How much wind is too much?

[Steve_in_DE]

I am travelling to Orlando with my Phantom and hope to get some flights in. Looking at the weather forecast I see that winds are often 13-15mph. That seems a little breezy to me. Am I being too cautious? I plan to fly via a Litchi mission.

Just how much wind is it reasonable to fly in?

Thanks!
Steve

 

[CrispyClaret]

I doubt you will get an exact answer as everyone has different comfort levels.
I take mine up and see how she reacts, its pretty obvious if the wind is causing a struggle station keeping while hovering.
I would have thought your expected winds are ok, just be mindful that a return to home against the wind will take a lot longer than the downwind leg. Watch the battery and predicted remaining flying time.
At the end of the day its down to how many batteries and flight windows you have, can you do a test run with Go or Litchi before committing to a planned mission?

 

[Meta4]

I am travelling to Orlando with my Phantom and hope to get some flights in. Looking at the weather forecast I see that winds are often 13-15mph. That seems a little breezy to me. Am I being too cautious? I plan to fly via a Litchi mission.
Just how much wind is it reasonable to fly in?

As long as you don't fly a long distance away with the wind and have to fly a long way back against it 13-15 mph is like nothing to the Phantom.

 

[Bckmstr]

a lot of factors involved, ones comfort level, experience, what you want or need the bird to do, location, ect... see where i'm going....I've flown my p4 is as high as 25mph with gusts over 30 and I was amazed how well it did....best advice I could give someone would be plan what you wish to accomplish, and stay inside your comfort level , always another day to fly if conditions are not ideal for you to stay safe and feel comfortable ...imo

 

[Steve_in_DE]

Thanks to all for your thoughts on this. The trip I am planning is scheduled to take 12 minutes and will travel 2.7 miles roundtrip, so even if the craft has to work a bit harder in one direction in a 15mph breeze , it should be OK.

 

[Steve_in_DE]

BTW here's my trip. It follows a little river. I have yet to plug in waypoints, headings, etc. I will fly this once with WPs and once cablecam style.
Mission Hub - Litchi

 

[ElGuapo]

Be careful with the wind, keep in mind that the more she struggles with the wind it is going to utilize more battery power.

About a month ago I had an scary situation flying on a windy day, about 15MPH, I thought I was going to lose my aircraft in the ocean running an Autopilot mission. I noticed a bit of wind and my plan to launch and let the aircraft hover for about a few seconds to visually see how she was going to handle the wind. I launched the aircraft with the DJI Go App to a safe altitude of about 30 feet, something I usually do to make sure everything is okay. She seemed fine right after I launched, I hovered for about a minute and felt confident that she could run the entire mission. I closed DJI Go App, launched Autopilot and engaged the mission. AP calculated that entire mission was going to take about 15 minutes, easy peasy i thought. The one factor I underestimated was the wind / battery consumption. The mission completed just fine, my last waypoint was about 2.3miles out and 190ft high in the ocean. In my calculations and based on previous experience flying my P3P, I thought I had enough juice to bring her back with room to spare, away from the critically low battery.
Seems to me that the wind out there could have been a bit stronger, when I started to bring her back my battery had reached a low level. The distance was not that much but the wind was making the trip back to shore an ordeal. Half way on the return trip she was getting close to critically low battery percentage, we all know what this means. It means that the aircraft is going to start a controlled descend in the ocean. Luckily when she reached shore the bird was 1% away from reaching the critical level. Phew..

Learned a good lesson on that day, and was pretty I was going to put one in the drink.

Good luck, do not underestimate the wind. Give yourself room to spare in windy conditions.

 

[ElGuapo]

BTW here's my trip. It follows a little river. I have yet to plug in waypoints, headings, etc. I will fly this once with WPs and once cablecam style.
Mission Hub - Litchi

Your mission looks pretty safe, away from the water anyways. Total time is 12 minutes, it all depends how windy it is going to be on that day.
I would still run the mission, keep your eyes on the display to watch for your battery level and be ready disengage and bring the aircraft back if you see a unusually low battery level.

P.S. I like your mission, be careful with those trees in the middle of the river. Some of those tend to be over 100ft high.

Good luck, share your footage in this forum.

 

[RC Madman]

If you don't already have a UAV weather app get one. Winds at ground or 30 feet up can be much much different at 150,250 and 400 feet.

The other day the wind at 33 feet was 14mph but at 300 feet it was blowing at 44mph. I find anything above 20mph with my P3A is not much fun aside from going fast in 1 direction.

I use the UAV Forecast app for Android.

 

[flyNfrank]

If you don't already have a UAV weather app get one. Winds at ground or 30 feet up can be much much different at 150,250 and 400 feet.

The other day the wind at 33 feet was 14mph but at 300 feet it was blowing at 44mph. I find anything above 20mph with my P3A is not much fun aside from going fast in 1 direction.

I use the UAV Forecast app for Android.

Are those mph numbers given for constant or variable winds?

 

[flyNfrank]

Be careful with the wind, keep in mind that the more she struggles with the wind it is going to utilize more battery power.

About a month ago I had an scary situation flying on a windy day, about 15MPH, I thought I was going to lose my aircraft in the ocean running an Autopilot mission. I noticed a bit of wind and my plan to launch and let the aircraft hover for about a few seconds to visually see how she was going to handle the wind. I launched the aircraft with the DJI Go App to a safe altitude of about 30 feet, something I usually do to make sure everything is okay. She seemed fine right after I launched, I hovered for about a minute and felt confident that she could run the entire mission. I closed DJI Go App, launched Autopilot and engaged the mission. AP calculated that entire mission was going to take about 15 minutes, easy peasy i thought. The one factor I underestimated was the wind / battery consumption. The mission completed just fine, my last waypoint was about 2.3miles out and 190ft high in the ocean. In my calculations and based on previous experience flying my P3P, I thought I had enough juice to bring her back with room to spare, away from the critically low battery.
Seems to me that the wind out there could have been a bit stronger, when I started to bring her back my battery had reached a low level. The distance was not that much but the wind was making the trip back to shore an ordeal. Half way on the return trip she was getting close to critically low battery percentage, we all know what this means. It means that the aircraft is going to start a controlled descend in the ocean. Luckily when she reached shore the bird was 1% away from reaching the critical level. Phew..

Learned a good lesson on that day, and was pretty I was going to put one in the drink.

Good luck, do not underestimate the wind. Give yourself room to spare in windy conditions.

I'm curious if when at halfway on the return trip and you noticed the battery getting close to the critically low point, did you leave it in the set mission? Or did you switch out the mission and take control of the aircraft?

 

[RC Madman]

Are those mph numbers given for constant or variable winds?

I app does not say if they are variable or constant but if it gusting to 44mph or constant your in for a heck of a ride.

They have a browser addition as well. UAV Forecast

 

[Multicoptertec]

As pilot in command, you should have a flight plan in mind, including "what ifs". Wind is hard to predict, and we don't know if you will be facing tailwind, headwind, crosswind, etc, and what your mission distance is. I have personally seen aircraft lost due to wind, so plan carefully. As far as craft stability, I have flown in 20-25 mph wind, and my P3A was pretty stable. Landing in wind is also something you should consider.

 

[Sagebrush]

Take your bird straight up and let it hover at 50' and then 100' if you're okay with it. Move it out thirty yards downwind and see what it takes to get it back.

SB

 

[ElGuapo]

I'm curious if when at halfway on the return trip and you noticed the battery getting close to the critically low point, did you leave it in the set mission? Or did you switch out the mission and take control of the aircraft?

Very good question.

While the aircraft was running Autopilot's mission I had in my head that the mission was going to take 15 minutes to complete. Under normal weather conditions 15 minutes of flight time for the Phantom should give me enough battery to return home and land safely. The mission completion setting was set to hover.
At the beginning of the mission I was visually paying attention to the aircraft, (this is one of the beauties of flying autonomously, not to mention the professional looking videos) then I got distracted by people that stopped by to ask questions, as the aircraft started to disappear in the horizon slowly. This whole time, I was not paying attention to the display until I lost visual with the aircraft. Looked at the waypoints, looked where the aircraft was, noticed the battery level was unusually low for the amount of time the aircraft had been flying. The mission was 12 minutes in with 3 more minutes to go. As a precaution I moved my finger to the Flight Mode Switch in case I had to abort the mission by toggling back to P mode.
The minute the mission completed I quickly changed to P mode and took manual control of the aircraft and started to bring her back with 25% battery left. It was windy where I was sitting at the shoreline, pretty sure it had to be windier up there where she was at 190 ft.

In hindsight I should have flown the aircraft back home in ATTI mode.

 

[With The Birds]

Don't be fooled by the apparent absence of wind at your take off position. It is not unusual for things to be a lot different at altitude.

I use UAV forecast and fly manually in ATTI mode on my first battery to get a feel for wind speed before venturing out if I'm planing a longer flight. It pays off.

 

[ElGuapo]

I like the approach of flying in ATTI mode on the first battery to get a feel for wind speed before venturing out on a Mission resulting in longer flights.

I almost put one in the drink that day, lesson learned.

 

[Drone GrassHopper]

I am a novice and was flying in gusts to 25 MPH. I was really surprised how fast my battery's went down. I'm NOT going to fly in that kind of wind again. My fully charged battery's only last for 11 minutes and I was in P mode.

 

[Grandpa Don]

I live on the Mojave Desert where there is almost always a strong wind blowing. Most of the time it is blowing around 15 MPH, sometime more. What I do is quickly manually take off. I never us the Auto-takeoff feature. I'll jump up off the ground like a Jackrabbit with the Drone facing into the wind to an altitude of about 20 feet. Then I'll just let it hover there for a minute or so just to see if the autopilot can handle the wind and hold position. If I want to know what the wind speed is at altitude, I'll go up to about 100 feet or so and turn off the GPS. It will immediately start to drift downwind. I'll let it go until I get a steady MPH speed reading on the DJI Go app. I will generally go up wind a bit before I do this, and then let it drift back over me. That procedure will tell me wind direction and speed. If it is strong, I won't go very far downwind, only crosswind and upwind. When I come in to land, I will always hand catch. When you do a hand catch, turn the drone facing away from you and never let it get below the height of your head. If you make a mistake, it will go over the top of you and not into you head.
My neighbor has deep scars on his cheek just below his left eye because he did not follow this procedure. Once it is in a steady hover, carefully reach up and grab one of the vertical legs and hold on tight. The drone will try to get away from you at that point. You'll hear the motors change speed. Hold on while you shut the motors down with your other hand. Do not lower it below the height of your head until the motors completely stop turning. Hand catching is dangerous! Practice it first in a no wind condition.
If you use the auto-takeoff in a strong wind, you will most likely tip over on the props. It just can't adjust fast enough to compensate. The same thing will most likely happen if you try to land on the ground in a strong wind. Just my 2 cents.

 

[CleethorpesKid]

BTW here's my trip. It follows a little river. I have yet to plug in waypoints, headings, etc. I will fly this once with WPs and once cablecam style.
Mission Hub - Litchi

Here are a few that I did in Kissimmee 3 weeks ago:

Mission Hub - Litchi

Mission Hub - Litchi

https://flylitchi.com/hub?m=Wqp2IYa9IC#

and one I never got around to:
Mission Hub - Litchi