Hi All,
Just want to share some things I learnt ...
I am not a seasoned Phantom 4 user, so apology if any of the info sound stupid.
Anyway, due to a messed up departure flight schedule for this live on board dive trip, I did not have time to calibrate the IMU on solid non moving ground upon landing.
I have planned to first calibrate the IMU and compass, 1 night before before going on board , which is at the hotel. But already loosing 1 day due to the airline not informing me that the flight was re-scheduled and took off 5 hours earlier !!.... I then flew the next day and scrap the hotel stay and went direct to the boat.
The sea was not friendly for 8 days out of the 10 days trip.
I only touch land/beach twice during this trip and P4 was not yet "sea sick" then.
Each passing day the IMU gets more sea-sick as the weather worsen day 3 and thereafter... ha ha ha.
It gives me lots of warning when I wanted to take off.
So i did my best to calibrate the IMU while at a protected anchoring, but the boat was rolling a bit.
What later happened was, the camera horizon went banana ...LOL.
So got to adjust gimbal roll manually, but its flat horizon recovery is very slow when P4 fly around and I stop to take photos.
While at it, I experimented something crazy.
I calibrated the gimbal while on GPS assist hoovering.... ha ha ha.
Then the gimbal went limp... ha ha ha.
So calibrated again the gimbal while at another protected anchoring, vessel still minor rolling, no choice. Use use gimbal manual roll adjustment after that... otherwise flat horizon is impossible as is, during a flight.
Usually I take off and land my Phantom 4 on ATTI ( manual ) if I fly from land and only use P-GPS assist when it reaches safe height. This trip I was so occupied with the diving, I forgot to use ATTI when taking off and landing.
The P4 nearly crashed into the vessel in one location where the current was strong and the vessel at anchor was swinging wild up to 40 meters. Basically its was a "moving ground" as take off and landing platform.
Since the vessel is big and I was not looking at a reference horizon like an island, I forgot that it was swinging ( changing position ), I only assumed it rolled as a roll, one can feel it easy. So my visual perception was the P4 not maintaining proper X hoovering position when comes landing time...
. Must be the nitrogen narcosis* effect on my part ( * diver's joke ). There then after that landing, I remembered it was not on ATTI , but P-GPS.
The current.... this is the worst anchor point of all.
The vessel swing, as seen from a GPS logger
The vessel is a traditional type motorized sailing vessel with wide beam.
It has lots of wires/ropes above P4 take off and landing zone.
Taking off is easier, landing is slower as the wind was always blowing at 10 knots or more, so I gave the P4 a few seconds hoovering at 30cm above take off deck, otherwise it will flip due to the wind... if immediate landing I do. I don't do hand catch as I planned. Enough space to do "ground" landing and take off.
I have safe space approx 3/4 a length of a common 4 door sedan to land and take off from.
The 3 seconds hoovering prior to landing is the uncomfortable part every time the vessel was swinging, even if P4 in ATTI mode, let alone a P mode. So the P4 was "like" a drunken flyer from a pilot perspective. In this swinging LZ scenario, a hand catch maybe a better alternative to those more seasoned flyer.
The LZ size.
A P4 motor shutdown takes 3 seconds after touch down, with left stick at 6 o'clock ( my controller setting ).
When the P4 senses the vessel/boat roll by a swell from the beam/side, which means it changes altitude above sea level equal to wave height, sometime the P4 mistaken the condition as "not-yet-landed".
So the P4 will throttle up trying to correct its horizon...LOL....even thought it already landed.
I did not use the bottom positioning sensors, as on a moving landing zone, it may read and re-act wrong.
Its algorithm surely detected drone as stationary, it may then get confused if the bottom vision sensors seeing the floor moving. Should experiment this someday with a mat and I move the mat around while P4 stationary and using bottom sensor.
I also do not use the forward vision sensors as it seems to mess up with my landing and take off if the landing zone actually move and has lots of guard rails up to 100cm high. Some of the take off before I realized I needed to use ATTI and forward vision sensor was still active, I do notice like a very laggy response of the P4 when I throttled the P4 to go to open water but needed to first pass the vessel railings.
I think it was confused ...
Of all the landings I did, only once the P4 actually went 45 degrees knocked out, aka resting on its rear motor pods... ha ha ha, but motor already off, so props all good. This is one thing I do not like about X body shape drone, no matter where the wind direction is from, it can get knocked out easier due to wind when landing , even after motor already powered down stick wise , compared to H body shape which is more stable when landing upwind. In strong wind landing, my 3DR Solo somehow is more "friendly". I guess a Mavic Pro would be more friendly too as it is H shape and very low profile, so center of gravity is very low and stable.
All my landings are nearly a 45 degrees knocked out.... no choice if in the wind ...its always like that.
Any other issues ?
- Yes. In 1 rare occasion, I lost a video feed totally when it was too small to see visually the P4 against a white cloudy sky.
Lucky the telemetry data with that P4 icon and heading and home Icon is still transmitting. I dare not press home or do auto landing, no way on a swinging landing platform with sail rigging wires obstruction .... what if I cant abort the auto landing ?. I dont know what actually happened. Vessel radar was off, vessel VHF was not transmitting and the area has no wifi interference, its a very remote island area. Only happened once though...wheewww lucky me.
I do wish Phantom 4 get Tripod mode like Mavic Pro or Phantom 4 Pro, or Snail mode like my 3DR Solo.
My poor flight hours made me unable to do constant slow shots.
I don't use the automated flight/shot modes on this trip as I am still learning to know the P4 manually.
I have to improve my manual flying skill.
Its just that I am living in a very crowded city and I respect other people's privacy, today I do not fly my drones around my neighbourhood for practice. Too much 2.4Ghz wifi router around is also a risk. Loosing a drone $$ wise its okey, but if it falls one someone face is something I fear most.
I need to drive at least 4+ hours to get to anywhere with lowest population zone & with least houses, to practice flying. My city in the world's most populated island. Java - Wikipedia .
3/4 the size of the State of California, but with 145 million people, or 44% of entire USA population of 2016.
With annoying drone accidents rate on the rise, I do not want to add one to the statistic.
So now, I only fly in remote areas....and sadly that only occurs once every few months.
When I had my Phantom 1 eons ago, I dare to fly around my home neighbourhood. But 100 meters radius only as there was no video feed and the tall buildings around was not as many as today. Not to mention the quantity of new cell phone transmitter towers of today. I can't even tell which is P1 the azz and which is the head from a distance, back then...LOL. So flying far as in 100+ meters won't ever happen.
Drone video feed does give you a false sense of security, aside from it being useful and important.
Anyway, this is the experience report from someone not experienced
END
Just want to share some things I learnt ...
I am not a seasoned Phantom 4 user, so apology if any of the info sound stupid.
Anyway, due to a messed up departure flight schedule for this live on board dive trip, I did not have time to calibrate the IMU on solid non moving ground upon landing.
I have planned to first calibrate the IMU and compass, 1 night before before going on board , which is at the hotel. But already loosing 1 day due to the airline not informing me that the flight was re-scheduled and took off 5 hours earlier !!.... I then flew the next day and scrap the hotel stay and went direct to the boat.
The sea was not friendly for 8 days out of the 10 days trip.
I only touch land/beach twice during this trip and P4 was not yet "sea sick" then.
Each passing day the IMU gets more sea-sick as the weather worsen day 3 and thereafter... ha ha ha.
It gives me lots of warning when I wanted to take off.
So i did my best to calibrate the IMU while at a protected anchoring, but the boat was rolling a bit.
What later happened was, the camera horizon went banana ...LOL.
So got to adjust gimbal roll manually, but its flat horizon recovery is very slow when P4 fly around and I stop to take photos.
While at it, I experimented something crazy.
I calibrated the gimbal while on GPS assist hoovering.... ha ha ha.
Then the gimbal went limp... ha ha ha.
So calibrated again the gimbal while at another protected anchoring, vessel still minor rolling, no choice. Use use gimbal manual roll adjustment after that... otherwise flat horizon is impossible as is, during a flight.
Usually I take off and land my Phantom 4 on ATTI ( manual ) if I fly from land and only use P-GPS assist when it reaches safe height. This trip I was so occupied with the diving, I forgot to use ATTI when taking off and landing.
The P4 nearly crashed into the vessel in one location where the current was strong and the vessel at anchor was swinging wild up to 40 meters. Basically its was a "moving ground" as take off and landing platform.
Since the vessel is big and I was not looking at a reference horizon like an island, I forgot that it was swinging ( changing position ), I only assumed it rolled as a roll, one can feel it easy. So my visual perception was the P4 not maintaining proper X hoovering position when comes landing time...
. Must be the nitrogen narcosis* effect on my part ( * diver's joke ). There then after that landing, I remembered it was not on ATTI , but P-GPS.The current.... this is the worst anchor point of all.
The vessel swing, as seen from a GPS logger
The vessel is a traditional type motorized sailing vessel with wide beam.
It has lots of wires/ropes above P4 take off and landing zone.
Taking off is easier, landing is slower as the wind was always blowing at 10 knots or more, so I gave the P4 a few seconds hoovering at 30cm above take off deck, otherwise it will flip due to the wind... if immediate landing I do. I don't do hand catch as I planned. Enough space to do "ground" landing and take off.
I have safe space approx 3/4 a length of a common 4 door sedan to land and take off from.
The 3 seconds hoovering prior to landing is the uncomfortable part every time the vessel was swinging, even if P4 in ATTI mode, let alone a P mode. So the P4 was "like" a drunken flyer from a pilot perspective. In this swinging LZ scenario, a hand catch maybe a better alternative to those more seasoned flyer.
The LZ size.
A P4 motor shutdown takes 3 seconds after touch down, with left stick at 6 o'clock ( my controller setting ).
When the P4 senses the vessel/boat roll by a swell from the beam/side, which means it changes altitude above sea level equal to wave height, sometime the P4 mistaken the condition as "not-yet-landed".
So the P4 will throttle up trying to correct its horizon...LOL....even thought it already landed.
I did not use the bottom positioning sensors, as on a moving landing zone, it may read and re-act wrong.
Its algorithm surely detected drone as stationary, it may then get confused if the bottom vision sensors seeing the floor moving. Should experiment this someday with a mat and I move the mat around while P4 stationary and using bottom sensor.
I also do not use the forward vision sensors as it seems to mess up with my landing and take off if the landing zone actually move and has lots of guard rails up to 100cm high. Some of the take off before I realized I needed to use ATTI and forward vision sensor was still active, I do notice like a very laggy response of the P4 when I throttled the P4 to go to open water but needed to first pass the vessel railings.
I think it was confused ...
Of all the landings I did, only once the P4 actually went 45 degrees knocked out, aka resting on its rear motor pods... ha ha ha, but motor already off, so props all good. This is one thing I do not like about X body shape drone, no matter where the wind direction is from, it can get knocked out easier due to wind when landing , even after motor already powered down stick wise , compared to H body shape which is more stable when landing upwind. In strong wind landing, my 3DR Solo somehow is more "friendly". I guess a Mavic Pro would be more friendly too as it is H shape and very low profile, so center of gravity is very low and stable.
All my landings are nearly a 45 degrees knocked out.... no choice if in the wind ...its always like that.
Any other issues ?
- Yes. In 1 rare occasion, I lost a video feed totally when it was too small to see visually the P4 against a white cloudy sky.
Lucky the telemetry data with that P4 icon and heading and home Icon is still transmitting. I dare not press home or do auto landing, no way on a swinging landing platform with sail rigging wires obstruction .... what if I cant abort the auto landing ?. I dont know what actually happened. Vessel radar was off, vessel VHF was not transmitting and the area has no wifi interference, its a very remote island area. Only happened once though...wheewww lucky me.
I do wish Phantom 4 get Tripod mode like Mavic Pro or Phantom 4 Pro, or Snail mode like my 3DR Solo.
My poor flight hours made me unable to do constant slow shots.
I don't use the automated flight/shot modes on this trip as I am still learning to know the P4 manually.
I have to improve my manual flying skill.
Its just that I am living in a very crowded city and I respect other people's privacy, today I do not fly my drones around my neighbourhood for practice. Too much 2.4Ghz wifi router around is also a risk. Loosing a drone $$ wise its okey, but if it falls one someone face is something I fear most.
I need to drive at least 4+ hours to get to anywhere with lowest population zone & with least houses, to practice flying. My city in the world's most populated island. Java - Wikipedia .
3/4 the size of the State of California, but with 145 million people, or 44% of entire USA population of 2016.
With annoying drone accidents rate on the rise, I do not want to add one to the statistic.
So now, I only fly in remote areas....and sadly that only occurs once every few months.
When I had my Phantom 1 eons ago, I dare to fly around my home neighbourhood. But 100 meters radius only as there was no video feed and the tall buildings around was not as many as today. Not to mention the quantity of new cell phone transmitter towers of today. I can't even tell which is P1 the azz and which is the head from a distance, back then...LOL. So flying far as in 100+ meters won't ever happen.
Drone video feed does give you a false sense of security, aside from it being useful and important.
Anyway, this is the experience report from someone not experienced
END
