Hi everyone,
Let me start out by saying I’m a total drone noob. I’ve had my MM for about a month and done about 30 flights. I’ve read the owner’s manual a few times, read posts on the forums and FB groups and watched a few dozen YouTube videos.
Today I was flying over a river near my house. I was trying to get over the river and to the ocean. The UAV Forecast app showed a light wind of 8 MPH sustained and 10 MPH gusts. It looked like it would be a tail/cross wind heading out.
I made it out 15,500’ in S mode with 71% battery remaining before losing the picture. I let it RTH until about 12,000’ and then took over manually in S mode. I noticed the speed was lower than it was on the way out which made sense since I was flying into a bit of a head wind home. I still thought I’d make it back easily.
At about 7400’ out with 34% battery left, I started to really lose speed from 21-23 MPH all the way down to 5-10 MPH. Around this same time I briefly lost the video picture again. I’m assuming I lost speed because the controller lost communication with the drone? If I was in RTH instead of flying manually, I take it transmission/signal issues wouldn’t have slowed the plane down?
The drone then took its time getting back to speed and managed to only fly at 10-15 MPH until 3700’ out when the speed nose dived down to 6 MPH with 12% battery left. I had to find a grassy area away from the river to land it. I was able to locate it without issue and it seems fine even though it hit a couple branches on the way down.
Is it normal to lose that much speed in S mode when you hit 12% battery remaining? Would that have happened if I was in P mode? The reason I ask is because watching videos online like DD’s, he seemed like he was able to maintain speed until near 0%. So I’m wondering why mine lost speed? Could it have been wind gusts?
Thanks in advance.
Let me start out by saying I’m a total drone noob. I’ve had my MM for about a month and done about 30 flights. I’ve read the owner’s manual a few times, read posts on the forums and FB groups and watched a few dozen YouTube videos.
Today I was flying over a river near my house. I was trying to get over the river and to the ocean. The UAV Forecast app showed a light wind of 8 MPH sustained and 10 MPH gusts. It looked like it would be a tail/cross wind heading out.
I made it out 15,500’ in S mode with 71% battery remaining before losing the picture. I let it RTH until about 12,000’ and then took over manually in S mode. I noticed the speed was lower than it was on the way out which made sense since I was flying into a bit of a head wind home. I still thought I’d make it back easily.
At about 7400’ out with 34% battery left, I started to really lose speed from 21-23 MPH all the way down to 5-10 MPH. Around this same time I briefly lost the video picture again. I’m assuming I lost speed because the controller lost communication with the drone? If I was in RTH instead of flying manually, I take it transmission/signal issues wouldn’t have slowed the plane down?
The drone then took its time getting back to speed and managed to only fly at 10-15 MPH until 3700’ out when the speed nose dived down to 6 MPH with 12% battery left. I had to find a grassy area away from the river to land it. I was able to locate it without issue and it seems fine even though it hit a couple branches on the way down.
Is it normal to lose that much speed in S mode when you hit 12% battery remaining? Would that have happened if I was in P mode? The reason I ask is because watching videos online like DD’s, he seemed like he was able to maintain speed until near 0%. So I’m wondering why mine lost speed? Could it have been wind gusts?
Thanks in advance.
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