Night Flight
- Thread starter Jangles
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Be sure you know your aircraft well as the risk goes way up on flights after dark (this is a hobby flight, right?). Night flights I believe are reserved for members of a CBO like AMA. You can research that. After researching that you will want to pre-check your flight area in the daylight as you will not be able to see guide wires, power lines, small tree branches, trees, etc. I would recommend you stay real close where you can see the lights good as orientation will be challenging. Pre-set your camera (search the Camera Settings & Help area). I'm sure others will add more. Be safe and good luck.
I haven't flown at night, however if you do, then be aware of the Vison system.." Aircraft will automatically switch to ATTI MODE if the GPS signal is weak, and the Lighting Conditions to weak for the Vision System." If this happens then trying to fly Atti Mode at night could be quite a task!. 
Rafa7
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I don't fly at night but I've noticed that at sunset while is getting darker the Spark has a hard time staying steady while hovering, I thought my Spark need the sensors to be calibrate but I found out that instead is doing that because the down looking sensors can't detect the ground very well due to low visibility. Fly safe.
PhoNY-ID
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I can attest to this. I tried out my spark the other night and it would not hover in place and this was at only the normal 4' height.
Heckmaniac
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Need to use anti-collision strobe lights - not just the lights on the Spark itself. I bought these on Amazon and they work amazingly well. I've flown over 2 miles out and can see the strobe very clearly (white one placed on the bottom rear of the landing gear - red and green on either side). Great for keeping line of site on the drone and can see the position much better at night than during the daylight. I attached the strobes to landing gear so I don't need them during the day and didn't want to attach tape to the drone itself (see pic below).
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SparkAnOwl
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I've flown a couple times at night with no issues, although I've kept it fairly close; less than 200' high, 5-600' out. My son-in-law flies often at night, when he is on break (he works in an emergency room), and he also has no problems with stability or anything, even though he will typically go out 1,000' or more.
Heckmaniac
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steve.r
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I have flown at night over the top of a basketball game we were watching. Had no issues at all. I have also flown to distance following a long road towards the centre of our little town which was interesting. But no problems at all to report.
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shegeek72
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Only if you're on a commercial job. Otherwise, it's the same as a non-107 pilot.
The spark is a fantastic night flyer i have hundreds of nifht flights with mine and vps system works a 1000 times better at night tgen say the mavic pro does
DroneDoug
Active Member
Let me state my experience I had a couple o days ago. Went out with my 2 kids to our next to home park and start flying around VLOS just right after sunset. Had 3 batteries so by the time using the 3rd one, daylight was almost gone. What I noticed during the 3rd battery's night flight are the following:
Spark was totally unstable when hovering. Even though it was responsive and accurate in joystick commands as usual, it was really struggling to hover in one place. It was moving slowly up and down (mostly downwards) and also left and right. The movement deviation was about 30cm to 50cm and if I let it hoover without any correction it will continue moving to where it wanted to go just as if it was in ATTI mode.
I immediately brought spark in front of me and start checking aircraft status parameters and found out I had 17 sats locked, GPS mode, and all other sensor status (compass, IMU) where ok. Furthermore, when I pressed RTH on purpose to see the aircraft's reaction, it tried to land about 10m away from where it took off. I played and experimented to the rest of the battery and nothing changed.
My strong feeling is that night flight and especially when flying low, creates instability because the down sensor sees nothing at all confusing its systems.
Open to your thoughts.
Spark was totally unstable when hovering. Even though it was responsive and accurate in joystick commands as usual, it was really struggling to hover in one place. It was moving slowly up and down (mostly downwards) and also left and right. The movement deviation was about 30cm to 50cm and if I let it hoover without any correction it will continue moving to where it wanted to go just as if it was in ATTI mode.
I immediately brought spark in front of me and start checking aircraft status parameters and found out I had 17 sats locked, GPS mode, and all other sensor status (compass, IMU) where ok. Furthermore, when I pressed RTH on purpose to see the aircraft's reaction, it tried to land about 10m away from where it took off. I played and experimented to the rest of the battery and nothing changed.
My strong feeling is that night flight and especially when flying low, creates instability because the down sensor sees nothing at all confusing its systems.
Open to your thoughts.
Did you try to let it hover higher up e.g. 10 meters? I guess the down sensors would not influence then.
I am not surprised on your experience. Understand it should have difficulties by landing in darkness. How about lighting up landing spot with a flash light?
Heckmaniac
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I'm not an expert, but have done many night flights and if your landing in complete darkness then what happened to you is typical. When doing a return to home, GPS home point gets the Spark to the general location (within a few feet), and then the camera takes over to land the craft, recognizing the ground objects from where it took off from and initiates the "precision" landing. If the camera only see's complete darkness, then there will not be a precision landing and location of the drone can vary and instability when landing (like a hard landing) can take place. As mentioned in the previous comment, if you put a little light on where you take off from and land at, the camera will bring the drone in much closer to the spot and you will not have an uncontrolled hard landing. If you ever try flying the drone indoors in Atti mode, the bottom camera is what keeps the drone stable in flight. If the floor or carpet is exactly the same everywhere - I find the drone changes position and floats aimlessly if I don't take over with the controller.
I noticed the new Mavic 2 has a landing light to help when landing.
The light can also be turned on during the flight to help you see it.
Seems like DJI is always improving the product.
The light can also be turned on during the flight to help you see it.
Seems like DJI is always improving the product.
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