Litchi "Track" Advice for Phantom 3 Standard Please

[Ozz]

I want to take some coastal shots tomorrow using Litchi to follow a vehicle.
I will be stationary - it will be following a motorbike (so I cannot be in vehicle using DJI's follow me mode)

Any advice I should take to avoid loss of the aircraft?

I read that with P3S, if the signal is lost, Litchi "Track Mode" will prevent the drone RTH - but will hover instead, then land when battery is out. That's really bad as its the coast and will be over water or very rocky ground.

What does this mean if this happens and Litchi leaves the aircraft hovering...
- Will It be possible switch back to manual using S1
- Will I be able connect using DJI a second mobile phone?

Specifically afraid of mobile phone crashes (litchi has done this to my phone already) flat mobile phone battery(litchi uses a lot of battery) or drone goes out of range if motorbike goes too far or litchi decides to follow some other vehicle home lol.

Trying to cover all eventualities - don't want panic tomorrow... thanks any advice.

 

[Cobs]

Hi Ozz, i dont have a P3 but i would try to emulate the run in a safe environment before venturing out over sea/rocks etc for the final run, at least then you can see its behaviour, why dont you just follow the vehicle flying manually without any apps?

 

[Ozz]

Using a Android Galaxy Note 2.
Gave it a trial run in a plain grass field day before - and it was working fine.. Well impressed with it tracking so well.

But on the day on a road with lots of distractions it didn't work at all - very unstable - main screen kept flashing rapidly between map and video feed - reboot and forced closed all apps made no difference.

Then it started to lock onto random stuff and aircraft started floating away...

Had to force close, reset controller and rescue drone with standard dji software - wont be trying that again...

I used the "Home Lock" function in the DJI software to get some nice straight tracking shots instead.

 

[Kwaka Pants]

Easiest way to get tracking shots in my opinion, and this is why i got into quads, to film motorbikes on the move. Use a 'cable cam' set up. Basically using litchi, set up 2 or more waypoints following the route, set the speed as zero, and heading as user controlled. Then you just use the right stick forward / back to control the speed the quad goes along the 'line', and control direction it faces with the left yaw stick. Camera tilt with the usual. Works brilliantly, quad can't stray off course as will fly the line regardless of the direction it's facing.

 

[Ozz]

here's the results - needs sound... it was fun to shoot...

Just remember to shout drone every time you see a drone shot

 

[Kwaka Pants]

Nice one! Classic bike, I was an RD350 lad myself but nowt wrong wi that!