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Air 2s struggled to descend in strong winds

Dougiedanger

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Joined
Aug 14, 2021
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Age
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Location
Chegutu, Mashonaland West, ZWE
Good day all,

I am new to the forum and new to droning having recently purchased an Air 2s.
Today we have some decent wind around that is at the top end of the drones capabilities so in order to get some practice in learning my drone, I maybe stupidly decided to fly it in an open cropping area.

Anyway it flew happily enough within 300m of me and I took it to a maximum height of 88m, after taking a couple of short videos I decided to bring the drone with the power level at 50 percent.
The return journey was a crosswind and the wind had picked up a bit and I had received a strong wind warning, however the drone had no problem getting back overhead me..
At this stage I started to try to bring the drone down, however it would not descend, I tried turning into the wind and facing away but neither made any difference, the drone just would not descend.
Finally I managed to get it to descend my repeatedly pulling the stick down and releasing it on each time it dropped a meter or 2 till eventually I had it about 7m above the ground and it responded normally.

I realise that the wind was the reason however I am trying to understand what exactly was happening to prevent the descent which I never expected to have to deal with? Any thoughts?
I have done some searching but haven't come across any reference to this issue..
 
Were the antennae/controller pointed upwards at the drone or horizontally, parallel with the ground? Given the design of the controller's antennae I am not certain that that is a relevant question but the manual, p34?, does suggest that there is an optimal cone 'in front' of the antennae for best connection. With the drone overhead the antennae in the drone are presenting the minimum reception area to the controller and if the controller was doing likewise then maybe......
If you do a search on here, I recently saw a thread with some intersting stuff in it, "polarisation" was one of the words used, it might have been Lost connection on 500 meters altitude..
My mini is normally good for 600m+ of distance ( the limit of my VLOS) but overhead I can, on a bad day, lose connection at a well before 400ft altitude.
Yes I mix my units.
If possible a sloping descent/ return-home might have been a better route, for two reasons, it presents a bigger reception area and it gets you into probably slower air all the sooner.
 
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Most likely the wind had no effect on why the drone was not coming down.
Its easy to panic and not notice the drone is coming down maybe not as fast as you want.

I would test out today , straight up and straight down , the antennas should not matter if directly above , you will have plenty of battery so you can get clarity on the decent without being in a hurry. , also try to bring it down in Sport Mode.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Air 2S in the Rain.
 
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Good day all,

I am new to the forum and new to droning having recently purchased an Air 2s.
Today we have some decent wind around that is at the top end of the drones capabilities so in order to get some practice in learning my drone, I maybe stupidly decided to fly it in an open cropping area.

Anyway it flew happily enough within 300m of me and I took it to a maximum height of 88m, after taking a couple of short videos I decided to bring the drone with the power level at 50 percent.
The return journey was a crosswind and the wind had picked up a bit and I had received a strong wind warning, however the drone had no problem getting back overhead me..
At this stage I started to try to bring the drone down, however it would not descend, I tried turning into the wind and facing away but neither made any difference, the drone just would not descend.
Finally I managed to get it to descend my repeatedly pulling the stick down and releasing it on each time it dropped a meter or 2 till eventually I had it about 7m above the ground and it responded normally.

I realise that the wind was the reason however I am trying to understand what exactly was happening to prevent the descent which I never expected to have to deal with? Any thoughts?
I have done some searching but haven't come across any reference to this issue..
I suggest checking the "downward sensors" in case it mistakenly sensed an obstacle. Maybe dirty/smeared or maybe a protective film not removed? Also, as above, Sport mode will disable the sensors ( obstacle, not the downward vision which are only active very close to the ground anyway)
In my experience, it would have to be a VERY strong wind to prevent a descent.
Off-topic... but coming back against the wind will really eat up a battery and may even get to the force landing level if too far away! So keep that in mind if you do get those wind warnings
 
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I agree with the others. I doubt the wind was the cause to keep your drone from descending. The wind would have been more likely to cause the drone not to return, blowing it down wind. I have flown when two tropical storms were heading through my area and made sure to keep the drone up wind with lots of clear area down wind to land just in case. At times the drone was getting pushed downwind, but had no difficulties with ascending or descending.

But I see a similar incident with a Air 2 on this website: Drone won't descend
 
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Thanks all for the time taken to reply.

I have had a look at the flight recording and I may have been worrying more than necessary, however it does seem to struggle to descend as you can see in the screen recording of the flight.
The signal was good throughout, max was 420m away not 300.
Yes I didn't think to try sports mode, haven't used that as yet!
I had made sure all the sensors and lenses were clean before I left home and it landed fine so don't think that was the case.
Have been reading and watching plenty of tutorials, videos so was aware of the wind issue and wasn't planning to go far or run it tight with the battery.
Anyway I will try again tomorrow and see if it happens in calm conditions.

Thanks all
 
Sorry struggling to upload the screen recording, my Internet not so good at the moment. Will have to try later
Made a quick test of the Master Screw Props in the strong wind ,,but you can see vertical descent pretty well even with some winds.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain and Land on the Water.

 
Sorry struggling to upload the screen recording, my Internet not so good at the moment. Will have to try later
The screen recording isn't what's needed to look into the cause of your incident.
Your recorded flight data is.

Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
Or .. just post the txt file here.

Wind makes no difference to the drone's ability to descend.
All that's required if for the props to spin a little slower and gravity takes care of the rest.
 
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The screen recording isn't what's needed to look into the cause of your incident.
Your recorded flight data is.

Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
Or .. just post the txt file here.

Wind makes no difference to the drone's ability to descend.
All that's required if for the props to spin a little slower and gravity takes care of the rest.
Thanks so much, have done what you suggested, and am posting the link below.
Watched the video above, mine definitely didn't descend like that, although it has on all previous flights.


Thanks again to all for taking the time to reply, this is an awesome forum!
 
I realise that the wind was the reason however I am trying to understand what exactly was happening to prevent the descent which I never expected to have to deal with? Any thoughts?
The problem with descending is clearly visible in the flight data, but the cause isn't immediately obvious.
It looks like the problem was never completely solved and was happening right to the end of the flight.
The usual cause is blockage of the downward sensors, but yours seem to have been functioning normally and shouldn't have caused the issue.
I note that the drone was in Detour Mode for almost all of the flight and that is puzzling as it usually relates to obstacle avoidance behaviour.
I'm wondering how this could have been related to the decending issue.

This puzzle might be one that @slup might like to look at.
 
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...This puzzle might be one that @slup might like to look at.
Mmm ... a puzzle that perhaps easier could have been solved if we had a readable .DAT log, the .TXT log just contain to little data to give a plausible solution.

My guess & pure speculation is that this had to do with that the flight was conducted in Cine mode in a wind speed border lining to what the MA2s could handle ...

In some occasions it seems like the craft with no descend speed achieved is pushing it self into the wind direction (tilting into...), gain some heading speed, let off the tilt again, drift back slightly ... & take the opportunity to lose height just there when it regains it's original position.

Can't find info about max tilt angles for Cine mode & don't know how DJI have programmed the SW during Cine mode ... but it really seems that position hold is in priority ... & if the motors rev down for a descend it would lose the position if near maxed out fighting the wind.

Here the interaction between tilt inclination (purple), Z speed (blue, vertical speed, positive=descent) & horizontal heading speed (black) during a full constant commanded throttle for descending (green dotted).

(Click on the chart to make it larger)
1629023967828.png

And here the wind speed in the charted position shown above ... approx 20 to 25mph (9-11m/s)

1629024031681.png

1629024274481.png
 
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Thanks
The problem with descending is clearly visible in the flight data, but the cause isn't immediately obvious.
It looks like the problem was never completely solved and was happening right to the end of the flight.
The usual cause is blockage of the downward sensors, but yours seem to have been functioning normally and shouldn't have caused the issue.
I note that the drone was in Detour Mode for almost all of the flight and that is puzzling as it usually relates to obstacle avoidance behaviour.
I'm wondering how this could have been related to the decending issue.

This puzzle might be one that @slup might like to look at.
Thanks, have just flown it again now at home, still quite windy but not like previous.
It functioned well, descended fast and all other inputs worked as expected.
The Detour mode that you refer to, is that the Gentle GPS? I see up to last weekend on my logs it used P-GPS, now it only uses Gentle GPS except for a split second just after take off.
We recently had the update which extended the battery auto discharge period and I found that I didn't update one of my batteries which I have just done but that hasn't got it to stop using Gentle GPS.

All very strange, maybe the strong wind warning and the Gentle GPS function caused it to go into a safety mode of sorts?
 
Mmm ... a puzzle that perhaps easier could have been solved if we had a readable .DAT log, the .TXT log just contain to little data to give a plausible solution.

My guess & pure speculation is that this had to do with that the flight was conducted in Cine mode in a wind speed border lining to what the MA2s could handle ...

In some occasions it seems like the craft with no descend speed achieved is pushing it self into the wind direction (tilting into...), gain some heading speed, let off the tilt again, drift back slightly ... & take the opportunity to lose height just there when it regains it's original position.

Can't find info about max tilt angles for Cine mode & don't know how DJI have programmed the SW during Cine mode ... but it really seems that position hold is in priority ... & if the motors rev down for a descend it would lose the position if near maxed out fighting the wind.

Here the interaction between tilt inclination (purple), Z speed (blue, vertical speed, positive=descent) & horizontal heading speed (black) during a full constant commanded throttle for descending (green dotted).

(Click on the chart to make it larger)
View attachment 133416

And here the wind speed in the charted position shown above ... approx 20 to 25mph (9-11m/s)

View attachment 133417

View attachment 133418
Thanks for the input, amazing the data that is captured and available.
Is a Dat log something I can pull up for it?
I didn't use Cine mode for the flight, just Normal mode.

As per my previous post the gentle gps reference seems to be a new thing (last 5 flights or so) prior to that all logs show P GPS.

As I mentioned on the latest update I did 2 batteries, but forgot to update the third. I did fly using all 3 batteries after that on the previous weekend and that seems to be where it changed from P GPS to Gentle GPS.
I will look at seeing what else I can find in the flights on that day.
 
Looking back on the logs from last weekend, on my first attempt to use active track to follow my car, I put it up and activated active track in parallel and started to drive forward slowly, the drone came towards the car and came to a stop right in front of the car, I then put it back out to the side and tried again in active track trace, anyway it got quite close to a tree which concerned me so I abandoned trying to continue and chose to land it near me.
I brought it down and initially tried to hand catch it as the ground wasn't stable but didn't succeed so put a board out and manually landed on that instead.

It was during that time that the drone converted from using P GPS to Gentle GPS just before I activated the Active Track.

Not sure if this all links together to my issue from yesterday but if anyone has an idea for the difference between the 2 GPS modes and the implications I would appreciate it.

 
...Is a Dat log something I can pull up for it?
I didn't use Cine mode for the flight, just Normal mode.

As per my previous post the gentle gps reference seems to be a new thing (last 5 flights or so) prior to that all logs show P GPS.
No DAT logs ... nor that from the mobile device or the one in the MA2s itself is readable for anybody else than DJI staff, that log had been invaluable as it contains the raw sensor data & motor data ... would have been possible to see what the FC actually thought it was doing there when it was refusing to gain any descent speed.

Yeah ... can see that you actually could reach full heading speed according to N mode earlier in the flight. It's called Gentle GPS when APAS is active apparently ... & by that my wild guess falls like a rock ?
 
@Dougiedanger ... another member (@BudWalker ) with a better memory than I told me that the MA2's mobile device .DAT logs actually is readable for us ... sorry for the misinformation ?

So ... the corresponding mobile device .DAT log for the flight you shared ends with FLY057.DAT & are in a subfolder, MCDatFlightRecords, in the folder that contains the TXT logs.

Try to retrieve it & attach it in a new post here ... then perhaps we can find the reason for the AC unwillingness to descend.
 
@Dougiedanger ... another member (@BudWalker ) with a better memory than I told me that the MA2's mobile device .DAT logs actually is readable for us ... sorry for the misinformation ?

So ... the corresponding mobile device .DAT log for the flight you shared ends with FLY057.DAT & are in a subfolder, MCDatFlightRecords, in the folder that contains the TXT logs.

Try to retrieve it & attach it in a new post here ... then perhaps we can find the reason for the AC unwillingness to descend.
@slup Thanks for the reply.
I found the subfolder however there is only 1 file in it ending in FLY062.DAT and has yesterdays date which corresponds to my flight yesterday.
Not sure if the file is a continuation of all the data or it only saves the latest or maybe I am looking in the wrong place.
How would you suggest that I retrieve it?
 
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