Launching from houseboat questions

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Taking a little vacation on board a house boat and bringing my p3p. Here is my plan/question.

While tied to shore someplace along the lake, I will do my compass calibration on shore then on top of the boat turn on the craft as the take off and landing will be on top of the house boat roof. This is actually the only flat level spot everything is covered with tress. Because the roof is steel I think that might not give me a correct compass calibration so on land close to the boat make sence.

Then fly around taking video and land back on the roof. The boat will be fixed and not moving. I suppose then my rth would be the roof.

If all that reads okay my next question is suppose I want to fly and take video of the houseboat while its underway. I guess its all pilot skills at this point as the rth would constantly be moving.

Any tips would be great. Ive used course lock and found this to be a great feature.

Thanks Jim
 
First three paragraphs - should be fine provided there isn't tree canopy above the house boat.

Once the houseboat is moving, you'll want to reset your home point often. You can do this during flight.

Hope this helps
 
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If you are not moving hundreds of miles I'd not do a compass calibration. Compass calibration does not need to be level. You may be thinking of an IMU calibration. If you take off from a metal roof you will most likely get a compass error. Most likely this is the roof and, if so, should go away after you are a few feet in the air. If you need to RTH while on the boat I'd _highly_ recommend taking control of the Phantom before it auto lands. Landing on a boat roof may be difficult. You may want to research hand catching.
 
The steel roof will probably result in compass error. RTH will be the coordinates where it took off from....
 
I would consider standing on the roof and hand launching. The steel roof will almost certainly cause compass issues (you should be fine once airbourne and clear of it though).

A simple way to get a feel for the influence of the roof structure on tour compass is to compare the mod value with the phantom powered on and sitting on the roof structure and away from it. Another clue can be where the depicted heading in go doesnt correspond to actual. Landing may be tricky.
 
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I fly with 2 GetterBacks one on each skid when I fly over water just in case.
 
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We took off from my buddies boat. I literally had my other friend hold the drone while I started the props and gently eased up on the throttle and it just lifted out of his hands. Told him to let go when he felt the resistance. And then I just hand caught it inside the boat.

Skip forward to about 1:30. I wish I could have edited this video better. You'll like the song. haha
 
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Do not calibrate your compass. You do not need to every time you fly unless you are hundreds of miles away from your last calibration. Even then it is not entirely necessary.
 

We took off from my buddies boat. I literally had my other friend hold the drone while I started the props and gently eased up on the throttle and it just lifted out of his hands. Told him to let go when he felt the resistance. And then I just hand caught it inside the boat.

Skip forward to about 1:30. I wish I could have edited this video better. You'll like the song. haha

I did like the song,just saw Collective Soul at Galveston Mardi Gras in Feb? How did you get away with using the song without youtube removing it? They always remove my songs because i dont have the rights to them.
How fast was the boat going and how fast was phantom going to keep up? Boat looked like it was going at a decent clip
 
They don't remove it, they just put advertisements in. I also saw them this summer at Stir Concert Cove. Great show. Boat was going about 30 mph and drone about 35 mph. I had the hammer down!


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
 
Thank you all for the over whelming response. I now what to do and what not to do the videos were most helpful. Thanks again to all those who kicked in, looking forward to flaying it and taking some great videos!!!
 
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They don't remove it, they just put advertisements in. I also saw them this summer at Stir Concert Cove. Great show. Boat was going about 30 mph and drone about 35 mph. I had the hammer down!


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
Well I monetize my videos so maybe thats why they remove mine? Youre saying you dont monetize yours and youtube lets you keep the music and in exchange they stick advertisements in your video?
 
Two things I didn't see posted
Be sure to leave a margin of error in the batt, I always land around 30% in case I have issues catching the bird
Second if you do encounter a compass error don't panic, I always stick up to gain clearance height if lower than objects in the area plus it will allow some extra time for it/you to recover control as it will drift like atti mode ( a little more intensely)


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
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I've launched from my boat many times. I just make sure that I take off assertively,get away quickly and have a buddy hand catch the landing. The first time I did learn the hard way that your home point can move as I watched the thing fly right on by on a RTH.

I need to try one of those getterbacks since I fly over water a lot.


Well I monetize my videos so maybe thats why they remove mine? Youre saying you dont monetize yours and youtube lets you keep the music and in exchange they stick advertisements in your video?

I don't get enough YouTube views to worry about monetization so I just grab any old song. I always get warned but it's never taken down.
 
Thank you all for the over whelming response. I now what to do and what not to do the videos were most helpful. Thanks again to all those who kicked in, looking forward to flaying it and taking some great videos!!!

Looking forward to hearing how it goes, and pics/video

:)
 
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You need to practice two skills before you go over water:

Hand catch and Hand take off. Neither one is difficult, but both require some practice. And, as has been mentioned, don't push the battery. I come back around 50%. Usually I have lots of extra battery - that's fine - electrons are cheap. But if you have some issues getting back (get confused, compass issues, whatever) having a few minutes flying time can be the difference between a successful landing and a wet one.
 

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