I came within a few feet of splashdown with my P3 yesterday. It wasn't until I was editing the video did I fully realize how close I came to hitting the water.
How to almost sink your P3
- Thread starter Chris Vedeler
- Start date
Might have been close but really nice video. I have to admit I've been reluctant to fly over water. Truth be known, I'm reluctant to fly over anything but clear land. I'm new and hopeful my confidence will change over time.
Whew that will tickle your man sack good lord boy that was close! But he'll of a shot it turned out to be!
I didn't realize it was possible to maintain a signal with being so far away and then bringing the phantom down to almost ground level. Assumed ground level would put way too many obstacles directly between the two (trees, terrain, rocks, etc)
I'm with you. But I was offered a good tip on how to work towards flying further away.
Make sure your phone/tablet has the GPS on
Make sure that your P3 home point is set to where you took it off at.
Make sure your RTH height is at least 140ft (or high enough to clear any powerlines, buildings, or anything else in the area),
Make sure the failsafe is set to return-to-home and not auto landing.
Then, fly out somewhere safe and hit the RTH button for 2 seconds. If your P3 returns to you, you are good to go.
From then, it doesn't matter where you fly because it will return.
Just never fly past when it alerts you that you have a low battery (when the green bar disappears for battery) until you are skilled enough to handle that close-to-the-wire flight.
Make sure your phone/tablet has the GPS on
Make sure that your P3 home point is set to where you took it off at.
Make sure your RTH height is at least 140ft (or high enough to clear any powerlines, buildings, or anything else in the area),
Make sure the failsafe is set to return-to-home and not auto landing.
Then, fly out somewhere safe and hit the RTH button for 2 seconds. If your P3 returns to you, you are good to go.
From then, it doesn't matter where you fly because it will return.
Just never fly past when it alerts you that you have a low battery (when the green bar disappears for battery) until you are skilled enough to handle that close-to-the-wire flight.
Being higher than the bird with clean line of sight and using the DIY antenna boosters the limit to my distance is my batteries. 1 mile is easy. 3 miles is my record but could have gone further if I was willing to push the batteries. With this flight I had hiked to the top of a bluff overlooking the lake. This was my first flight where I flew significantly lower than where I took off which posed a problem of judging ground (or water) level accurately. I was doing it by sight, but with the water that calm and standing in the direct sun in 100 degree heat it was very difficult to tell how high I was on the tablet screen. Lesson learned and by sure luck, disaster avoided.
too funny. i was thinking of taking that drive last weekend. lots of nice places to fly and some awesome areas to get video. did you make it all the way up to the dam? i'd like to get some video of it and the bridge.
If you're not seeing prop wash waves, you're not as low as you think. Yes, it is tricky. Use your back button to quickly pan downwards to check if you see prop wash.
I could see the lower ****, but it was out of my line of sight and so couldn't get close to it.
Unlikely since I was moving forward at over 30 mph. I was trying to focus on the cinematography and was just grateful I noticed in time and pulled up. It would have been interesting to stop and pan down to see how close I was. Hindsight is 20/20. According to Google Earth, from where I took off to the lake level was 496 feet. Then take a look at my flight log. I'm guessing I was within 3 feet of the water. Too close for my comfort.
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