At what wind speed do you ground your P3S?

[Matts175]

What's the maximum wind speed you feel comfortable flying in? We are looking at 12-13mph as I type this and I want to go outside and push my range to the RTH limit.

 

[RW-1]

I'd say if you have to ask .... then you have answered your own question.

Everyone's personal limits are different to begin with.

I will say that if you are pushing the RTH, then a windy day is not the day to do it, as you want to go outbound against the wind. You'll be limiting yourself to begin with there.

 

[Tenly]

I fly a P3P in up to 20mph without problems. If you're going to "push the limit" of your battery range, make sure your outbound flight is INTO the wind so that you'll have a tailwind on the return trip.

If your outbound flight is *with* the wind, you will be fighting a headwind on your way home and will probably not make it all the way back.


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[Matts175]

I'd say if you have to ask .... then you have answered your own question.

True, but I'm coming from a Syma X5C (still have it) and about 7mph was the limit for that light lil thing, so that's all I have to gauge from.

 

[GMack]

I gauge by the flags on a pole near where I fly. Some old military thumb-rule has the angle they are flying at divided by 4 gives you the wind speed. If they are around 80 degrees up, that would mean 20 MPH and I notice the drone has a really bad time with horizon being level as it hovers twisted into the wind too and yawing it around in a 360.

Autopilot has some warning about over 10 MPH where the flight may not be in a straight line, but more of a curve getting to the next waypoint. I think they don't like flights over 10-15 MPH either. My barometer also seems less accurate on windy days over still air days too.

I have an old wind speed meter in my bag, but even when it shows maybe 5-10 MPH on the ground, the flags might be ripping off the poles at their height. Now I 'try' and fly when they are no more than 20-40 degrees up, and the drone appears more level and happy with that too. Otherwise I need to keep cranking the gimbal level wheel to level the horizon when the yaw changes to another direction (And sometime I turn the wheel the wrong way and wreck the shot!).

 

[Mark The Droner]

Doing a distance run, I'd happily fly in 20 mph winds.

IF...

the wind is coming directly at me. And

IF...

the wind is forecast to be steady or increasing.

Othewise I'd stay grounded.

If it's a cross wind, I wouldn't fly even if it was 10 mph or more (I've got lots of stories),

If it's a tail wind, I would consider flying if it's forecast to decrease. It kinda depends. Tailwinds can be dangerous, but at least they won't blow you off course.

I like uavforecast and windytv, I use both every flight, and at the required elevation.

Remember to use altitude so it favors your flight.

 

[grin factor]

Still newish to flying the Phantom after an M-tech pro (similar to syma X5) and a Hubsan 502e so no more then 10 mph for me

 

[Matts175]

Ah phooey!!! I give up. I'm removing this ARGtek antenna as I type this. Sending back to Amazon. 1800 feet at 330 high and it COMPLETELY lost video and control. Talk about scared. I had the 3 panels on and I'm 99% sure I was pointing them right at the bird. Kept getting RTH failed too. I'm 1000% sure I have the 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz leads hooked up correctly. Cracked it open, just to see. She's all safe n sound on my shelf now and her ITELITE will be here (EDIT: Thursday) via FedEx.

ARGtek kit, Pros- you don't have to drill holes in your transmitter, for when you have to remove it and send it back a week later. LOL

 

[Samuraiz]

I also always check UAV Forecast before flying. As an experiment put 50 then 100 200 300 feet into the Wind altitude box to see just how different the wind speed can be at different altitudes.

UAV Forecast

 

[WilliamM]

What's the maximum wind speed you feel comfortable flying in? We are looking at 12-13mph as I type this and I want to go outside and push my range to the RTH limit.

10 mph or less, no issues at all. 10 to 15 mph, fly into the wind not with it (crosswind OK, just hope you don't lose GPS flight).
15 to 20 mph into the wind only, (crosswind very risky) and no way fly with the wind. 20+ mph, time to stay grounded.

 

[Tenly]

If it's a cross wind, I wouldn't fly even if it was 10 mph or more (I've got lots of stories),

If it's a tail wind, I would consider flying if it's forecast to decrease. It kinda depends. Tailwinds can be dangerous, but at least they won't blow you off course.

An engineer friend helped me develop a trick for dealing with cross winds...

If you find yourself faced with a cross wind, then before you take off, pick up the drone and rotate it 90 degrees then set it back down. Turn your body so that it faces the same direction as the drone now faces and you'll find that the wind has changed from a cross wind to a tail wind or a headwind!

If it's a tailwind, pick up the drone again - this time rotate it 180 degrees and set it back down. As before, turn your body to match the new orientation of the drone and you'll find that you are now faced with a headwind instead of the original cross wind or tailwind! (It really works!!!)




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[Mark The Droner]

That's great, but if you're on a distance run (pushing range per the OP), you're wasting your time with a cross wind because your battery energy will be wasted fighting with the cross wind. So you're not going to break any records. If you're just flying to fly, that's fine.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Matts175]

P.S. Gotta love Amazon. I already have the refund for the ARGtek in my account. Amazon refunds most things as soon as you drop it off at UPS.

 

[Phantom-Paul]

As a rough rule if my hat stays on my head I fly. If it blows off its too windy .
I do use an anemometer and if really desperate will fly at wind gusts up to 10 meters a second max (20 mph) on the ground. Obviously if its 10 meters a second at ground level its going to be a lot stronger 75 meters up. The Phantom 3 seems to really struggle after that it is supposed to be capable of 16 meters a sec in atti mode but its not worth the risk of a fly away (blow away )

 

[WilliamM]

An engineer friend helped me develop a trick for dealing with cross winds...

If you find yourself faced with a cross wind, then before you take off, pick up the drone and rotate it 90 degrees then set it back down. Turn your body so that it faces the same direction as the drone now faces and you'll find that the wind has changed from a cross wind to a tail wind or a headwind!

If it's a tailwind, pick up the drone again - this time rotate it 180 degrees and set it back down. As before, turn your body to match the new orientation of the drone and you'll find that you are now faced with a headwind instead of the original cross wind or tailwind! (It really works!!!)




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Think you totally missed the point of the posts above that talk of crosswind. Most of us have a destination in mind when we're flying a particular location or at least the direction of travel that we would prefer. So turning around an facing another direction is not an option because that may not be where your point of interest is at.

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[Johnny kercheval]

I have flown in winds 20+ in atti mode and gotten to 61.5 mph. Its was pretty stable but fly at your own risk

 

[Solly747400]

I also always check UAV Forecast before flying. As an experiment put 50 then 100 200 300 feet into the Wind altitude box to see just how different the wind speed can be at different altitudes.

UAV Forecast

Thanks for this website. I had no idea it existed. It's pretty cool

 

[chrislongley]

In most of the UK on Christmas Day (and the following day) we were experiencing the remnants of a couple of storms. For hours there were winds of 40mph (gusting to twice that). There was the occasional lull - maybe a couple of minutes. I do wonder how many people lost their Xmas drone, unable to resist flying it at Christmas, not schooled in the risks .

I like to fly when wind isn't in double figures. I've flown before when it's been around 15mph and the drone is no fun to fly, it's unresponsive, looks like it's struggling, video isn't as smooth and battery life is reduced.

A rule-of-thumb before you go too far from your home point is to switch your quadcopter to ATTI mode and see how much it drifts when it doesn't 'know' that the wind has pushed it - when it's not correcting with gps. You will have an idea of the wind effect.

 

[Mark The Droner]

One other thing - there's an increased risk of prop spin-off in high winds. So be sure you snug those props down real nice.

 

[WilliamM]

In most of the UK on Christmas Day (and the following day) we were experiencing the remnants of a couple of storms. For hours there were winds of 40mph (gusting to twice that). There was the occasional lull - maybe a couple of minutes. I do wonder how many people lost their Xmas drone, unable to resist flying it at Christmas, not schooled in the risks .

I like to fly when wind isn't in double figures. I've flown before when it's been around 15mph and the drone is no fun to fly, it's unresponsive, looks like it's struggling, video isn't as smooth and battery life is reduced.

A rule-of-thumb before you go too far from your home point is to switch your quadcopter to ATTI mode and see how much it drifts when it doesn't 'know' that the wind has pushed it - when it's not correcting with gps. You will have an idea of the wind effect.

Maybe your drone needs to props. When I'm flying in 15 to 20 I noticed almost no difference in performance, with the one exception of going slower forward when it's a headwind. Just went out the day before last with winds in the teens and gusts up to 30, had no issues. When I have a minute I'll even upload the video and you can check out if there's any camera/gimbal issues. But I will admit being I was approximately 1000 meters out for most of that flight if I had lost GPS or my connection to the RC things could have gone sideways pretty quickly.

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