Phantom Wind almost took down my bird.....

digital290 · Jul 26, 2016

I was in the process of testing several different parabolic antenna designs with surface wind at 5-7 mph. I had gotten out to 3000 ft and the video started to break up and I turned around to head back home. As I did, some incredible winds came in from a storm nearby and prevented my bird from making any noticeable headway. On full throttle it was only moving 5-6 feet per second. I was at 200 feet elevation and brought it down to 120 feet thinking there would be less wind....battery was at 46 % and I'm getting nervous. I decided to fly diagonal and zig zag rather than head on and hope the battery lasted. Several blocks to go and battery at 15% and the RC started get that alarm sound.. I managed to land it in the street nearby with no traffic. All's well that ends well! I might note that ground wind speed never increased over 5-7 MPH. Watch out for Phantom Wind trying to eat your Phantom.

Digdat0 · Jul 26, 2016

I went to the coast and fought 30mph winds, at one point it got caught and
Tried to head out to sea similar to your situation. I dropped altitude and cut diagonally, I made it back at like 5mph, landed and gtfo.

Glad you were able to land safely and retrieve it. That sounds like it had your blood pressure up a bit.

Wyattroa · Jul 26, 2016

Thats a big fear of mine with these smaller birds. When I went out over 3 miles at sea I knew there was chance I would hit wind further out at sea and at elevation. Luckily when I turned around I didn't hit anything. Still gets your blood pumping.