3 Fatal DRONE MISTAKES…when flying over water🔸DJI Mini 3, DJI Mini 2, DJI Air 2s, Mavic 3,

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Here’s a fair warning for you new drone nerds. My flight counter is at 1300 now so I’ve seen a thing or two. Along this line of conversation with sensors, be aware that flying in fog or clouds can get ugly. Being in Florida we have excellent morning humidity that creates awesome low cloud decks. Usually it handles it fine but one particular time when the fog was really thick, I had an issue. I knew it was going to be bad because it was a lot darker than usual from the camera view so I know the fog was thick. I was at about 350 feet and pushed down and it wouldn’t budge. Tried again, nothing. Then hit RTH….nothing! It then gave me a warning that said something like “unsafe landing conditions”. I was still at 350! The drone wouldn’t come down! Just then it started creeping really slowly down . Less then the speed at landing. It took me about 6 minutes to get down from 350. I think the bottom sensors on the mini 2 thought the fog was “solid”. Scared the crap out of me! One cool thing about the situation is that I obviously learned the limits in clouds and fog. Since you can’t turn those sensors off, my suggestion would be to use electrical tape to cover the sensors if you plan on flying in low clouds or fog. Something else happened too that shocked me. When I landed, the drone was soaked. Not just damp but water logged! I tilted the drone toward the back and water just rushed out of the thing. The arms were filled with water. I was so surprised the motors all still worked fine. I dried the drone off on an air purifier and have flown another 200 times since with zero problems. It had issues with the thick fog but no issues with the water! I’ve since taken some chances and flown in light rain and not had a single problem. I wouldn’t go out looking to fly in a rain storm but if you get stuck in a surprise light rain, don’t panic….it handles it just fine.

All good points! I have flown over water quite a bit, although I have had a few scary moments, I've learned what not to do, most of which you mentioned. I will add 3 additional points: When flying over the ocean keep in mind that it is not impossible for an errant wave to reach the height of your drone if you are under about 20 feet above the water. This happened to me with the original Mavic. When the water hit the drone, it started flying erratic, it almost went into the water. Luckily, I was close to shore and was able to execute a crash landing onto the beach. When flying under a low bridge over water with 'Bypass' on, your done could dive into the water in order to bypass the bridge. When flying near cliffs with nesting eagles, they will attack your drone if you get too close. If this happens, your best escape is to quickly go up. Gain as much altitude as you can before returning home. I lost my first drone to a hawk and I have survived 2 eagle encounters. Also, there are a number of things that can jump out of the water and get your drone if you fly too close to the water.

Dear Ted, The way it works with the down-facing cameras is that an algorithm tries to lock on to the same feature on both the images. But from the location offset of said feature in the image, you can calculate the convergence angle and since you know how far the sensors are apart, you can calculate the distance of the feature. A little bit like locking on to your finger with your eyes and then coming closer to your face - the more cross-eyed you go, the closer your finger is. The problem with water is that either it is glassy smooth so the algorithm can't find a feature to lock on to and then subsequently fails to perform its magic or if it is a bit windy, the surface features of the water keep changing, leading to either the same problem of being able to lock on to a feature at all, or at the very least greatly increased measurement intervals as the systems will spend most of the time attempting to identify a feature to lock on to (and failing a lot in the process). The other 3 ways to maintain altitude are built-in accelerometers aligned with the axes of the drone, however these usually self-calibrate during power up, so you might induce some error if you move the drone when it boots up. This is why the subsequent reboot fixes it - provided you leave the drone alone during its wakeup. It isn't a full IMU realignment, mind you, but there is some kind of calibration going on during bootup. So the practice of switching on the drone while carrying it and then setting it down a bit later before takoff is counterproductive - not saying you are doing this, but if you did, this explains the drift during hover. Then there is the usual GPS/GNSS sensor suite which works pretty well but isn't as accurate as one would want. Plus it depends on satellite availability and therefore also terrain and area of the world. And then there are the barometric sensors - those work fine over water too, but are a bit prone to error if the air temperature fluctuates (it tends to be cooler over water than over land during daytime and vice versa during the night). Problem with barometric sensors is that the consumer level ones are sometimes not accurate enough to fly low over water. And unfortunately DJI does not tell us which sensor it uses as the primary source for altitmetry at any given time and they also don't allow us to deselect certain systems if we want to. However, the landing sequence is triggered by the drone believing to be too close to the ground without being fast, so an error in altimetry reading can lead it to a landing attempt. Fortunately it was a bit higher than it thought it was when it did this, so you had time to recover it. And it might sound counterproductive at first, but switching to sport mode (and hence disabling the optical sensors) can be beneficial over featureless terrain. But it varies between models, so it won't work with all of them. Test at your own peril and preferrably over featureless solid terrain like smooth sand before trying this low over water. You have been warned and ofc I don't take responsibility if something breaks when doing this.

That was a really good explanation, Ted, of how the drone's sensors deal with flying over water. Your first story about losing your drone in front of everyone was so painful! It's good seeing you on the USDS livestream, too!

Great video Ted, some good advice as always! Haven’t had the landing situation yet over water but I’ll expect it to happen at some point, will take your advice and stay up high. Enjoy your adventures across India, very exciting and we’ll all be with you one video at a time, I can’t imagine how much more energised someone can be than you but I’m certain the lovely people there will help you learn so much more about yourself than you’ll ever expect or anticipate - expect the unexpected!

Thanks Ted. Some good advice here. I’ve not come to grief yet but I do like flying over water, generally free space and no trees to hit. It is also useful to just check the drone feels ‘right ‘ before you set off. Also I just love your enthusiasm, just an acceptable shade below fanatical. My immediate family don’t share my love for filming with these genius gizmos so your dose of excitement is just what I need.

Great tips Ted. Maybe add compass and IMU calibrations to the reboot procedures too. I’ve had to do those things and they seem to help! Can’t wait to follow you on your India adventure! Safe travels and great flying!

Great content again! Always worried above water so generally never go down further than 10 meters. Good tip! Can’t wait to see your adventures in India!

sorry for your loss....thanks for sharing your mis-adventure knowledge, so that we may prevent the same....educational, humorous, and passionate as usual👏👍🤜

Thank youTED for the excellent contribution to the drone community, flying over water is one of my best flights, Greetings from Mexico my friend.

I can see your enthusiasm for drones from here, and I'm with you! I just passed the Part 107 test and bought an Air 3, and like you, I love my Mini 2. Subscribed and looking forward to more content! You have a very enthusiastic and watchable presentation style

I have experience with this. I was flying over the Delaware River and saw the wreck of a sunken barge. I turned the camera straight down and descended slowly. The drone started acting erratically and dropped suddenly. Fortunately I was able to pin the stick and get out of there. I was about 15 ft above the water. Now my rule is 50 ft, no lower. The drone was a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. A lesson learned.

Very timely video. My wife and I are getting ready to leave for the day and go fly both the mini 3 pro and avata at a park with a huge lake we found last weekend. Will apply these tips today thanks for the heads up Ted.

I find the mini 3 pro flies like it’s had a few drinks compared to my mini2. I was told it does that when you first take of with the M3P as it needs to get the sensors initialized for the drone. I think the mini2 is way way more of a stable flyer throughout the flight at any height. Great tips!

Nice and informative piece. I had a scary moment flying over water too. In my case I was as around 15 feet not far from shore. I was taking videos of ship passing by. In my case the 2s drone started dropping slowly. There was no message or warning. I saw this in time to save it, but I suspect the sensor issue was a reason.

When I've had that "something's not right" scenario, it's usually been because I booted the drone and controller up too close to power lines or needed a compass calibration. If I see anything even remotely out of the ordinary, I abort the mission and figure it out. Thanks for the video!

Right on the money Ted, and thanks for the great post. 90% of my flying for the last 5 years has been over water, up to 5 miles offshore, and I've only lost 1 precious drone into the drink, and that was pilot error misjudging the strength of the wind (exactly as you described). I've also had the uninitiated landing sequence when low and slow over a creek twice recently. Your advice is excellent and greatly appreciated. Enjoy India, I'll be watching! Cheers from Sydney Australia.

Another great educational and fun video. I cannot wait to see your 2024 adventures! I'm excited to ride along my friend! Keep em rolling in space cowboy!!

As always, a great and informative video, Ted. Thank you. I look forward to your dispatches from India and will definitely be watching every minute. //Tom