flying over water

[MikeST]

If I buy my phantom, im going to have to drive out to wider open areas to fly/ I think it will be fun. Take a couple extra batteries on an early sunday morning drive.
But a lot of the areas I have in mind have ponds / lakes/ or lakeshore.
I have a good friend that lives in Michigan on the lake...

Ive seen posts of drones dropping out of the sky.....
you guys feel ok flying over water / rivers / lakes?

mike

 

[Torbjørn Hanssen Vang]

Hei. I use my drone over water all the time, no trouble with that.

 

[N9344H]

I took mine out over water yesterday for the first time. I was puckered up the whole time after having read the "fall out of the sky" stories. But, since I have a home on the lake, this is where I will be doing a lot of flying. I just need to get over it.

My guess is that the "fall out of the sky" stories happen to far less than 1% of the Phantoms, or DJI wouldn't be selling so many. Not everyone has a $1000 to put at risk every time they fly. So I bought a Amazon.com : GetterBack Rod Recovery System with Black Velcro Strap, Yellow : Fishing Reel Care Accessories : Sports & Outdoors to attach when I am over water, and just hope if it falls to of the sky I can find the little yellow float somewhere in the lake.

 

[Erroll]

I took mine out over water yesterday for the first time. I was puckered up the whole time after having read the "fall out of the sky" stories. But, since I have a home on the lake, this is where I will be doing a lot of flying. I just need to get over it.
.

I fly over water frequently. There is no more or less risk. If it is going to 'fall out of the sky' it can hit a rock, tree, paving, water.....

Here is a nice, if somewhat long example:

 

[Specialist]

Hi, my DJI3 Pro is going to arrive Monday and I certainly intend to fly over water to take photos of the view from water to land. Obviously i'll do quite a few test runs on land first to ensure it fly's as expected .. you need confidence in it's consistency before taking over water

 

[RoyVa]

Have been flying over water including lakes and rivers as well as bay for over 1 1/2 years and still flying. It is what it is and when it fails and falls well such is life. Makes no difference where are when it happens it is not fun nor was it ever planned by any pilot. Its electronics and sooner or later electronics can fail. Like any electronics it can last 30 days or 30 years I guess we just cross our fingers of pucker up and fly. Have fun and enjoy where ever you fly until that day! God I love this hobby!
You can do Sanibel and have fun. Every time fly I put a dollar in a jar. I'm up to $486.00. Pretty soon you can guess what I would be able to do with the dollars. Its just plan fun.

 

[Specialist]

Have been flying over water including lakes and rivers as well as bay for over 1 1/2 years and still flying. It is what it is and when it fails and falls well such is life. Makes no difference where are when it happens it is not fun nor was it ever planned by any pilot. Its electronics and sooner or later electronics can fail. Like any electronics it can last 30 days or 30 years I guess we just cross our fingers of pucker up and fly. Have fun and enjoy where ever you fly until that day! God I love this hobby!
You can do Sanibel and have fun. Every time fly I put a dollar in a jar. I'm up to $486.00. Pretty soon you can guess what I would be able to do with the dollars. Its just plan fun.

A dollar in the jar - that is a great idea .. I'll adopt that approach.. thanks.
486 flights.. wow that is some air time.

 

[N9344H]

Every time fly I put a dollar in a jar. I'm up to $486.00. Pretty soon you can guess what I would be able to do with the dollars.

That is a great idea. I will start doing this today.

 

[N9344H]

A dollar in the jar - that is a great idea .. I'll adopt that approach.. thanks.
486 flights.. wow that is some air time.

Great minds, and all that...

 

[FotoGeek]

Almost ALL of my flights are over water. Large bodies of water. The Chesapeake Bay to be exact.

My most recent was a 2 mile flight from one island shore to the next.

 

[ScatSpeak]

You could always make a cheap alteration to protect your investment when planning to fly over bodies of water like this guy did:

PHANTOM EMERGENCY FLOTATION FOR A DIME (redux) | DJI Phantom Forum

It might be dorky looking but it's cheap and it works.... another idea might be to zip tie a couple of small empty plastic water bottles to the bottom so they act as pontoons and flotation devices... much easier to find the P3 floating on the water than those tiny little orange GetterBacks....

 

[AIRNUTS]

90% of my flights are out in to the open ocean, over 100 flights, so far not one issue, just keep checking your batteris while flying and you should be ok, this video shows a perfect example of a flight over 3000 meters out to sea
Enjoy

 

[alokbhargava]

Good video

 

[skyringmedia]

. We are located close to the 30000 islands of Georgian bay most of our flying is over water of some sort.

 

[Ed209]

3.30mi over water is my record

 

[skyhighdiver]

If I buy my phantom, im going to have to drive out to wider open areas to fly/ I think it will be fun. Take a couple extra batteries on an early sunday morning drive.
But a lot of the areas I have in mind have ponds / lakes/ or lakeshore.
I have a good friend that lives in Michigan on the lake...

Ive seen posts of drones dropping out of the sky.....y
you guys feel ok flying over water / rivers / lakes?

mike

I fly over water all the time low and high with both my P2 and P3 never a hiccup at all

 

[Dronebow]

I highly recommend flying over water. I can't remember the last time I had such an adrenaline rush then when I took my P3A out over the ocean in Sydney. I was puckered up the whole time. It was windy, I was standing on a 100' cliff and saw whales in the distance that I tried hard to get to. When I got the drone back from the flight I had a surge of adrenaline that made me laugh out loud literally. I felt like a kid again. Oh, and the P3A just worked flawlessly. I probably had 1000' more to get to the whales but was at 50% battery and it was windy so I was concerned about being able to get it back. At the time I was 1/2 a mile out to sea.

Here's the video.

 

[Reed L]

So I bought a Amazon.com : GetterBack Rod Recovery System with Black Velcro Strap, Yellow : Fishing Reel Care Accessories : Sports & Outdoors to attach when I am over water.

That's a pretty cool little attachment for water flyers. But water, just plain water is boring to me. Yea if the whales or flipper is waving then yea, but just flying over empty water doesn't do it for me. A dramatic sea shore is great and there are some beautiful mountain lakes that make for some great footage. If it's the only legal place to fly then that's where I would be but there's a lot more out there.

 

[ScatSpeak]

in Sydney

That's some awesome video taking off over the Sydney Opera House and the Circular Quay area with the Harbour Bridge and Fort Denison!... great spot to fly! Brilliant stuff!

 

[Zdrone]

I'm an over the water from non stationary boats kind of flyer. My buddy brought his p2 out on my boat and flew it until it went into low battery auto land mode, over water. Haha, we caught the last second catch on video from a speeding boat