Flying over water with a P3A

[SHRED]

Is it the same as over land?
No special settings?

I realize I need to be very mindful of battery life and not letting the bird touch the water.
Anything else?

 

[Richard R]

Only thing you might do differently if you are very low is turn VPS off. It gets confused over water.

 

[Yarome]

Turn off your VPS and fly in atti mode. Nothing much special beyond that. You "can" fly GPS, but make dang sure you have plenty of very solid locks. The main concern there being that dropping below minimum threshold will trigger an auto landing... in the drink.

 

[sandman259]

I just flew over water at 100' and 11,500' out with vps and gps lock. No problems just like over land

 

[Yarome]

...with vps and gps lock.

It's usually not an issue, but a good precaution to take. Fly a little too low and your VPS will get confused. Still.. you'll "probably" be fine. The odds of dropping below 8 sat locks... not highly likely in most parts of the world... but if you do... or have a GPS module failure... your bird is taking a dive. You can still recover by quickly switching modes, but many folks might take a little too long to process exactly what's happening and take corrective action.

Just precautionary measures.

 

[tevek]

My only concerns when flying at the beach are seagulls. You can either have your wife or partner stand up one end of the beach with a bag of fish and chips and keep them busy while you fly or take it 20 mtrs above them. I turn off OA (I have a P4) and sometimes use home lock if the glare is too much to see the screen to bring Dorothy back. It's actually a lot more fun than the forest area where I usually fly and if something goes wrong I'm stuffed wither way.

 

[Meta4]

Turn off your VPS and fly in atti mode. Nothing much special beyond that. You "can" fly GPS, but make dang sure you have plenty of very solid locks. The main concern there being that dropping below minimum threshold will trigger an auto landing... in the drink.

The odds of dropping below 8 sat locks... not highly likely in most parts of the world... but if you do... or have a GPS module failure... your bird is taking a dive. You can still recover by quickly switching modes

Just precautionary measures.

This is very poor advice and quite misleading.
There is no need to switch to atti mode because you are over water and to do so is much more likely to create problems than to be helpful.
You will not lose GPS sats over water but if you did, your Phantom would simply be in atti mode anyway and NOT trigger an autolanding.

 

[sandman259]

This is very poor advice and quite misleading.
There is no need to switch to atti mode because you are over water and to do so is much more likely to create problems than to be helpful.
You will not lose GPS sats over water but if you did, your Phantom would simply be in atti mode anyway and NOT trigger an autolanding.

You beat me to it[emoji106]

 

[Richienz]

so whats the safe hight to fly over water you recommend but yet get close enough to get a great shot

 

[sandman259]

If you stay above 20' you should avoid any vps issues...

 

[ardentvideo]

I just passed 107. Isn't there a 450 foot maximum required by the FAA?

 

[pasayten]

I just passed 107. Isn't there a 450 foot maximum required by the FAA?

400 foot maximum... 122 meters

 

[Richienz]

Thanks very much i'm very new to Drone flying i have a Phantom 4
I am about to head down to Dusky Sound thats at the Bottom of New Zealand were Captian Cook found us
( google Map It )
Its just a Full on Landscape flying Paradise and am hoping i can get some help with Camera settings a lot of flying is both over the sea and mountains .
i have filters ect ....
but do i need to film in 4K or is 2.7 or even 1080 good enough this is for my own usage
i also struggle to get a perfect Photo with the Drone as well i have watched so much youtube on this but so many different views
i do know i need to keep flying it to learn but a few tips wouldn't go a miss thanks
RichieNz

 

[tevek]

Thanks very much i'm very new to Drone flying i have a Phantom 4
I am about to head down to Dusky Sound thats at the Bottom of New Zealand were Captian Cook found us
( google Map It )
Its just a Full on Landscape flying Paradise and am hoping i can get some help with Camera settings a lot of flying is both over the sea and mountains .
i have filters ect ....
but do i need to film in 4K or is 2.7 or even 1080 good enough this is for my own usage
i also struggle to get a perfect Photo with the Drone as well i have watched so much youtube on this but so many different views
i do know i need to keep flying it to learn but a few tips wouldn't go a miss thanks
RichieNz

Unless you have a PC setup and an editing software able to process 4K, you might be better off filming in either 2.7 or 1080. I'm able to to process 4K but in the real world most of my footage is in the lower resolution and most people can't tell the difference. As for camera settings, I'm hopeless and leave everything in auto whilst I experiment. I use polar pro filters which do make a difference when I am filming and use post editing to fix up my photos. There are many threads on correct settings for taking still shots if you use the search engine at the top of the forum page.
As for Captain Cook, he dropped by here as well and must have figured there were better places to visit....

 

[HWCM]

Turn off your VPS and fly in atti mode. Nothing much special beyond that. You "can" fly GPS, but make dang sure you have plenty of very solid locks. The main concern there being that dropping below minimum threshold will trigger an auto landing... in the drink.

XXXXXX-Try again. This is bad advice.
Edit. Someone beat me to it.

 

[happydays]

You beat me to it[emoji106]

Me too

 

[JoBe]

I just passed 107. Isn't there a 450 foot maximum required by the FAA?

Wasn't this one of the questions on the test?

 

[JoBe]

I'm another frequent over water flier. I was very nervous at first until I realized that the P3 doesn't care if it's over land or over water. Just fly as you always do other than landing in the water or flying so low that you cause spray. Mind the winds and their direction of course, and take zero risks with your battery levels.
I keep my VPS on all time, but fly higher than it can detect.

 

[Pharm]

I just passed 107. Isn't there a 450 foot maximum required by the FAA?

You just passed the 107 test and the number 400 isn't permanently burned into your brain? I'm suspicious of your "passing".

 

[bnsr]

Is it the same as over land?
No special settings?

I realize I need to be very mindful of battery life and not letting the bird touch the water.
Anything else?

Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
rookies flying club

After having had my P3P do the crazy ivan a couple of times, I would not repeat a low-altitude move like this.

A little higher, sure, why not, although I recently had a very peculiar situation where it lost signal and tried to RTH across the reservoir on a very low battery.