Long range flight over sea. Almost sinking.

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I have been reading some post about flying over water and being ready to loose the multi. That was exactly what I was telling to myself many times during this flight.

I was trying to reach an oil drilling plattform that was said to be at 3,000 meters at hold. My previous over water record was around 2,600 meters. I forced motors to the limit and suddenly battery started to fail on the way back to the landing point. System was configured to land below 20% battery level.

I recorded the flight with an old Video 8 tape recorder. Here is the flight:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_EnW6DumXE[/youtube]

Alberto
 
I have tested this, and it worked great using a 3.5 lb weight... Just be sure to buy the heavy-duty double-zipper freezer food storage bags, not the flimsy sandwich bags and also good quality nylon tie-wraps..
Having said all that, I've never crashed the bird and recovered it using this, and I hope I never have to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUvzrPq ... In-F9QWTyQ
 

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Thanks for the idea. I had already seen your post before, but I thought it was useless for triying to recover the Phantom in open seas unless you have a boat ready for Search&Rescue. But, who knows...

Alberto
 
There are many who fly their birds from boats. Non issue for those folks.

Is it a perfect solution? no. Is it better than letting the bird go to the bottom? Yes.
It least it can buy you some time. Perhaps use a little forward thinking and line something up ahead of time? Pay a guy $50 to take you out in his skiff if it augers in..
 
Re: Flying over water

Postby CapnBob » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:58 pm
With Getterback, there is a delay, and the object will sink to quite a depth before it deploys.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Q:) "How long does the GetterBack take for the float to surface?"

(A:)"It typically takes one to two minutes, but it can take longer depending on sink rate, depth and water temperature. A fast sink rate in warm water to ten feet will result in the shortest time and a slow sink rate in very cold water to one hundred feet may take up to ten minutes."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know about you, but the thought of my $1,300 bird marinating on the bottom gives me the willies. Also, Getterback is a single-use device, @ $20 a pop, and there is a 100' depth limitation.


These fully inflated bags will float over 4 lbs.; nearly 25% over the bird's weight.
With this method, depending on the speed of the descent, the bird might go under a bit,
then immediately pop right back up. As far as depth, it will work over the Challenger Deep. ;-)

Unbeatable for the price of less than $0.10. (No I don't own a freezer-bag manufacturing plant.)

Having said all that, I have done testing with equivalent weights, but have never tested the real thing. I hope I never get the chance.
 
That was totally nuts. You must have tons of money and could care less if your quad is lost. Just go buy another.
 
Guondersub said:
Thanks for the idea. I had already seen your post before, but I thought it was useless for triying to recover the Phantom in open seas unless you have a boat ready for Search&Rescue. But, who knows...

Alberto
I usually have my kayak with me when flying over water. The problem with any kind of float system over salt water is that the bird may likely crash upside down or tip over from the waves even if it landed right side up. If you are able to recover it from a salt water landing, there might not be much to salvage.
My solution was to build a water-tight quad that floats.
 
Wow, alberto, i have to hand it to you, that was very entertaining. I was worried you werent going to make it back. That little quad is a real work horse. And you have a lot more guts than i do!
 
lutece7 said:
Wow, alberto, i have to hand it to you, that was very entertaining. I was worried you werent going to make it back. That little quad is a real work horse. And you have a lot more guts than i do!

I agree, good for you for tying it. Much larger huevos than me my friend! Nice job I thought it was going to splash down just in sight of shore.
 
Wow! That was a long ways off!

What happened to the battery? So much for being smart, it looks like it went from 59% down to 11% immediately when you are still 3000m away. Did you have to manually throttle up to keep it from ditching?
 
lutece7 said:
Wow, alberto, i have to hand it to you, that was very entertaining. I was worried you werent going to make it back. That little quad is a real work horse. And you have a lot more guts than i do!

I was extremely worried too :D In fact I was telling the man beside me that it was not going to make it back.

My Phantom 2 has been very reliable; I have been steadyly increasing the flying distance without control failing and with a reasonable video reception. So I finally felt myself overconfident. No more guts in the future I guess ;)

Thanks a lot!

Alberto
 
FBiff said:
I agree, good for you for tying it. Much larger huevos than me my friend! Nice job I thought it was going to splash down just in sight of shore.

It was an exceptional situation and opportunity so I had to try it. The information was not accurate (finally the plattform was around 5 Kms off) and I'm not completely sure my reaction was smart ;)

An experiencie anyway. Saludos!

Alberto
 
macheung said:
Wow! That was a long ways off!

What happened to the battery? So much for being smart, it looks like it went from 59% down to 11% immediately when you are still 3000m away. Did you have to manually throttle up to keep it from ditching?

I think it is possible that one cell went down by intensity demand. Voltage was still 11.1V, as planned. Being below 20% forced the Phantom to descent and yes, you are rigth, I had to pull up manually to avoid losing altitude, but very softly trying not to demand too much aditional load from battery.

Alberto
 
Awesome! Man, it seemed like it stayed at 11% for the longest time. I was thinking it was going to be in the low single digits by the time it reached you.
 
Guondersub said:
I think it is possible that one cell went down by intensity demand. Voltage was still 11.1V, as planned. Being below 20% forced the Phantom to descent and yes, you are rigth, I had to pull up manually to avoid losing altitude, but very softly trying not to demand too much aditional load from battery.

Alberto

Wow! As someone who also takes their P2 far distances over the ocean I can definitely relate to the anxiety you were feeling. :eek: Thank God you had video when the battery dropped erroneously to 11% and auto-descent occurred! Without video you would have ended up with the fishes. At 11.1 volts percentage is actually around 50% so you had plenty of power to get back, especially with that strong tail wind. Kudos for having the guts to go 3+ KM over water and maintaining control over a tricky situation!

J
 
I guess the battery electronics got confused because of the full power flying all time, especially in Atti mode with maximum speed.
The battery voltage was always on the safe side, above 10.7V, so the battery was not deep discharged.

I would propose sending the video to DJI for analysis which might help in improving the battery controller software and fixing that bug.

Regards, Gerd
 
Great flying skills man, you controlled everything, it was very smart from you to let the phantom descend and have a extra speed.
Did you used the stock TX? What video transmitter?
 
Watching the Video in the first couple minutes I saw a "0.00" for a second (I'm sure). I also agree it was amazing it stayed at 11% so long and I bet there's one cell that's weak. I'd clean the contacts and run it again (over ground low) to see what it does.
 

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