Peculiar fly-away

[sar104]

Sorry you lost your quad, and thanks for sharing with us. Never too old to learn! One thing puzzles me. I regularly get a strong wind warning while flying offshore here in Tenerife. Then it's time to descend and land. You don't mention any warnings?

He didn't mention them, but there were multiple warnings, starting at 24 seconds and 18 ft off the ground. Here is the notifications list for the first flight segment:

 

[SharkHunter2012]

My question is, how can the wind blow the gimbal down, my thoughts are you had n issue, if the wind is blowing the gimbal and it is not stable, I would have never flown. Land the drone and do some testing.

 

[JimP Florida]

Thanks for sharing your story Andrew and Meta4's analysis. As a newbie I have learned so much on these forums.

 

[DJIce]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and anybody who did the analysis work. As a fairly new pilot I'm always worried about things like this. I'm curious how you get to the weather logs from the log link OP posted. It would be great to use as a tool for any flight log analysis in future. I agree with staying mature here, people make mistakes and stuff happens but it's no reason to be rude to somebody. Thanks

 

[Grantt]

That's a really silly thing to say.



I'm considered a "millennial", though I don't recall hearing that word when I was in school.

Thanks to everybody that took a look at the logs and pointed out my failure(s). Hard lesson learned but it will certainly come in handy when I purchase my Mavic 2 Pro in the upcoming months. I'll keep an eye on these forums to continue my education on safe flying.

I am now convinced that Andrew went ahead and pushed the limits of the drone because losing it would be a nice justification for purchasing a Mavic 2.

 

[JDawg]

Not pretty. Over 50 mph:

 

[conchman]

Sometimes if you have mountains behind you on a seaside location, the wind may not be strong if the area is protected from the wind by that mountain or other terrain. So at take off point, it seems relatively calm (10 to 20mph) for example. As soon as you get high enough or outside the lee of the mountain, the wind can be 2 to 3 times as strong. It can be very deceiving if you are not experienced around water, islands, boating, etc.

 

[Blucenturion]

The Pacific is the only place I fly from N. CA. It's either that or 350' redwoods which afford NO LOS. Winds near cliffs can swirl, making any evaluation an exercise in frustration. Therefore, to see what the air currents are doing, I go out perhaps a hundred meters and hover-then watch lateral movement displayed on my controller. Then follows a simple decision whether to continue outward or come back closer and do exploring some other day.

 

[m0j0]

Sorry you lost your quad, and thanks for sharing with us. Never too old to learn! One thing puzzles me. I regularly get a strong wind warning while flying offshore here in Tenerife. Then it's time to descend and land. You don't mention any warnings?

One of the things I have done religuously is to check the weather prior to flight. Set hard guidelines and stick to them. Wind is one of those critical no-go's for me. Find what you are comfortable with and stick with it. Remember, that part of the flight could include a mode absent GPS, consider that in your assessment of the wind.

 

[DanMan32]

This section of the manual explains it:
When the Forward Vision System is enabled and lighting conditions are sufficient, the maximum flight attitude angle is 16° with a maximum flight speed of 22 mph (36 kph).
When forward obstacle sensing are disabled, the maximum flight attitude angle is 25° and the maximum flight speed is 36 mph (58 kph).

The Mavic goes faster by tilting forward more.
Obstacle Avoidance can't work when the drone is tilted past 16° so it limits your tilt angle (and flight speed).
With OA off, you get a 60% speed increase.
If you are flying in a clear area where there's nothing to hit, you don't need to fly around with your brakes on.
He could also have tried Sport Mode but in my experience it doesn't really go much faster then GPS mode when pushing against a strong headwind.

Perhaps it's only with M2, but we've seen reports of displayed warnings that tilt is too steep for supporting OA, suggesting increased thrust to battle wind overrides OA requirements.

Perhaps tacking might have helped.

I've had a scare with my P3 where I received alert of obstructed props and loose props. I can only figure a wind gust resisted one pair, and propelled the other pair. Scare subsided when I realized my FPV view showed no problems. I definitely flew with on-shore winds so I knew I'd get back, as long as I kept stability.

 

[Meta4]

Perhaps tacking might have helped.

Not in this case. It would have just exposed the drone to the very strong winds for longer but not got it any closer.
At best it would have just prolonged the agony a little.