flying in very windy conditions

vlper · Mar 13, 2016

Hi there

Have had the P3P for a while now and where i'm from in western australia its very windy. The bird usually handles up to 25km/h winds fine. its usually only landing where i have to be careful about. On the weekend i was flying in about 25km/h wind with some gust up to 35km/h. The bird is fine but my camera gimbal seems to "twitch" and the landing skid comes into view halfway into the video. i have never seen it before. I also have some weights and filter attached to the camera.

whats the worse that can happen in windy conditions? can the wind actually flip the bird?

WetDog · Mar 13, 2016

The biggest problem in high winds is losing the bird due to a gust and an unfortunately placed hard object. The other problem is rapid depletion of the battery - you might not make it home on time.

Yes, your photography can suffer. The gimbal is a pretty impressive device but it has limits.

msinger · Mar 13, 2016

vlper said:
can the wind actually flip the bird?

It's not likely to flip in mid-flight. You could tip and flip it when touching down though. Play it safe and don't fly when you think it's too windy. Or, pick up a heaver bird -- like an Inspire

vlper · Mar 13, 2016

Yes I've been quite confident of my P3P in windy conditions being very careful not to go too far downwind.

On the weekend i had an unfortunate series of events where I was using a new-ish battery, flying over water in windy conditions and at the exact moment the camera twitched to the side enough to show the landing skid, i lost video.

obviously shat myself big time but video came back 2 mins later thr bird was hovering at the same position. phew!