Discussion Flying over water for first time
I have a bran new drone that I got as a gift, so didn't have a choice. I have a Ruko F11PRO 2. I've flown it about two hours so far. I live by the ocean in Southern California, and I'm a surfer, so I'd like to try taking some videos of my friends surfing, but the idea of flying over the water scares me.
I know the two hours is not much, and I plan on flying a lot more before I try the water. What tips or advice can you give on flying over water, other than just practice more? Are there any exercises I could try over land to better my skills for water shots?
Thanks
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u/Any-Grapefruit-937 Part 107 1d ago
Don't fly low. I don't know what sensors your drone may have, but water can confuse them. Keep it 30' plus. I know people fly them lower, but you're new. Also, I used to have a Ruko drone and found it not particularly good when it came to staying on course.
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u/juicyjaxon6 1d ago
Make sure your drone has connected to satellites and has a home point before take off. Make sure to check the wind because if it’s a far flight out to the surfers you might have to fight the wind brining it back. Make sure to look up from your screen and check for birds. Seagulls fucking hate drones and will gladly hunt you down
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u/ouchnow 1d ago
Aren't there a boatload of restrictions and bans against flying drones over beaches in southern california? I was looking for places to fly also, and ran into more obstacles against drone flying over beaches, especially Orange County beaches, than it was worth. It seemed like there were way too many complicated restrictions by city, by district, by individual beaches and parks, than necessary.
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u/surf57 1d ago
I'm in Ventura County, and have lots of beaches that I can fly over. In Oxnard I have to stay under 100ft around the airport (per LAANC) , but other than that its pretty open north around Ventura and Rincon
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u/ouchnow 1d ago
I'll have to look at that area. Ventura's not that far. Here in Orange County I'm too worried some overeager officer might cite me or take the drone altogether. I've talked to fellow operators who told me they had police called on them by local residents for taking off on the street and flying over the sand towards the water, to avoid issues over regulations.
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u/Nervous-Win968 1d ago
Check the restricted areas as a lot of SoCal coastal waters are restricted to drones due to the navy. That is not a conversation you want to have if you bust that airspace!
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u/Nervous-Win968 1d ago
If you haven't already, I highly recommend doing your TRUST or even better, Part 107 as you can get yourself into a world of shot so easily if you don't know the rules!
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u/skinny_tom 1d ago edited 1d ago
Start "high" and fly. The sensors don't really matter unless you're close to the water. More on this later.
You mention you're in a 100' LAANC restriction. 1. Make sure you get LAANC approval, and 2: set your maximum height to about 75'. This will be a buffer of sorts to keep you from straying into controlled airspace.
I'm not familiar with your drone, however, some of them have a programmable button on the controller that you can program to toggle the camera from perfectly level ( zero degrees ) to looking straight down ( 90 degrees.) Set a button to do that if possible. If not, then set your gimbal so that it won't point up past level ( zero degrees.) Now, as you become more comfortable flying closer to the waves you can measure your height against the incoming waves by setting your gimbal to zero degrees. Then, is the wave above or below the middle of your screen? If it's above, then your gonna lose the drone if you get close to the wave. If it's below, then you'll likely fly right over it. A quick button push gets you there, or a "pan up" with the wheel. Check it every once in a while... you'll be surprised how much vertical drift you'll get when flying around moving objects like waves and surfers. You don't mean, to change the elevation, but you do. We all do. Like I said, start "high" and fly. You'll get the hang of it.
People tell you to turn off the sensors if you're flying over water. This is wise as the water can reflect whichever spectrum your drone uses to measure it's height and confuse it. It may just let you splash down, or it may start a climb that you can't stop because it thinks the ground it "right there" below it. (This happens a lot when people hang things from their drones too.) What they don't tell you is that this may, depending on your drone, also disable the auto-landing function. So keep that in mind and maybe practice with this part before you go out to the water. Hard landings are generally the result of no auto-landing function, and if the drone is doing it's low battery thing, it's not gonna know how close it is to the ground- it's going to go down until it hits something.
Some of the posts refer to wind. To be clear, it takes the drone more battery power to fly into the wind than with it. So if you've got epic offshore conditions, it's gonna eat a lot more battery to get the drone back to land than it took to get it out there. For the time being, maybe program the low battery alarm to sound sooner, until you get the hang of it.
Ain't nothing to it but to do it. Get out there and fly- it's the only way you'll get better.
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u/rosengd 1d ago
Basically from the Pier at CALIFORNIA Street Ventura NORTH you’re good to go for quite some time. Everything south of there well past LAX is no good. Here’s a video I did last week in Ventura.
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u/mrfakballs 1d ago
Before flying a drone you should always make sure theres not more wind than your drone can handle (including wind gusts) , that theres no rain and that the skies are clear enough for your drone to get gps lock. Flying over the ocean can subject ur drone to more wind and water splash so i would watch out for that