Over-Water Flying Shots

[paularity]

Hey guys

I just joined the forum so I’m pretty much just copying this from another thread

I was Day 1 pre-order based out of Perth, Western Australia so I’ve been flying it since January last year and I’ve now logged about ~60 hours over-water flight time, so I thought I’d show some of the capabilities for this use case

I’d dabbled a bit filming riding on a Fliteboard (eFoil) a few times early last year, but this was my first ‘real’ attempt using the drone to film myself kiteboarding on a trip to the Cocos Islands back in August. A bit of guesswork playing with wind and a lot of faith in the obstacle avoidance and fixed tracking abilities on display:

Here’s the subsequent Skydio 2 review based on the edit that I wrote up for Kiteworld magazine with more details on the how-to’s: https://magazine.kiteworldmag.com/issue-106/skydio2-drone-review

Shooting a foil surfer (with the beacon on a forearm sleeve) whilst connected on the beach with the controller. Not officially supported, but very doable. Exceeding the limits of wind speed as this day was a nuking 25+ knots seabreeze!

I have a pretty good level of communication with Skydio, (they often forward people onto me asking for tips etc.) and have sent them a LOT of flight logs which will hopefully improve their AI

And full disclosure I have actually crashed one due to flying in high wind conditions and I suspect sand getting lodged in a motor. The drone flipped at about 4m altitude and couldn’t self correct right in the shore dump. The frame was busted anyway, but it drowned too!

I now occasionally fly with the height floor turned off and regularly in wind conditions nudging the 22kn limit, plus I’ve had many, many close calls, but to say that you should not fly it over water is in my opinion not at all accurate

More than happy to discuss the technicalities

There is a variety of short clips of different water sports: https://instagram.com/paularityfromabove

 

[paularity]

This was for a little review I just wrote up of the new Fliteboard Series 2 ultra board and high aspect wings

Height floor turned off. Fixed angle tracking at 10m. ND16 filter I think

 

[richinAZ]

Thanks Paul ! Great Content. i looked at kiteworldmag.com didnt see a Classified section. With your praise and careful attention to flying over water skillfully, you may be creating DEMAND for when i decide to sell my S2. if there is one can you let me know ?

 

[kgilbertsen]

Great footage Paul! My daughter lives in Perth - In Maylands, say hi if you see her...

 

[skydioconvert]

Hey guys

I just joined the forum so I’m pretty much just copying this from another thread

I was Day 1 pre-order based out of Perth, Western Australia so I’ve been flying it since January last year and I’ve now logged about ~60 hours over-water flight time, so I thought I’d show some of the capabilities for this use case

I’d dabbled a bit filming riding on a Fliteboard (eFoil) a few times early last year, but this was my first ‘real’ attempt using the drone to film myself kiteboarding on a trip to the Cocos Islands back in August. A bit of guesswork playing with wind and a lot of faith in the obstacle avoidance and fixed tracking abilities on display:

Here’s the subsequent Skydio 2 review based on the edit that I wrote up for Kiteworld magazine with more details on the how-to’s: https://magazine.kiteworldmag.com/issue-106/skydio2-drone-review

Shooting a foil surfer (with the beacon on a forearm sleeve) whilst connected on the beach with the controller. Not officially supported, but very doable. Exceeding the limits of wind speed as this day was a nuking 25+ knots seabreeze!

I have a pretty good level of communication with Skydio, (they often forward people onto me asking for tips etc.) and have sent them a LOT of flight logs which will hopefully improve their AI

And full disclosure I have actually crashed one due to flying in high wind conditions and I suspect sand getting lodged in a motor. The drone flipped at about 4m altitude and couldn’t self correct right in the shore dump. The frame was busted anyway, but it drowned too!

I now occasionally fly with the height floor turned off and regularly in wind conditions nudging the 22kn limit, plus I’ve had many, many close calls, but to say that you should not fly it over water is in my opinion not at all accurate

More than happy to discuss the technicalities

There is a variety of short clips of different water sports: https://instagram.com/paularityfromabove

Any idea why there's an occasional S2 pilot recommending not to fly over water???

There's a lot of good info in your posts..... thanks for posting

 

[paularity]

Thanks Paul ! Great Content. i looked at kiteworldmag.com didnt see a Classified section. With your praise and careful attention to flying over water skillfully, you may be creating DEMAND for when i decide to sell my S2. if there is one can you let me know ?

There isn’t a classified section on any kite magazine. Usually forums like this such as seabreeze.com.au / kite forum.com etc and local Facebook groups are where people will be selling gear

This drone is still relatively unknown compared to DJI especially internationally. It’s only super keen people like myself who have paid crazy shipping fees to get them out in the wild and even keyword searching on YouTube there are only a handful of people regularly using it over-water

 

[paularity]

Any idea why there's an occasional S2 pilot recommending not to fly over water???

There's a lot of good info in your posts..... thanks for posting

Fear probably... I’ll admit it is pretty stressful haha!

To me, at the end of the day if you crash on land or over water the drone will be dead, just obviously more difficult for a retrieval when it sinks!

I don’t think people fully read the wording in the User Guide also

There is a lot of misconceptions that you can just set this thing to fly around completely autonomously. You 100% have to have access to the beacon at all times, because the drone often makes some questionable decisions particularly if it loses visual tracking and switches to GPS it tends to shoot up to 30m and point the camera down looking for a person and sometimes you have to sort of ‘reset’ the position manually

And planning! Have an exit strategy. There is no RTH with the beacon only and your range on flying it back to shore is realistically ~200m. As a rule I always bring it in with plenty in the tank at 33%

 

[skydioconvert]

@paularity

Some really good comments ...

It's way too easy to fall into the trap of believing Skydio has enough built in intelligence to avoid the perfect storm of things that can go wrong.

Flying over water (especially from a boat with on-board electronic equipment) just adds even another wrinkle to the list of things that can ruin your day.

P.S. The exit strategies you mention aren't thought about often enough but when they're needed they sure are appreciated...

 

[VEGASROBBI]

Correct skydioconvert, as much as we want to rely on autonomous features it is not perfect. I always have a fix on my S2, even when behind me. On a few occasions my S2 got "sometimers" where it started to wander off in follow; or, locked on to a different subject.

I have become accustomed to hitting the stop button and quickly scrolling to the hover mode and take manual control.

 

[paularity]

Correct skydioconvert, as much as we want to rely on autonomous features it is not perfect. I always have a fix on my S2, even when behind me. On a few occasions my S2 got "sometimers" where it started to wander off in follow; or, locked on to a different subject.

I have become accustomed to hitting the stop button and quickly scrolling to the hover mode and take manual control.

Yeah one thing that I didn’t even realise until flying the S2 for months was that when you hit the stop button and it ‘loiters’ as they call it (which is different to the hover skill) you can still adjust the height with the +/- buttons on the beacon.

I find myself using this all the time now, particularly to lower the height in a pinch! And as long as you are still in the frame so to speak and it hasn’t lost visual tracking when you unpause the drone it will maintain that height and zoom around to the position of whatever tracking you had previously set. Very useful!

 

[Ridefreak]

I wand it upwards in those situations. Its extremely quick to do.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

I wand it upwards in those situations. Its extremely quick to do.

Yes I agree, but there are times when autonomous it ignores the wand and wanders off. I saw this regularly with my Phantom 4 and Mavic 2; the only way to stop it was to exit the autonomous mode and regain manual control.

 

[Ridefreak]

Yes I agree, but there are times when autonomous it ignores the wand and wanders off. I saw this regularly with my Phantom 4 and Mavic 2; the only way to stop it was to exit the autonomous mode and regain manual control.

If I loose subject lock which happens when I go too fast for the drone. I stop and push the blue button to make it require. It happened this last weekend. I outflew the SD2 for a stretch, when that happens it just stops and hoovers. I pointed the beacon at the sd2 which was pretty far away, 150 yards or so, pushed the blue button and it immediately turned so it was facing me and flew back.

See if that works next time it's wandering.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

I think there is something too this. When I have good GPS, even without a good lock on the subject pressing the blue button does allow it to reacquire.

However I have had instances where it begins to wander off(I use to call it the vagrant mode with DJI). The blue button is ineffective and I have to press stop and take manual control.

 

[paularity]

Featured Flyer Spotlight: Paul Davies

Humbled to be Skydio's Featured Flyer and they just put up a blog post about my shots. Skydio will be showcasing some of my footage all week on Instagram @skydiohq

If anyone has any questions about Skydio and/or over-water flying, shoot me a DM @paularityfromabove

 

[paularity]

a 'dronie' compilation of the most hyper-real colours Western Australia has to offer

that could have only been experienced on my new flite ultra

and shot over the last 3 months on skydio 2

looking forward to capturing more electrifying experiences

 

[Saladshooter]

a 'dronie' compilation of the most hyper-real colours Western Australia has to offer

that could have only been experienced on my new flite ultra

and shot over the last 3 months on skydio 2

looking forward to capturing more electrifying experiences

Fantastic..... your video captures the area brilliantly. I would love to see this type of footage coupled with some closer up shots of your riding. The Skydio is perfect for this type of work.

 

[paularity]

Fantastic..... your video captures the area brilliantly. I would love to see this type of footage coupled with some closer up shots of your riding. The Skydio is perfect for this type of work.

Cheers!

Only so much you can fit in 59 seconds for the Red Bull Illume - Best of Instagram category competition and I really wanted the smooth panning of the ‘dronie’ with some vivid colours!

There’s a lot of other close up shots on my profile @paularityfromabove

 

[pbayani]

Once I get a hang of controlling the Skydio 2 on land away from water, I am going to try capturing video of myself windfoiling on Mission Bay. I will have to learn to trust myself and Skydio 2 overwater

 

[paularity]

Once I get a hang of controlling the Skydio 2 on land away from water, I am going to try capturing video of myself windfoiling on Mission Bay. I will have to learn to trust myself and Skydio 2 overwater

Check out the blog post and Kiteworld article for some over-water tips. In your case it might make sense to try and attach the beacon (in a pouch) to where you hold the boom