Yesterday evening was an interesting learning experience for me. I live in a fairly wide-open area - golf course behind my house continuing north to a series of fields (mostly crops), a school, a small neighborhood, and then fields for 10+ miles north. My home is somewhat elevated so good LOS north from my deck.
I decided last night to test the range on my P3P while heading north. The plan was to head north until either signal was being lost or I hit 65% battery remaining, whichever happened first.
Surface wind speed was pretty low. 4mph or so heading north. I took off, ascended immediately to 400 feet, and ended up at 3.3 miles / 17,500 feet out when I lost video and remote signal was 1 bar. Hit RTH, it showed RTH initiating, and then lost RC signal. At this point I was at 75% battery and was 4.5 minutes in.
Waited about 2 minutes and I got RC and video signal again. The surprising thing - it was barely south of where RTH started and moving SLOWLY back. For the first time ever, it showed the home spot on the battery meter to the RIGHT of the battery remaining! By the time I reached the school (which is about 1 mile north of my home) I was at 35-40% battery, so I decided to land it in a small grassy field behind the school rather than risk it being forced to land in the crops or golf course between the school and my home - or making it back with a battery depleted to a damaging level. I descended to about 200 feet, pointed the gimbal down for a moment to make sure I was indeed over the field and not the road, then initiated a land. At about 80 feet up I lost signal (likely due to LOS loss), and I BOOKED IT over to that school. Phantom was in the field where I expected it, blinking its lights at me.
Reviewing logs, what I didn't notice at the time, was that I was getting a speed going north of 45+ mph, and coming back between 18-20mph. My guess is that at 400ft there was a much greater wind heading north than I had on the ground.
Lesson from this? Be aware of elevated windspeed. Does anyone have a good way to gauge this? Because the P3 is so good at keeping stable in higher speeds, the wind speed didn't appear to be higher up above from a flight perspective - it all seemed very stable. Or is it more a matter of watching your speed? Also keep an eye out for good safe landing spots if it comes to that when doing distance and battery seems insufficient for a return.
I decided last night to test the range on my P3P while heading north. The plan was to head north until either signal was being lost or I hit 65% battery remaining, whichever happened first.
Surface wind speed was pretty low. 4mph or so heading north. I took off, ascended immediately to 400 feet, and ended up at 3.3 miles / 17,500 feet out when I lost video and remote signal was 1 bar. Hit RTH, it showed RTH initiating, and then lost RC signal. At this point I was at 75% battery and was 4.5 minutes in.
Waited about 2 minutes and I got RC and video signal again. The surprising thing - it was barely south of where RTH started and moving SLOWLY back. For the first time ever, it showed the home spot on the battery meter to the RIGHT of the battery remaining! By the time I reached the school (which is about 1 mile north of my home) I was at 35-40% battery, so I decided to land it in a small grassy field behind the school rather than risk it being forced to land in the crops or golf course between the school and my home - or making it back with a battery depleted to a damaging level. I descended to about 200 feet, pointed the gimbal down for a moment to make sure I was indeed over the field and not the road, then initiated a land. At about 80 feet up I lost signal (likely due to LOS loss), and I BOOKED IT over to that school. Phantom was in the field where I expected it, blinking its lights at me.
Reviewing logs, what I didn't notice at the time, was that I was getting a speed going north of 45+ mph, and coming back between 18-20mph. My guess is that at 400ft there was a much greater wind heading north than I had on the ground.
Lesson from this? Be aware of elevated windspeed. Does anyone have a good way to gauge this? Because the P3 is so good at keeping stable in higher speeds, the wind speed didn't appear to be higher up above from a flight perspective - it all seemed very stable. Or is it more a matter of watching your speed? Also keep an eye out for good safe landing spots if it comes to that when doing distance and battery seems insufficient for a return.
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