Flight after sunset

[Undo]

Hey guys

Today I did something I know I wasn't supposed to do and that is launch the spark at night Flew it to get some nice pictures of the sunset. Everything went nice and well so I brought it back, changed the battery and launched it again to get some blue hour footage.
The flight was very unstable and couldn't keep it hovering in a single spot. But the real treat was getting it back for landing. I launched from a 2X3m platform on the 11th floor. Could barely bring bring it back in. this size was suddenly not enough for the small Spark to land It fought me all the way down and during final landing I was lucky to have the propeller guards on, it's that bad in the dark

 

[aviscomi]

"I launched from a 2X3m platform on the 11th floor" You're VERY lucky that you got it back in 1 piece. Very ill-advised!

 

[Lastrexking]

"I launched from a 2X3m platform on the 11th floor" You're VERY lucky that you got it back in 1 piece. Very ill-advised!

Yep. There’s a post on here somewhere of someone launching their Spark from a balcony and not getting it back in one piece.

 

[DJ_EYE]

Yep. There’s a post on here somewhere of someone launching their Spark from a balcony and not getting it back in one piece.

Why though? Why would that be an issue? Just curious on your reasons against it. Platform size concerns you or other?

I've had plenty of tight landing positions to which I RTH until I'm within 15m or so, then cancel RTH and land manually. Never felt it was dangerous or an issue.

Is there another issue I'm not aware of?

A 2x3m platform seems pretty big to me.

 

[Magnetic]

Why though? Why would that be an issue? Just curious on your reasons against it. Platform size concerns you or other?

I've had plenty of tight landing positions to which I RTH until I'm within 15m or so, then cancel RTH and land manually. Never felt it was dangerous or an issue.

Is there another issue I'm not aware of?

A 2x3m platform seems pretty big to me.

Yeah, I agree and am curious the concern too. I’ve done the same thing and manually landed on my kids little 2’ x 3’ picnic table in my yard many times without issue.

 

[aviscomi]

Why though? Why would that be an issue? Just curious on your reasons against it. Platform size concerns you or other?

I've had plenty of tight landing positions to which I RTH until I'm within 15m or so, then cancel RTH and land manually. Never felt it was dangerous or an issue.

Is there another issue I'm not aware of?

A 2x3m platform seems pretty big to me.

Its not the platform size that's the issue. Its the fact that the OP was 11 floors up, thus how would the device know where the RTH is. Latitude & longitude aren't recorded by how many stories are in a building, so every floor beneath him would have the same exact RTH coordinates.

 

[aviscomi]

Yeah, I agree and am curious the concern too. I’ve done the same thing and manually landed on my kids little 2’ x 3’ picnic table in my yard many times without issue.

Totally different then taking off & landing on an 11th floor balcony, see my prior post.

 

[DJ_EYE]

I still don't see the issue. Hover, get your height, line it up, bring it in.

 

[DJ_EYE]

Its not the platform size that's the issue. Its the fact that the OP was 11 floors up, thus how would the device know where the RTH is. Latitude & longitude aren't recorded by how many stories are in a building, so every floor beneath him would have the same exact RTH coordinates.

Well of course, relying on RTH would be pretty silly. Manual landing when in visual range would/should be a piece of cake.

 

[aviscomi]

I still don't see the issue. Hover, get your height, line it up, bring it in.

Uh...Critical battery RTH, lost signal RTH both of which automatically bring the device back w/o user inputs.

 

[DJ_EYE]

Uh...Critical battery RTH, lost signal RTH both of which automatically bring the device back w/o user inputs.

Without control, agreed, that speaks for itself.

Unless your controller completely dies, it would be very rare to not reconnect automatically when back in visual range.

But yes, good point if you have no control at all. I'd say pilot issues and not enough GPS satellites may be the issue there.

 

[aviscomi]

Well of course, relying on RTH would be pretty silly. Manual landing when in visual range would/should be a piece of cake.

I can count on 1 hand how many times I manually landed any of my DJI platforms, probably because I'm too lazy. Or because I'm certain enough that the RTH will land where I expected it to. As long as I'm not on an 11th floor balcony.

 

[DJ_EYE]

I can count on 1 hand how many times I manually landed any of my DJI platforms, probably because I'm too lazy. Or because I'm certain enough that the RTH will land where I expected it to. As long as I'm not on an 11th floor balcony.

I normally cancel RTH when there's a few people around the landing zone, just to be safe, as kids are morons and tend to run towards the blades. So easier to manual land away from them. Kids....ewww! Who does that! [emoji12]

 

[aviscomi]

Without control, agreed, that speaks for itself.

Unless your controller completely dies, it would be very rare to not reconnect automatically when back in visual range.

But yes, good point if you have no control at all. I'd say pilot issues and not enough GPS satellites may be the issue there.

Do a search on all of the DJI forums on "balcony fails"...there is actually a few classic YouTube videos

 

[Lastrexking]

Why though? Why would that be an issue? Just curious on your reasons against it. Platform size concerns you or other?

I've had plenty of tight landing positions to which I RTH until I'm within 15m or so, then cancel RTH and land manually. Never felt it was dangerous or an issue.

Is there another issue I'm not aware of?

A 2x3m platform seems pretty big to me.

Where did I say I was against it? I didn’t. All I said was Sparks taking off from balconies have ended in disaster before.

 

[DJ_EYE]

Where did I say I was against it? I didn’t. All I said was Sparks taking off from balconies have ended in disaster before.

It's a common saying, you are either 'for or against' something, it's not in the personal sense.

 

[clouseau]

If you reset your home point after you take off when you are out and away from the building as to were the drone can safely land on the ground near the building that would be ideal precaution to take.

I personally don't rely on the use of RTH, I treat it as strickly a failsafe measure only. All the proffesional disciplined drone pilots I've ever worked with also treat RTH only as a last ditch effort to bring home thier drone. I guess I must come from a different school of thought where the rc pilots I've learned from take a lot of pride in being able to take off and land without the use of any atonomous control.

Aside from having not reset your homepoint, you was already challenged by taking off from a small area, and doing it in the dark really didn't help your chances of success either. Your chances of a balcony failure was much higher than many of the YouTube videos I've seen where this was done during the day. Sounds like you just got very lucky this time in knowing were doing something you wasnt supposed to.

 

[Virtual1]

Spark doesn't like flying up close to a building because of the collision sensors on the front, and that may have been some of the "fight" you were dealing with. It may be necessary to back it up to your location and simply snatch it out of the air from below. I usually will bring it up in front of me, tap the Land button on the phone or remote, and then immediately reach out with my hand to form a platform for it to see to land on. It descends into my palm, where I grab it and hold still. It will struggle for a sec until it realizes it has landed, and will cut the motors. If not, you can always wrench it sideways, it will automatically kill the motors if the Spark exceeds 90 degrees left or right. (that can also eliminate the need to tell it to land, though I don't like to do that if unnecessary, it looks like it's a bit stressful on the Spark)

 

[CaryTheLabelGuy]

I take off from a high-rise balcony all the time with my Spark and my Mavic Pro Platinum. You need to understand and work within the aircrafts limitations, especially concerning RTH.

For the Spark, I lift off, set out over a close field nearby my balcony and manually hover in ATTI mode until I get full GPS lock. At this point, I check and make sure I have at least 14 sats for good GPS health - it can take a few seconds to get them up and over 12 sats acquired. Once I’m done with this, I move to my failsafe RTH spot in the field and manually set the new home point using the DJI Go4 app and then check and double check my home point location on the big map. I then check my compass by checking my orientation on the map. After those procedures are done, off I go.

When it’s time to come home, I always back the Spark (and Mavic) in to my location and will stop and reset the RTH location in the parking lot when the Spark is less than 20m from my balcony, so that if RC signal is lost, the Spark will not ascend to RTH altitude and will RTH at current altitude (needs to be enabled in the GO4 app). This allows me to continue backing my Spark into my balcony area and at this point I usually hand-catch the Spark.

The main settings differences between the Spark and Mavic is that when flying around, I always switch RTH behavior to “RTH” on RC disconnect and immediately switch the Mavic to “hover” when it’s time to bring it in. The Spark obviously doesn’t have this ability so I have to reset the RTH home point to within 20m of my balcony and enable the “Return To Home and Current Altitude”.

The biggest caveat here is that you need to be really good at manually flying in ATTI mode because as soon as you take off from the balcony with obstructions over you and when you bring it in, GPS signal is lost and you’re flying 100% in ATTI mode.

 

[Undo]

The RTH is not a big issue in this case since it does take off from the same spot. In my experience with the Spark it'll record the altitude of the take-off point as zero so it'll come back home there anyway. But I never let it auto land there, I use RTH if it gets outside visual range (rarely) until I can see it again and then take over an land manually. Since I'm right there next to the landing spot there's no issue in daylight. In the dark on the other hand the thing is not stable and it'll move sideways quite a lot. With the GPS lock and everything on green the Spark is all over the place (and by that I mean it'll move a couple of meters in any direction by itself-albeit slowly enough to make it kind of controllable )