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High Winds, Hand Launching/Landing, 3 to 4 foot rollers and the craziness that comes with it.

Joined
Feb 12, 2015
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Age
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A few weeks ago I was in the midst of all the above described situation, I leaned a lot and feel i would share.

The first thing started with high winds. What I leaned and as I started to get a grasp of what was happening it immediately brought me to a post I read a few weeks back where the person talked about crashing his inspire at a shipping port area. The poster said he was in high winds where a big gust came and pushed his inspire into a crane in a tight area. When reading the post I was trying to figure out how that could happen in a way but after my week around boats and mast I leaned a few things.

When you are off you sticks and letting gps take control the I1 was fine and stayed in place, even in a 23kts cross winds. Now with that said what I leaned is at “ANY” directional input (right stick – left, right, forward, back), the gps will come unhook and the copter will go with the wind until your input equals the counter for the wind. Like boat in the current as soon as you take up the anchor your boat will drift free with the current.

My next issue that I found is on power up, there were a few times when the copter was airborne the IMU seemed to be off a little like (6 to 8 degrees) and it wanted to fly away. The first time was a little hairy mainly because I did not know what was going on, I was dealing with over 16kts winds, and the issue I was explaining about winds also played a into my control. Landing was also very challenging never mind the wind, 4ft seas, small boat, and control issues. Once it was down we shut it down for the day and when we hit the land I did a normal startup, just powered on and the copter flew fine.

When it happened the second time, it knew I could fly the craft so I was not as worried and once it was down I reboot, calibrated the compass and lifted off, it flew well. I believe what is happening in this situation is that when you power on the craft and the IMU is warming up, if you have movement (wave action) it initial register can come in off kilter. By the time you do a calibration the IMU is up to speed, and doing a calibration will help straighten out the situation. For the rest of the flights we did a calibration every time we powered up and we did not see the issue come back.

Last thing I can give for input was the hand catching, being on 28 ft center console with a small tower room for landing was very limited, over all for both take off and landing I felt it was best done with the landing gear up, this way the person’s hands handling the copter are furthest away from the motors. We chose the catch spots to be the arms where they meat the body. If the GPS is on especially on takeoff once the motors are engage the copter will want to stay in that location and in a boat your position is constantly moving, so we made sure it was in ATT mode.

On landing we found pointing the boat into the wind and positioning the copter about 20ft just upwind with its back to us was a good start. if you start a decent at a constant rate and then concentrating on positioning the copter down to the hands of the person catching the it, this is what seemed to work best.

Other features to quickly touch on, the copter’s handling in 23+kts winds were very good and an odd thing that happened while walking, carrying the copter in the 25kts winds it actually started spinning the prop, at some point as the props were free spinning by the wind the copter automatically started up on its own. The first time I was wondering how that happened but after it happened a few more time I confirmed it was the props moving in the wind that was generating enough electricity that triggered the copters on.

I know it’s a long post but I thought some of what was going on was unique at times and I thought others may find it useful going forward.

Overall it was a good week, successful filled with many learning opportunities.

best Jack
 
A few weeks ago I was in the midst of all the above described situation, I leaned a lot and feel i would share.

The first thing started with high winds. What I leaned and as I started to get a grasp of what was happening it immediately brought me to a post I read a few weeks back where the person talked about crashing his inspire at a shipping port area. The poster said he was in high winds where a big gust came and pushed his inspire into a crane in a tight area. When reading the post I was trying to figure out how that could happen in a way but after my week around boats and mast I leaned a few things.

When you are off you sticks and letting gps take control the I1 was fine and stayed in place, even in a 23kts cross winds. Now with that said what I leaned is at “ANY” directional input (right stick – left, right, forward, back), the gps will come unhook and the copter will go with the wind until your input equals the counter for the wind. Like boat in the current as soon as you take up the anchor your boat will drift free with the current.

My next issue that I found is on power up, there were a few times when the copter was airborne the IMU seemed to be off a little like (6 to 8 degrees) and it wanted to fly away. The first time was a little hairy mainly because I did not know what was going on, I was dealing with over 16kts winds, and the issue I was explaining about winds also played a into my control. Landing was also very challenging never mind the wind, 4ft seas, small boat, and control issues. Once it was down we shut it down for the day and when we hit the land I did a normal startup, just powered on and the copter flew fine.

When it happened the second time, it knew I could fly the craft so I was not as worried and once it was down I reboot, calibrated the compass and lifted off, it flew well. I believe what is happening in this situation is that when you power on the craft and the IMU is warming up, if you have movement (wave action) it initial register can come in off kilter. By the time you do a calibration the IMU is up to speed, and doing a calibration will help straighten out the situation. For the rest of the flights we did a calibration every time we powered up and we did not see the issue come back.

Last thing I can give for input was the hand catching, being on 28 ft center console with a small tower room for landing was very limited, over all for both take off and landing I felt it was best done with the landing gear up, this way the person’s hands handling the copter are furthest away from the motors. We chose the catch spots to be the arms where they meat the body. If the GPS is on especially on takeoff once the motors are engage the copter will want to stay in that location and in a boat your position is constantly moving, so we made sure it was in ATT mode.

On landing we found pointing the boat into the wind and positioning the copter about 20ft just upwind with its back to us was a good start. if you start a decent at a constant rate and then concentrating on positioning the copter down to the hands of the person catching the it, this is what seemed to work best.

Other features to quickly touch on, the copter’s handling in 23+kts winds were very good and an odd thing that happened while walking, carrying the copter in the 25kts winds it actually started spinning the prop, at some point as the props were free spinning by the wind the copter automatically started up on its own. The first time I was wondering how that happened but after it happened a few more time I confirmed it was the props moving in the wind that was generating enough electricity that triggered the copters on.

I know it’s a long post but I thought some of what was going on was unique at times and I thought others may find it useful going forward.

Overall it was a good week, successful filled with many learning opportunities.

best Jack
Good stuff
Be careful doing a compass calibration everytime you take off. I use to do it now hardly ever.
High winds jumped started my motors before. Thought it was my camera lady
I owe her an apology
 
This is the second report of inspires self starting up from wind generated power that I have seen in the last few days!!
 

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