Flying Phantom from moving container ship tips?

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I'm looking for a few tips when flying at sea from a large vessel.

1. Compass calibration on a metal deck…could be an issue. What should I do?
2. Flight mode…I'm tempted to use IOC - intelligent orientation control.

Thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,

Herrie
 
Herrie ten Cate said:
I'm looking for a few tips when flying at sea from a large vessel.

1. Compass calibration on a metal deck…could be an issue. What should I do?
2. Flight mode…I'm tempted to use IOC - intelligent orientation control.

Thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,

Herrie
You are a brave man for considering it. If you are going to I'd suggest you get REALLY comfortable with manual mode first. I had a flyaway crash on my F450 recently and I am now almost certain it was caused by calibrating the compass by a large metal shed. I have since returned to the same site and had immediate twitchyness. Even with a pre-calibrated compass all that metal and the motion of the vessel could cause issues.

GPS home position will be useless while in motion. It will remember where you take off but that point will be static while you are moving so if you loose connection or activate RTH will try to land where you once were. IOC will only work if the vessel stays on a constant bearing but again that relies on an accurate locking which may not be possible on a metal boat.

Manual mode will work fine though.... Atii uses less compass but still uses some. You might find it is a good comprimise but again it is risky. I've success from flights off boats but mainly Fibreglass ones.

The other factor is head wind and the rate the vessel is travelling. If the combined head wind. If you are travelling against the wind beyond 22 m/s then you may not be able to physically get it to catch you up. Again manual mode might help here but it is not easy to master.

All in all... risky. If anything get competant first, test fly BEFORE the boat moves and see how it reacts. If it even flinches abnormally in GPS or Atti then flick to manual and get it back. Every compass calculation that is created in error gets worse and worse over time in flight so the longer you stay up, the worse it will get so manual mode at that point will be the only way to save a flyawy.
 
I have 2 questions for you, are you able to influence the speed of the ship? if you ask, will they slow down to around 10 knots?

The reason is because most of those container ships cruise at 25 knots (almost 29 mph) and the phantom does 27 mph tops in dead calm air (I've clocked mine and this was without a gopro camera and with the original props not the vision props). The second you launch the phantom, you will have to give it full throttle in the direction of the ships travel just to keep up with the ship and even then, you won't be able to keep up. If you can get them to drop down to somewhere near 10 knots, you'll be able to actually get a full pass around the ship.

In an ideal world, if you could get a tail wind equal to that of the ships speed, you could essentially hover above the ship with no input from you on the TX. I'm not saying its not possible to do it, I've seen videos of it being done, just lots of things can go wrong. Even if you got the compass issue fixed up, you still have the flight. Maybe find a big open field and fly it at top speed the whole time. Figure out exactly how long your battery lasts so you can make sure you are over the ship when the phantom starts coming down.
 
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I'll let you guys know how it works out. I'm going to be taking baby steps…my 1st attempt will be when the ship is at anchor to see what impact the metal ship has on the compass.
 
It sounds silly but those long skinny clown balloons might be something to buy. They weigh nothing inflated and you could probably figure out how to wrap it around the legs. Should you crash you will float.
 

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