to launch - and recover - by hand. But gesture mode is not ideal when I am carrying the remote in the other hand, and besides, I don't like the idea of changing flight modes while the Spark is airborne, a few feet above that messy ground.

Is it possible (and SAFE), to hold the Spark in the palm of one hand, and then spin up the motors? Normally spinning up requires both hands on the remote, pushing both sticks down and in simultataneously. Is there another, single-handed way of spinning up the motors?

And for landing, if I bring the Spark to a stable hover, and then gently grab hold of it with the palm of my hand, and then push down the left stick on the RC, will the motors cut out? Or would I have to perform the emergency both-sticks down and inwards move, again, one-handed?

Any thoughts about the best/safest way to hand launch and hand land the Spark, while staying in RC mode throughout, would be very welcome!

Brian

Biowizard, we would not recommend you grab your spark with your hand and turn off the drone as it is dangerous. You can land your drone in dry place instead. In addition, it is possible that holding your AC and take off the drone with RC. Thanks for attention.

Manually switch to gesture mode with the app and then stand in front of it and perform a palm landing.

Program the Fn button to takeoff/land. That's what I do and it works great.

I usually land on my palm.
Just hover at 1.5m
move to the Spark
hold hand ca. 30cm below it
and pull back stick on RC
perfect palm landing with motors switching off

I think it does involve some risk, but it is doable.
You can also grab it an turn on it's side. It will shut down the engines.
I have seen some injuries here on the forum, so be careful!

Montfrooij Posted at 2017-9-29 02:45
I think it does involve some risk, but it is doable.
You can also grab it an turn on it's side. It will shut down the engines.
I have seen some injuries here on the forum, so be careful!

Thanks for that! As a professional pianist, I am all too aware of the need to keep my fingers safe, and I would only attempt handling a flying drone once very confident of how it was behaving. And I'd be using prop guards to protect any other parts of my body the drone decided to fly into.

Maybe I should get a tough kevlar or leather glove to use as my portable drone launcher pad!

Brian

radforas Posted at 2017-9-29 02:31
Program the Fn button to takeoff/land. That's what I do and it works great.

That's a great thought - will look into it!

Brian

LeChuck71 Posted at 2017-9-29 02:38
I usually land on my palm.
Just hover at 1.5m
move to the Spark

Thanks, that makes good sense!

Brian

Biowizard Posted at 2017-9-29 07:31
Thanks, that makes good sense!

Brian

Many have already commented here, I'm going to add my experiences as they relate closely to your desired.

My motivation to get the spark was because I felt that it would be a better drone for "boating" than the larger drone products.  And I felt that I could get good use of palm launch and landing in the event that I didn't have a suitable location to launch from or land on (not a lot of good space on a boat).

I've found that I can establish a connection between RC and craft and still perform a palm launch (double tapping the power button).  That gets it up in the air.  I can then use the RC if I desire.  Additionally, the app allows you to turn on "gesture mode", and I am able to then perform a palm landing.  Thus I've been able to perform a mix of gesture controls and RC controls in a single flight.

In fact, I rarely perform gesture controls without the RC.  Early on in my spark experiences I tried to perform a rc-less flight, and my drone ended up getting "stuck" in the air (it wouldn't beckon/return to me).  From that point I decided the safest approach was to have the RC connected and available at all times.

One word of caution to add.  After updating to the latest updates (August 21), I experienced a "palm launch flop", whereby the drone did take off from my hand, and promptly fell to the ground.  Fortunately it was grassy and soft, and there was no damage.  I have since tried to repeat this incident, and I've been unable to do so.  But based on my experience, a palm launch flop can still happen (even on the latest release).

When on land i take off by placing the spark on top of its bag so the ground conditions dont  matter. On the boat i usully take off from the sunpad at the bow. Less turbulence and further away from possible interference from the generators and 7 tons of engine.

I rarely land it but hover, grab and flip.

Biowizard Posted at 2017-9-29 07:25
Thanks for that! As a professional pianist, I am all too aware of the need to keep my fingers safe, and I would only attempt handling a flying drone once very confident of how it was behaving. And I'd be using prop guards to protect any other parts of my body the drone decided to fly into.

Maybe I should get a tough kevlar or leather glove to use as my portable drone launcher pad!

Hahahahahaha.
Great response
Don't loose these precious fingers.  

I do take off from hand using the RC but it's very fiddly.  The bag idea is best.
Landing in your own hand is nice and easy. Get it at 8ft and use the screen button. As it settles in my hand I lightly grip the sides and my fingers are safe.

I gesture launch or autolaunch with the onscreen icon from my palm then palm land pretty much every time by pushing FN on the remote (I have it set to AUTOLAND). Rarely launch on the ground but when I do I often use the bag idea.