How much wind can a mavic handle?

Swaggy Evan · Mar 18, 2017

Title says it all. Any of you tested it?

Bunny Too · Mar 18, 2017

Swaggy Evan said:
Title says it all. Any of you tested it?

I thought I saw in the manual 20 mph somewhere but I can not find it now, I have had mine in 20 mph and been okay.
Regards,
-d.
10 m/s in the manual = 22 mph but I know there are people here who have done more.

Cyberpower678 · Mar 18, 2017

Swaggy Evan said:
Title says it all. Any of you tested it?

I've pushed 45 kph.

dbsanders · Mar 19, 2017

noka · Mar 19, 2017

Did well over 50 kph.
Have a look:
High Wind Test - absolutely amazing!

Lapeer20m · Mar 19, 2017

Michigan had its largest widespread storm related power outage last week.

I don't know the actual wind speeds, but there was steady wind over 20mph and gusts over 40.

I took the mavic out and flew for a few minutes just for fun. It did spectacularly well. The video was stable even when the mavic was pitched sideways in the wind.

In retrospect, I should have shot a GoPro video of this flight.

Threshold · Mar 19, 2017

I flew in 20-30 with gusts of 40mph. In my opinion it is really pointless and stupid to fly in high winds. The video gets jerky when fighting the winds. I took the mavic above the trees and then realized the wind was pulling it away and it wasn't hovering at one spot. I steered the craft back towards my position and it was still drifting backwards. I immediately switched it into sport mode and barely got it back. As I was steering it back I kept calm and visually scanned areas to safely land it, just in case. So moral of my story is, 30-40mph is too much. Rule of thumb, if wind speed is over 20mph it's best to call it a day.

BorisTheSpider · Mar 19, 2017

Yeah I'd agree with what's been said - DJI understate it's ability to cope with wind, but once you get over the stated value the gimbal struggles to compensate for the aircraft pitching and rolling about. I flew mine today in probably 20G30 (knots) and it was just about OK without switching to sport mode, but landing it had a high pucker-factor and I probably won't fly it in as much wind again - it's not fun and just asking for an expensive mishap.

Erock · Mar 19, 2017

I flew mine today in a steady 20–22 mph. camera was rocksteady even in POI mode .

Lapeer20m · Mar 19, 2017

BorisTheSpider said:
Yeah I'd agree with what's been said - DJI understate it's ability to cope with wind, but once you get over the stated value the gimbal struggles to compensate for the aircraft pitching and rolling about. I flew mine today in probably 20G30 (knots) and it was just about OK without switching to sport mode, but landing it had a high pucker-factor and I probably won't fly it in as much wind again - it's not fun and just asking for an expensive mishap.

I thought it was exciting no doubt! I did not go above the trees for fear the winds were faster than the mavic could fly.

It is a little risky, but really awesome to watch this little bird cope with such terrible conditions, and to do so fabulously!

Downunder · Mar 19, 2017

I often fly down the beach and HealthyDrones reports gusts of up to 66km/h
All good though. Seems to cope well. Just annoying the app keeps telling me.

maxfaxdude · Mar 19, 2017

How much wind can the Mavic handle? A lot! Several weeks ago I was flying in Death Valley with sustained winds of 35+ miles per hour with gusts up to 60 miles per hour (95 kph) and the video was rock solid stable!!!!

maxfaxdude · Mar 19, 2017

No crashes and barely returned to home on sport mode at about 5 to 10 mph.

Logger · Mar 19, 2017

maxfaxdude said:
..I was flying in....sustained winds of 35+ miles per hour with gusts up to 60 miles per hour (95 kph)...

I am curious how did you establish this as the wind strength you were flying in?

Kestrel · Mar 19, 2017

I took mine out today to chase some boats on the river the wind was around 18-20 mph, aI hit 53.6 mph with the wind!

I also ditched go app 4 because its been going me problems so I went back to the original go app.

Btw I wasn't in sport mode.

Logger · Mar 19, 2017

Kestrel said:
View attachment 8919
I took mine out today to chase some boats on the river the wind was around 18-20 mph, against the wind I did 30mph, against the wind, I hit 53.6 mph with the wind!

I see elsewhere you are in the slow to update school
"I said before that you should wait to do firmware updates,"
Are you on the latest Go4 Android build?

If you are still on a older android build, your max speed is likely incorrect due the fps mph bug. In any case any speeds over about 70kmh/44mph, should be very short lived as the FCC throttles things back to a maximum GS.

Kestrel · Mar 19, 2017

Logger said:
I see elsewhere you are in the slow to update school
"I said before that you should wait to do firmware updates,"
Are you on the latest Go4 Android build?

If you are still on a older android build, your max speed is likely incorrect due the fps mph bug. In any case any speeds over about 70kmh/44mph, should be very short lived as the FCC throttles things back to a maximum GS.

the latest Go 4 app gives me problems I uninstalled it and im using the original go app 3.7 build. Even if the mph is off, my mavic still preformed better against the wind then when I used the Go 4 app. If you have obstacle avoidance off the speeds improve. I had mine off.

Logger · Mar 20, 2017

Yeah no worries.
The correct speed would most likely show in healthy drones otherwise multiple your mph by .68. Also the speed on the RC will be correct. good thing is when you do eventually update your Go version the speed will correct themselves.

Have had mine up in wind strengths of 48km/h as measured by healthy drones and trying to fly flat out sport mode, downwind has only achieved 76km/h. This was probably effectively an overspeed in any case and would have been short lived as it throttled back. Actually just checked the log and it was only at that speed for ~ 1.5 seconds then it slowed back to 70km/h or 43mp/h which I gather is the speed to which it is governed

Kestrel · Mar 20, 2017

Logger said:
Yeah no worries.
The correct speed would most likely show in healthy drones otherwise multiple your mph by .68. Also the speed on the RC will be correct. good thing is when you do eventually update your Go version the speed will correct themselves.

Have had mine up in wind strengths of 48km/h as measured by healthy drones and trying to fly flat out sport mode, downwind has only achieved 76km/h. This was probably effectively an overspeed in any case and would have been short lived as it throttled back. Actually just checked the log and it was only at that speed for ~ 1.5 seconds then it slowed back to 70km/h or 43mp/h which I gather is the speed to which it is governed

Im skeptical of healthydrones with my mavic. It claims i never have good signal but i have always had full bars and never lost signal.

Logger · Mar 20, 2017

Kestrel said:
Im skeptical of healthydrones with my mavic. It claims i never have good signal but i have always had full bars and never lost signal.

Yeah we are digressing but some of their stuff (battery amongst others) has yet to be mavic optimised. Their Ground speeds should be right as it directly from your log without the Go conversion error. Wind if anything will be conservative and under read. I do know that when flying mine in 48km/h winds it was drifting away at >15 km/h in the hover and it would have been gone in a minute or two without input. Sports mode was making slow progress upwind. This type of flying requires careful pre planning. This is why I call BS and Question conditions gusting 90 km/h as being flyable.