Help with Litchi question

[Telrush]

Hi,
I'm getting my feet "wet" with Litchi. I flew a couple of missions thus far and notice today with the last run mission, I was not making headway very well due to the wind speed ( winds from the north variable 12-16MPH).
So, the question is; Can the drone or even Litchi make the drone work harder during flight to keep up with the wind drifts?
I set my speed within all of my waypoints to 15MPH, but noticed when flying the mission today, at times, I was making very slow progress around my loop of waypoints, Like 3 -4 MPH at times even 0mph. Kinda scary, watching your drone get pushed backwards. lol
here is the mission I created. Thanks in advance

Mission Hub - Litchi
TJ

 

[tevek]

You’re pretty much at the mercy of the elements once you have started a mission. Wind at height usually varies greatly to that on the ground and it has caught out many people with either lost drones or insufficient battery to return home. The quad or the mission is not going to accelerate with the effects of wind, I always run a mission with no more than 12-15 mins and be prepared to abort the mission and come back in sports mode if need be.

 

[sar104]

Hi,
I'm getting my feet "wet" with Litchi. I flew a couple of missions thus far and notice today with the last run mission, I was not making headway very well due to the wind speed ( winds from the north variable 12-16MPH).
So, the question is; Can the drone or even Litchi make the drone work harder during flight to keep up with the wind drifts?
I set my speed within all of my waypoints to 15MPH, but noticed when flying the mission today, at times, I was making very slow progress around my loop of waypoints, Like 3 -4 MPH at times even 0mph. Kinda scary, watching your drone get pushed backwards. lol
here is the mission I created. Thanks in advance

Mission Hub - Litchi
TJ

The aircraft will fly at the programmed ground speed provided that it can achieve that within the pitch and roll limits of the flight mode. If a headwind becomes too strong, however, then the ground speed will drop accordingly.

 

[Telrush]

You’re pretty much at the mercy of the elements once you have started a mission. Wind at height usually varies greatly to that on the ground and it has caught out many people with either lost drones or insufficient battery to return home. The quad or the mission is not going to accelerate with the effects of wind, I always run a mission with no more than 12-15 mins and be prepared to abort the mission and come back in sports mode if need be.

Thank you for the reply. I totally agree with you on all counts.

Litchi told me my flight time for this mission was to be about 6 mins. After looking at the flight logs, the real mission took more than double that time before I ended the mission with RTH

So what would be a good plan for these types of uncertainty's with weather? What is the normal fight speed set to for most applications?

I could see maybe, when creating a new mission, then make 3 of the same mission, except with 3 different flight speeds based on weather conditions, on the day you decide fly? Could be an option which might just save the day, and your drone as well.

 

[tevek]

Thank you for the reply. I totally agree with you on all counts.

Litchi told me my flight time for this mission was to be about 6 mins. After looking at the flight logs, the real mission took more than double that time before I ended the mission with RTH

So what would be a good plan for these types of uncertainty's with weather? What is the normal fight speed set to for most applications?

I could see maybe, when creating a new mission, then make 3 of the same mission, except with 3 different flight speeds based on weather conditions, on the day you decide fly? Could be an option which might just save the day, and your drone as well.

If there is a bit of wind about when I’m about to fly, I’ll put the drone up at the plannned mission height, flick it over to ATTI mode and watch the amount of drift and check it on the app screen. For normal free flying I run at about 50 kph in P-GPS which gives me the most efficient battery life. Most of my missions are run at 30 kph so any filming that I may be doing is reasonable and not rushed so to speak. Always run a fully charged battery and finish with 40-50% battery life which I then use for a quick pano shot of the area where I’m flying. That way, if I run into any issues, I can bring it back quickly. As for setting up different missions with varying speeds, give it a try but I won’t fly if I’m seeing anything above 25 kph on the screen at mission height in ATTI mode. If I lose my drone where I live, I won’t be getting it back.

 

[Kirby Johnson]

The aircraft will fly at the programmed ground speed provided that it can achieve that within the pitch and roll limits of the flight mode. If a headwind becomes too strong, however, then the ground speed will drop accordingly.

Thanks for actually answering his question, as I had wondered the same thing. It is not to hard, (above ) to figure out that the drone will not go faster than it is capable of going. I had wondered if the drone would carry on with a preset throttle, as if the accelerator were fixed, or if it acted more like cruise control, as a vehicle maintains speed up and down hills. I know it will 'fight the wind 'so to speak in RTH mode, albeit at a reduced maximum throttle. Thanks again

 

[With The Birds]

Thanks for actually answering his question, as I had wondered the same thing. It is not to hard, (above ) to figure out that the drone will not go faster than it is capable of going. I had wondered if the drone would carry on with a preset throttle, as if the accelerator were fixed, or if it acted more like cruise control, as a vehicle maintains speed up and down hills. I know it will 'fight the wind 'so to speak in RTH mode, albeit at a reduced maximum throttle. Thanks again

With limited available battery capacity there are instances where you won’t make it home in RTH mode even with no wind. RTH flys slower than the optimum speed for max range.

 

[tevek]

With limited available battery capacity there are instances where you won’t make it home in RTH mode even with no wind. RTH flys slower than the optimum speed for max range.

Correct answer, thanks for clarifying my previous circumlocution.

 

[With The Birds]

Correct answer, thanks for clarifying my previous circumlocution.

I think you worked that out a long time back Mate. It is a common misconception however that DJI set up RTH for most efficient return- many have found out the hard way that isn’t the case.

 

[wa5tef]

I set my maximum speed to its maximum to cover such situations.

Good luck
Jim
WA5TEF

 

[drvrbobob]

In the litchi hub you set air speed, you msy want to check your settings. You can set a different speed between waypoints, and of course set speed for entire flight. If winds only about 16 mph sounds like drone speed was not much more than that. IMHO.

 

[Telrush]

Thanks, everyone for all the replies. Great points and tips!

I'd like to add to this topic, a bit more of my findings as I become more proficient with Litchi missions.

So yesterday, I created a few more missions of the same area that I flew previously. This time, I reduced my waypoints and used straight lines with no curves as for recording Pano shots. Worked perfectly, with the only exception of Lichi's estimated time of flight. It seems to me that Litchi does not account for "actions" when calculating "estimated flight time".

Licthi estimated my flight time as, 0.3 mi/ with 1 min to complete, flying at a cruising speed of 20mph. Winds were light this time so no issues with that factor.

During the mission, I noticed it was taking much longer to complete due to the 2 Pano's I added at waypoint 2 and 3.
After the mission, I checked my flight data via Airdata which reported my flight time as 5:30 which is nowhere close to what Litchi estimated for my flight time.

So with that in mind, I would advise anyone to consider all "actions" as extra time spent in the air. and also adding that time to the estimated flight time by Litchi.

To bad Litchi can't clean this estimated model up a bit better for reporting estimates of flight time. I'm guessing by my example, for each pano you can add a least 1.5 min per pano

Hope this might help others avoid these possible inconsistent estimates within the Litchi Mission Hub.

Best regards,

TJ