Requesting wind advice

[shockwave199]

Consistent wind direction is manageable. Dirty wind is nasty and very hard to fly. You might simply be in a lousy area to fly. One of the spots I fly for my battery fly-down if the prime location couldn't be flown for whatever reason is a park parking lot surrounded by trees, very close to home and convenient. That is a dirty wind spot and makes flying a challenge. Good practice, but that's about all. Good luck with your flights.

 

[Air Ontario]

I need some advice on flying in windy conditions, because where I live is a mountain channel with tricky gusts. I know there are lots of threads on flying the P3 in the wind, but after having crashed one from 100' altitude in high winds, I am now pretty scared of the wind!

Last Christmas Eve (2015), it was a windy day. I didn't have my anemometer with me, but my guess would be that the wind speed was in the 20's (mph). My wife cautioned me not to fly, but I told her people posted on the web that they can fly a Phantom at pretty high wind speeds. So I flew anyway. Right at take-off, the Phantom was carried backwards by the wind, even though it was in P mode. I then pushed the right stick forwards to stabilize the Phantom, and after that the GPS seemed to do its job. So I just went forwards and upwards as usual without thinking much about the wind. At about 100' up and about 300'-400' ahead of me, the Phantom suddenly fell from the sky faster than I could do anything about it! (Maybe there was nothing I could have done at that point anyway.) There was snow on the ground, and the gimbal and a rotor or two broke, and the body had a crack in it. If it hadn't been for the Square Trade drops-and-spills warranty I would have tried to fix it. But instead I got a check for the amount of the purchase.

I used that check to buy another P3A, this time more than $200 cheaper. However, Square Trade would no longer sell a warranty for Phantoms! Too many crashes, I guess.

Today, I was ready to fly in the evening, and there was a breeze that seemed tricky, but the anemometer never read more than 10 MPH. However, as soon as I armed the Phantom 3, a gust came along and knocked the Phantom over, breaking a rotor and scratching up another one. I replaced the broken rotor, but decided to pack up instead of fly.

So here's my question: had I decide to go ahead and fly instead of packing up, would I have been all right? Maybe the Phantom was easy to get knocked over by the wind because it had just started up??? However, my first P3A fell from the sky after having flown for a few hundred feet, and so I was afraid the new P3A might also fall from the sky even if I could get it initially under control.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Thanks in advance!

When flying in cool/cold weather, battery VOLTAGE, not percent charge is critical. Hard, full speed ascents COMBINED with full throttle forward are likely to pull voltage low enough to cause battery to shut off(falling from sky) May be similar to what you experienced.

I try to check ground level winds and then research winds aloft, especially at my preset RTH height. Use airport radiosondes Skew T charts, AWC winds aloft, etc to get a real accurate picture of the wind where you are.

I have done 22mph G to 27+ at 170 ft but it became risky. I won't launch if the bird at rest is unstable or about to tip in the wind.

So I usually limit myself to around an honest 15 mph. Photos and video done at wind speeds higher aren't always good quality.

 

[Mo of Pocatello]

Reply: Thanks so much for the hypothesis on what might have crashed the Phantom on Dec 24th! Sounds plausible. How would you suggest protecting the battery? There's very little room inside the battery compartment. By the way I had just upgraded the firmware of either the craft or the controller; one but not the other, before the fateful flight. The reason being that I was already outdoors and the djigo application only permitted one of the two things to be updated without using a regular computer. Maybe this caused a furmware mismatch?

 

[Mo of Pocatello]

Thanks! I don't know anything about airport radiosonded skew t charts, etc. Maybe i should learn them!

 

[Mo of Pocatello]

Thanks! Actually I've had many successful flights here, do just have to be careful.

 

[Air Ontario]

You know Doc? Owns a business in town. Doc's Gun shop?
Try UAV forecast. You can set the parameters to suite your height, wind speed etc.

 

[CafeRacer]

I doubt it was just the wind that caused your phantom to fall out of the sky. Something else must have happened like an accidental csc or the battery shutdown or became disconnected.

I must say I agree with you concerning the wind not playing a part in the crash. Watch this YouTube video where the guy takes his Phantom above the clouds. In the video the Phantom looks as if it is taking a pounding by the wind when in actuality it is making corrections. You can tell because there is no lateral movement in the shot. Now I'm no meteorologist, but at max height it's windy as hell and the Phantom, at least this one in particular , had no problem at all.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[John473]

Storm in Dallas on 3/23 pm with wind's maxing out at 42mph at times. 300 feet up.
Just as I touched down the hail started and barely got in the house. Had I been up 4 min longer.... :-(
But I got some good footage

 

[John473]

My first storm capture event.

 

[exit 4]

Weren't you scared it would get hit by lightning?