Over water flight

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Planning my first over water (ocean) flight tomorrow, a little apprehensive but has to be done some time I guess. Any tips/hints/info you guys/girls have to save my bird from from a watery grave?


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Serious attention to detail in pre-fight check. Props tightened, battery seated correctly and fully and freshly charged (use a strong known good battery). Do not be tempted to perform a fresh compass calibration if your last flight was good. Turn off VPS. Make sure failsafe set to RTH.

Before takeoff check your compass and mod values. Spend a good 30 sec after launch satisfy yourself all control inputs respond as normal and you have a good gps lock. Make sure home point recorded correctly.

Have fun. Be wary of eagles and seagulls. Eagles will take you out intentionally whereas gulls are stupid and if you fly over them all fly up together in random durections. Seaplanes and other fixed wings aircraft will be a 500 ft or more but helis are often well under 200... Keep an eye out...
 
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^ Thanks for the great advice. I live near the ocean and will likely take the drone over it sometime soon as well.
 
P4 VPS cannot be turned off. That doesn't seem to affect them, although the inability to stay on level hover is disconcerting. If you are planning on flying low (less than 30 feet or so), practice on land first. In fact, practice on land for everything. I fly over water lots and have forgotten to turn VPS off on a P3 (thank you DJI for resetting everything to defaults). No problems.

The only other bit of advice is to watch the wind. Beaches often have a stiff wind that switches directions during the day. What you'd like is an onshore wind - blowing to you so that the return trip doesn't use more battery than expected. If you started out that way and you get the flip, you might have issues. That said - don't push it. Especially on the first flight. Get comfortable.
 

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