Flying over water, does it get easier?

I fly over the sea fairly regularly and there is some very sensible advice posted in the replies. To add to that, I found my nerves got better when I took out drone insurance.

I’m still very new to drone flying, and have recently tried flying over water. I too was very nervous about trying it, and still am a bit more nervous than flying over land, but have gained a little confidence from flying 5 or 6 times over water now.

Plus it’s not likely the drone would survive a drop of more than a few meters onto land, much the same for water. Having loss insurance / DJI Care (whatever-its-called) also reassures that should the drone go crazy and dive itself into the water, at least it would (hopefully) be covered. And if I drive it into the water, then it is my own daft fault!!

Also to add, contrary to others experience, I’ve flown my Mini2 3ft above the (calm) waters of a lake with no issues of it losing height or getting confused by the waters.

Tim

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DJI care refresh only covers a drone loss into water if you can then recover the drone by yourself to return it to DJI. If its lost to the deep then its a total loss.

I thought they covered any loss , I will need to ask the question to them about this

I agree, doesn’t matter if over water or land if your drone falls from a high altitude it’s pretty much going to be destroyed. Only thing is though if on land retrieving the SD card for photos/videos would be much easier than if it’s at the bottom of a lake.

This is probably a good time to mention that the subject of the latest RTF (Reason to Fly) competition is Seascapes and you can still enter a picture or video. Comp open until Saturday 23:00. Or join in the next one - still time to vote for which subject it should be :slight_smile:

Feeling a bit smug here - I have a Swellpro Splashdrone 4 that is totally waterproof, can land and take off from water and RTH is return to controller so flying from a boat isn’t an issue - it uses pressure for height measurement so can’t be fooled either!

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It would probably be classed as a flyaway i.e. you don’t have the drone. Under Refresh, the replacement cost for a flyaway is a lot more (£209?) than if you have the drone to send to them.

I couldn’t find insurance which would cover the loss of the drone in water where it was not recoverable. Who do you use?

Hi. Coverdrone. I have just been through my policy documents and cannot find any reference to water loss…

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Yes, it does get easier with time…though still a bit nerve wracking when 2 miles from shore and this is the only solid thing around !

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When I had my Mavic Pro I flew out to try and find that, found the sandbank but couldn’t locate the lighthouse remains.

Personally I don’t mind flying over water, I know if the drone goes down it is highly unlikely to cause harm to anything or anyone other than my pride.

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Fortunately on both occasions I’ve flown out to it the visibility was good enough for it to be visible from the shore, so I knew which way to fly :slight_smile:

3.6km over the sea with an Air 2


Screenshot from DJI Fly. Will have to work out how to fill in 5 missing logs that didn’t make it automatically in to AirData.

Absolutely no qualms about flying over water. Stretching the bounds of acceptable VLOS though.

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Interesting, though I’ve never experienced it myself even though I’ve flown quite a few models over water, even taking off and landing on water, with both analog and digital control systems. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, studies have been carried out to show it does happen when no provisions have been taken to mitigate the phenomenon. But the average frame length used in digital radio control links is so short that any error is very quickly corrected just by the rate of repetition.

There are quite a few methods that can greatly reduce the unwanted interaction of reflected waves, a few that are used in DJI craft.

Spatial Diversity. Two antennas separated by a fixed distance, the two signals are compared by the receiver and the stronger of the two, which will most likely be the direct wave is the one processed, as the reflected wave has lost a lot of its energy through absorption by the reflective medium.

Modulation Method. DJI’s Ocusync uses a modulation method called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). As well as being capable of transmitting multiple signals on a single carrier, another property of this modulation method is its very high resilience to the effects of multipath. It’s common place to use this modulation technique for many terrestrial VHF/UHF/EHF comms links where the integraty of digital data is paramount.

When a radiowave is reflected the polarisation can be altered. This is most noticeable with circular polarisation where the reflected/incident wave will be the opposite polarity to the direct wave. It’s for this reason that circular polarised antennas are preferred by the FPV community over a linear polarised dipole, even though the latter is a more efficient antenna.

As has been mentioned one of the primary causes of drones going into the drink, other than operator error, is the infrared distance measuring of the vertical positioning system misreading the apparent height above the water. This is because fresh still water appears invisible to infrared as infrared is not reflected off the water’s surface.

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I also use coverdrone as they don’t state anything about water or having to recover the drone like the DJI cover states.

Further to DJI-Soarin, I’ve just been through my policy docs again. Total loss covered. I can find no reference to flying over water. They reserve the right to get your flight data which is fair enough. They seem to say as long as you are not breaching Article 241, flying safely etc they will be fine. I have never made a claim but found them responsive to queries etc. I insured my 2 Pro and then when I got a Mini 2 as well I added it to the policy with no extra charge.

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Often fly over water, get some great shots looking back at you that you can’t get any other way. Personally don’t fly toooooo far tho’, I can’t swim. Though in emergencies who knows what I’m capable of :grinning:

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I haven’t flown 2 miles out into Morecambe bay, as that would be very beyond VLOS and would be highly irresponsible. :lying_face::shushing_face::wink::wink:
I think once you have a few flights under your belt you don’t even think about it.

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Hi all living as i do in cornwall i often fly my drones over the sea in order to get coastal shots ,am wondering how many of you do the same and what tips tricks you yourselves use as its only one way down into a murkey grave which is the only drawback i myself feel.