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How to get used to flying Farther...

Our chief weapons are signal booster, GPS mode, and fast micro SD card :)

Yeah, really. For me there is no bigger fear than losing my GPS mode and switching to ATTI mode when the drone is out of my LOS. And I found out that using crappy cheap micro SD card resulted in a switch to ATTI mode in EVERY flight, which is no longer the case since I switched to a fast micro SD card. I suspect the bottle neck in writing speed as the cause.
Perfectly possible to fly the drone home if you have the RC and it's still connected. No need at all for video feed from the camera.
Having said that, please don't fly BLOS without proper authorization - it's giving the professional drone pilots a bad name and it's what had led to the restrictive regulations worldwide.
 
Agreed. Practice and trust your drone. The trust comes with....wait for it.....practice. If you have a place where you can fly over open water like a lake, it provides the perfect opportunity for both without having to worry about running into something inadvertently. It also provides you a constant, clear line of sight.
I'm currently on vacation thorough out Europe and I had to become proficient flying without LOS due to strict flight restrictions forcing me to hide my take off/landing location which usually means that my drone can be up to 2 kilometers away on occasion. I use LOS for take off and landing only these days. I had a 1 fly away few months back when I bought my first Spark. With a second one I wait few minutes before I get a solid GPS lock and take off only then. RTH feature is what I rely most because when flying so far away I loose connection with my drone frequently. With no obstruction due to terrain or buildings I can fly up to 2 km away before disconnect. If there is a building blocking the path of the radio waves I can loose connection within few hundred meters. I managed to fly under couple of bridges in London and Venice, however, I watch my video feed very carefully and when I notice video quality decreasing, I will not attempt to fly under bridge or other structures, because, my drone is setup to fly to at least 100 meters high to avoid hitting any obstacles on automatic RTH. Which means that if I am underneath structure (bridge) and I loose connection, the drone would fly up and hit the bridge. I've had a similar situation in Paris trying to fly underneath Carrousel Arc de Triomphe I had to position myself to have uninterupted LOS for wifi signal and even then managed to loose signal. What I did was to align my drone with intended path, switch to sport mode and then flew under. With sport mode on I've cleared arch already and even though I've lost signal again, there was no obstruction about to block safe automatic RTH.
 
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I think you may benefit from checking the regulations for the country you’re in...
 
Sorry to have to be the one to do this (I know I'll probably get hammered for it), but Isn't anyone going to push back and remind folks that, at least here in the USA, it's against the law to rely on FPV to fly farther than VLOS? VLOS for most people flying an aircraft as small as a Spark isn't thousands of feet, it's hundreds. Maintaining and flying VLOS isn't an option, it's the law for good reason. The "freedom" to put other people at risk is not a right - it's reckless. It's no wonder commercial interests and lawmakers can't seem to tighten the regulation and control of drones fast enough. Sorry again for the rant.
 
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SD card and GPS navigation? I thought the SD card on the AC was only for recording video and was optional. Please explain.
I have flown without a sd card, forgot to put it back, all things were normal. No errors at all
 
I have lost connection a few times out past 1700 feet. The video feed gets sketchy then no signal and just as its supposed to it went into RTH and comes back,when it got closer everything reconnected
Thanks for all the comments, I guess the simple answer maybe to trust the tech, however when your Spark is out there on the edge of your LOS or high and at the Edge, so you rely on the video feed, assuming you still have a good connection, or do you switch to the map to view its location and to perhaps start your navigation back without having to rely on RTH?
 
Agreed. Practice and trust your drone. The trust comes with....wait for it.....practice. If you have a place where you can fly over open water like a lake, it provides the perfect opportunity for both without having to worry about running into something inadvertently. It also provides you a constant, clear line of sight.
As to date I have never flown over water either with my Spark or Mavic Pro trying to pluck up the courage to do it .Had my drones for almost a year.

The thought of seeing them hit the water. I have insurance with Flycarous thought of getting floats any suggestions. Regards Irvine
 
During a recent Spark flight I got 12,266 ft one way.....using LOS navigation of course. ;) 346 ft height. Returned and landed with 14% bat remaining.

Stock Spark / Stock Battery / 5.8Ghz / 3Kings parabolics

Tip, get to know the hardware, then trust the hardware.
 
As to date I have never flown over water either with my Spark or Mavic Pro trying to pluck up the courage to do it .Had my drones for almost a year.

The thought of seeing them hit the water. I have insurance with Flycarous thought of getting floats any suggestions. Regards Irvine
The interesting thing is that flying over open water is probably the best way to both learn to trust your gear as well as to learn how to fly.

Open skies over a body of water frees you up to learn how your bird handles. You don’t have to worry about obstacles anywhere around you. Unless your battery falls out (which has never happened to me) your Spark will never end up in the water unless you direct it there.

When you fly over open water it forces you to trust your drone. It either does what it’s supposed to or it doesn’t. My experience is that it always does.
 
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As to date I have never flown over water either with my Spark or Mavic Pro trying to pluck up the courage to do it .Had my drones for almost a year.

The thought of seeing them hit the water. I have insurance with Flycarous thought of getting floats any suggestions. Regards Irvine
For what it’s worth, a friend and I recently took our Sparks up 40 meters above a lake for a bit of fun. It never once occurred to us that this was somehow riskier because we we over a lake. In fact the opposite is true; it freed us up to concentrate on our flying.
 

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