For the last few evenings since the change of weather, I’ve found myself sat in my living room gazing out of the patio window at the top of some tall trees up the field about 150 yards away.
My other half thinks I’ve finally lost it. she said “what do you keep looking at out there?” Trees I said. "What’s wrong with them? "They’re moving, I said. The look on her face was a picture. I then had to explain.
My question (which I’m sure must have been asked a thousand times) is how windy is too windy?
I took my MPP out the other night and despite getting the windy message at about 120ft it really didn’t seem to affect anything, although I didn’t feel up to increasing my altitude.
I am pretty new to this lark too and also been getting in a froth about the wind. I have to say that the MP can handle some pretty strong breezes without getting out of shape. Even when I got the red critical wind warning at 400 feet I just pressed RTH and it came doodling back quite happily. I would suggest keeping it fairly close and be aware that the wind at head height is considerably less than 400 feet and just play around and get a feel for it. Most important thing is not to fly downwind and use up a lot of battery as there is a fair chance of running out of steam coming home into a head wind. Also the UAV forecast is pretty good as a guide
My test is put it up to around 50m with sports mode off and obstacle avoidance on.
If it holds position and can fly into wind I know it’s under 22mph. If it’s struggling I call it a day.
You can fly it in sports mode in higher wind but can be a bad idea. If you lose signal and failsafe RTH kicks in it will try to return at max 22mph and may not have enough power to overcome wind.
I’ve increased my RTH speed to combat this but lose obstacle avoidance.
I haven’t been playing this game for too long either, and have been eager to get my MP up in the air since the weather changed for the worse. I did venture out yesterday evening even though the trees were moving.
The wind was about 12mph gusting up to about 16mph (I have a wind meter) so I took it up to about 50m (around 150ft, I think) and it was getting carried by the wind a bit, obviously the wind speed is higher up there. I was flying at Hengistbury Head, so the wind was coming off the Eglish channel with nothing much to stop it.
So up at 50m it was struggling to come back, so I dropped down to about 20m and it came back a lot better then. So I think i was just about on the limit where I would feel comfortable flying and certainly not over the 50m mark.
I tried out a few stills and video shots and then gave up. I haven’t had the time to look at any of the results yet. If any of it is any good I’ll post them here later.
My worst experience was recently after a firmware downgrade and installing new mod app.
Wind was slowly taking mavic away so flicked it into sports mode which did nothing, alternative flight modes were not enabled in app. Took me a few minutes to find the setting and by then panic had really set in.
Recently watched youtube vid where a guy demonstrates taking a video in blizzard conditions so bad, the deer he was shooting where almost swept off their feet. The vid was all about taking risks for the ‘great shot’. Certainly made me think i should stop farting around a go for it.
Using the flight simulator in the DJI Go 4 app, I’ve tried different wind speeds and, on the simulator, it struggles to make headway against the wind above 20mph, but I assume the simulatgor is designed around the technical spec of the drone, not necessarily precisely how it would actually perform in a real environment. I’ve seen the advice before to reduce altitude if that’s the only way to get home. Something else I’m wondering about though - could a sudden severe gust tip the drone over and, if so, would it right itself as it fell?
