Just For Fun 028

Under the Bridge with Telemetry

Wanted to try flying under the I-10 bridge over City Park Lake in Baton Rouge. The idea was to pop up on the other side, look around, then duck back under to return. Flying over the bridge, with all that traffic, was obviously not an option with a drone. But from my launch perspective, I couldn't tell for sure if I had emerged on the other side far enough to safely climb back up. And the aircraft altitude hold seemed a little iffy, so I quickly backed out the way I went in.

Back home, I loaded the telemetry into a Dashware overlay on the video so I could see if the GPS satellite count dropped considerably under the bridge, and what my actual altitudes were. Satellite count dropped to 14 from 16 or 17, so not substantially. The bird has a barometric sensor for altitude as well. Perhaps wind created a Venturi effect, speeding up to go under the bridge. But that would lower the pressure and possibly cause the aircraft to adjust its altitude lower, not higher.

I'm not sure what we learn from this, other than the pilot would be a lot more comfortable without water under the bridge!

Yuneec Typhoon 4K aircraft. Video downscaled to 1080 HD to enable use of Dashware for the telemetry overlay. Music added just to help with the boredom factor. Didn't want to edit the video for length and interest factors because I wanted to see all of the telemetry. If you get bored, use the scrubber and scroll ahead!