do you override return to home

elfatih · Nov 24, 2018

It was a windy day today and i made multiple massive errors. I flew the drone 1600 feet up, then it drifted DOWNWIND 2500 feet. Around 55battery life i decided to hit the RTH button. Well the drone seemed to struggle and went 3 mph around 40 battery life and about 2,000 feet out and maybe 800 feet up i started to panic. The wind seemed like it was pushing the drone further away than it was coming back on. Below 30% i pushed the sport mode and tried to manually fly it back, but it kept reverting to RTH mode and going back to 3mph (I was at 12mph in sport). Around 20% battery I lost connection and began to pray.... a final screen popped on for a moment of it landing about a cornfield away, i tried to steer it for the few seconds before it lost signal again (I live on a hill and whenever it descends below 300 feet i seem to lose signal). Any advice IF a ******* like i am and in this situation (yes i know to avoid in future) how would you have gotten back? wind was 20-30mph pushing drone backwards.

Mossiback · Nov 24, 2018

You already switched to sport mode. Next lower altitude in hopes of finding less wind.

StevietheWorm · Nov 24, 2018

Starz · Nov 24, 2018

Wind speed can vary drastically at different elevations. Lesson learned?

Rowder · Nov 25, 2018

elfatih said:
It was a windy day today and i made multiple massive errors. I flew the drone 1600 feet up, then it drifted DOWNWIND 2500 feet. Around 55battery life i decided to hit the RTH button. Well the drone seemed to struggle and went 3 mph around 40 battery life and about 2,000 feet out and maybe 800 feet up i started to panic. The wind seemed like it was pushing the drone further away than it was coming back on. Below 30% i pushed the sport mode and tried to manually fly it back, but it kept reverting to RTH mode and going back to 3mph (I was at 12mph in sport). Around 20% battery I lost connection and began to pray.... a final screen popped on for a moment of it landing about a cornfield away, i tried to steer it for the few seconds before it lost signal again (I live on a hill and whenever it descends below 300 feet i seem to lose signal). Any advice IF a ******* like i am and in this situation (yes i know to avoid in future) how would you have gotten back? wind was 20-30mph pushing drone backwards.

I downloaded the UAE forecast app..... it helps.

cr1cr1 · Nov 25, 2018

1600 feet of altitude? Waooo! In which country do you live? No flight regulations / ceiling for our beloved UAS?

Test the wind before flying far away : if you feel that fighting against the wind is tough, then land on our fly lower.

seandrz · Nov 26, 2018

elfatih said:
It was a windy day today and i made multiple massive errors. I flew the drone 1600 feet up, then it drifted DOWNWIND 2500 feet. Around 55battery life i decided to hit the RTH button. Well the drone seemed to struggle and went 3 mph around 40 battery life and about 2,000 feet out and maybe 800 feet up i started to panic. The wind seemed like it was pushing the drone further away than it was coming back on. Below 30% i pushed the sport mode and tried to manually fly it back, but it kept reverting to RTH mode and going back to 3mph (I was at 12mph in sport). Around 20% battery I lost connection and began to pray.... a final screen popped on for a moment of it landing about a cornfield away, i tried to steer it for the few seconds before it lost signal again (I live on a hill and whenever it descends below 300 feet i seem to lose signal). Any advice IF a ******* like i am and in this situation (yes i know to avoid in future) how would you have gotten back? wind was 20-30mph pushing drone backwards.

i know how you feel as i had exactly the same problem and had to land away from homepoint and had to find the aircraft from the flight log and was very lucky to find it both times as it would be no problem for someone to come along and pick it up. lesson also learnt by me in windy conditions fly close to home also knowing sports mode uses more battery but in gps mode aircraft was barely moving

seandrz · Nov 26, 2018

seandrz said:
i know how you feel as i had exactly the same problem and had to land away from homepoint and had to find the aircraft from the flight log and was very lucky to find it both times as it would be no problem for someone to come along and pick it up. lesson also learnt by me in windy conditions fly close to home also knowing sports mode uses more battery but in gps mode aircraft was barely moving

i was also very lucky to just be able to find dry land and not land in the lagoon

BingErr · Nov 26, 2018

elfatih said:
It was a windy day today and i made multiple massive errors. I flew the drone 1600 feet up, then it drifted DOWNWIND 2500 feet. Around 55battery life i decided to hit the RTH button. Well the drone seemed to struggle and went 3 mph around 40 battery life and about 2,000 feet out and maybe 800 feet up i started to panic. The wind seemed like it was pushing the drone further away than it was coming back on. Below 30% i pushed the sport mode and tried to manually fly it back, but it kept reverting to RTH mode and going back to 3mph (I was at 12mph in sport). Around 20% battery I lost connection and began to pray.... a final screen popped on for a moment of it landing about a cornfield away, i tried to steer it for the few seconds before it lost signal again (I live on a hill and whenever it descends below 300 feet i seem to lose signal). Any advice IF a ******* like i am and in this situation (yes i know to avoid in future) how would you have gotten back? wind was 20-30mph pushing drone backwards.

My first frightening experience with the Mavic Air I caught a wind gust that wasn't happening on the ground.
On retrospect I realize I was probably in the eye of a storm, because the clouds looked AMAZING and the wind was dead still on the ground. I flew it up to 300ish feet and was trying to do a time-lapse of the clouds when the MA started to drift. I flew against it but it continued to drift. I threw it in Sport mode but that only seemed to hold it in place and I still couldn't fly it back. I tried to change elevation but didn't want to go too low incase it was blown into a tree or building. It drifted again and this time I lost connection. I ran into the house and grabbed my electric skateboard and started riding as fast as I could towards it's last location. After about 2/3 of a mile I regained connection and lowered my altitude as I rode towards it location. I finally was able to regain control and fly it back to me but would have been SCREWED if I hadn't had the means to chase it down.
My lesson: The wind on the ground can be drastically different from the wind 300-400 feet up.

Starky · Nov 26, 2018

OP you obviouslyknow the regulations, yet in another thread on this open forum you tell of how you break the law by a huge margin flying at 1600ft
One thing I'm learning quickly about Drone use is the alarmingly large number of idiots flying them, I mean FFS