Half the UAS crashes could be avoided with some wind awareness...

[Donnie Frank]

It doesn't require a lot of genius. You're launching your drone and you feel the wind at your back. You're amazed at how fast your drone flies and how little battery you are using. You have blissfully launched your drone without considering the headwind you will have fight on your way back. You're a mile out and decide to come home, only to discover your drone's top speed is 6 mph. Eventually, you run out of battery and crash. I see this ALL THE TIME in this forum. This scenario is easily avoided.

The list of things we have to do and be aware of pre-flight is as long as your arm. This is why I do all my pre-flight drone checks the night before I go out on site. I know that I'm going to have to deal with ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES that add to the long pre-flight list. So, on site, I do NOT want to worry about the drone.

For any drone professional, "wind" is our nemesis and should be treated with respect. We check wind reports days and hours BEFORE going out to the job site. I prefer Windy as forecasted. Anything over 20 mph gusts is usually a deal-breaker...but I may go out on site and do a real-time assessment. 25 mph gusts are a deal-breaker.

Taking on-site real-time assessments are pretty darn easy. Put the wind in your face, fly your drone into the wind @ 100' AGL. Once about 500 or 600 feet out, throw her in ATTI mode and record your speed. Do the same thing for 200' AGL, 300' AGL and 400' AGL. This kind of data collection takes literally 5 minutes and will give you real-world, real-time data that will insure a successful flight and will mitigate disaster.

When you launch your first test flight, if you find your drone won't overcome the wind, then it was too windy for you to launch in the first place. You have to exercise some common sense in this regard.

I have been flying for a long time both professionally and for phun. I learned VERY early on to be in tune with the wind. In my entire career I have lost only one bird because I didn't plan for wind, and that was a Phantom 1 VERY early on in my career. That bird was recovered the next day with very little damage. LOTS of luck involved there. Lesson learned.

The bottom line is this; If you fly Willy-Nilly withOUT taking wind into consideration, you will get what you get. It doesn't take a genius to know that flying AGAINST the wind is going to be slower and require more energy than flying WITH the wind. Hell...even your car does better with a tail wind.

I hope this helps.

D

 

[The Editor]

It doesn't require a lot of genius. You're launching your drone and you feel the wind at your back. You're amazed at how fast your drone flies and how little battery you are using. You have blissfully launched your drone without considering the headwind you will have fight on your way back. You're a mile out and decide to come home, only to discover your drone's top speed is 6 mph. Eventually, you run out of battery and crash. I see this ALL THE TIME in this forum. This scenario is easily avoided.

The list of things we have to do and be aware of pre-flight is as long as your arm. This is why I do all my pre-flight drone checks the night before I go out on site. I know that I'm going to have to deal with ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES that add to the long pre-flight list. So, on site, I do NOT want to worry about the drone.

For any drone professional, "wind" is our nemesis and should be treated with respect. We check wind reports days and hours BEFORE going out to the job site. I prefer Windy as forecasted. Anything over 20 mph gusts is usually a deal-breaker...but I may go out on site and do a real-time assessment. 25 mph gusts are a deal-breaker.

Taking on-site real-time assessments are pretty darn easy. Put the wind in your face, fly your drone into the wind @ 100' AGL. Once about 500 or 600 feet out, throw her in ATTI mode and record your speed. Do the same thing for 200' AGL, 300' AGL and 400' AGL. This kind of data collection takes literally 5 minutes and will give you real-world, real-time data that will insure a successful flight and will mitigate disaster.

When you launch your first test flight, if you find your drone won't overcome the wind, then it was too windy for you to launch in the first place. You have to exercise some common sense in this regard.

I have been flying for a long time both professionally and for phun. I learned VERY early on to be in tune with the wind. In my entire career I have lost only one bird because I didn't plan for wind, and that was a Phantom 1 VERY early on in my career. That bird was recovered the next day with very little damage. LOTS of luck involved there. Lesson learned.

The bottom line is this; If you fly Willy-Nilly withOUT taking wind into consideration, you will get what you get. It doesn't take a genius to know that flying AGAINST the wind is going to be slower and require more energy than flying WITH the wind. Hell...even your car does better with a tail wind.

I hope this helps.

D

Agreed but, you forget, nearly all the UAV’s in this forum cannot be manually switched to Attitude mode!

Also, a large proportion of crashes could be avoided/mitigated if people would read the manual.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Agreed but, you forget, nearly all the UAV’s in this forum cannot be manually switched to Attitude mode!

I actually find the opposite to be true. My Inspire 1 has an ATTI switch as does my P4P. And now, thanx to a firmware hack, my Mavic Pro's "Sport" switch is now an ATTI switch. Anything smaller than the Mavic Pro is a toy and honestly useless in any kind of professional setting.

Also, a large proportion of crashes could be avoided/mitigated if people would read the manual.

Absolutely. In the computer industry we say, "RTFM."

D

 

[Meta4]

Once about 500 or 600 feet out, throw her in ATTI mode and record your speed. Do the same thing for 200' AGL, 300' AGL and 400' AGL. This kind of data collection takes literally 5 minutes and will give you real-world, real-time data that will insure a successful flight and will mitigate disaster.

Agreed but, you forget, nearly all the UAV’s in this forum cannot be manually switched to Attitude mode!

Without having access to Atti Mode, it's still easy to judge the wind effect on any drone.
Just fly into the wind at the altitude you chose and see what speed you can achieve.
If you know your still-air speed in P-GPS mode is 16 metres/sec but you can only fly at 10 m/s into the wind, you can tell how that will affect your flight home if it is against that wind and manage accordingly.
If your drone is limping at 5 m/s against the wind, you know that you'd better be upwind or very close when it's time to come home.

Three important tactics when coming home against a headwind are:

• Never leave your drone up high battling a strong headwind, bring it down where winds are less
• Never leave RTH to come home at it;s slow pace - you can drive faster than RTH will
• Obstacle avoidance will cap your top speed - turn it off

But the most effective method to stay out of trouble with wind is awareness and avoidance.
Fly off upwind and have an easy flight home.
Don't fly off downwind unless you know the wind speed is manageable for the distance you will go.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

And always have an alternative place / plan to land if even slightly doubtful (and you simply feel you MUST fly).

 

[RickinWaST]

I can’t highlight enough what is being noted here. As a new drone owner I’ve resisted the urge to dash out and fly my M2P.

I’m viewing excellent beginner YouTube videos that provide valuable information not found in the manual. Plus, reading almost daily various posts in the forum.

Thanks you for the post and the wind app reference!

 

[macoman]

This is why I never use my drones in wind of over 10mph. The gust wind are the one that goes beyond the 10mph and can be dangerous.

 

[dannybgoode]

I’ve just had my M2P out over the sea in wind gusting at 40kph +. How did I ever survive?!

It’s much more than just understanding wind but understanding how your drone functions as a complete hardware/software unit in various weather conditions.

I would suggest *all* crashes, bar true hardware or software faults (which are really quite rare) could be prevented if people took time to understand their equipment and how to react in various scenarios.

 

[rhberg]

Thank you for the sage advice, I now have wind high on my preflight checklist.

 

[zenfly2]

I'm a boat capt and have been using this for yrs. enter your zip and save it..

Map Results | Wind, Forecast, Radar, Weather & More

Curious about weather in your area? SailFlow's interactive map features forecasts, radar, temperatures, currents, and much more!

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[Dakarenduro]

I use UAV Forecast all the time for mainly wind checks. I mean I can see for myself if its cloudy, rainy, etc but I am a terrible judge of wind. This app gives you steady wind and gusting wind forecasts as well as a wind profile from 0 to 5000ft. You would be amazed how much stronger the wind can be just 100ft higher.

I am also amazed at how well my MA handles the wind. I've flown it in less than ideal conditions and i know its not the drone's inability to handle windy days, its the pilot's!

 

[zenfly2]

I use UAV Forecast all the time for mainly wind checks. I mean I can see for myself if its cloudy, rainy, etc but I am a terrible judge of wind. This app gives you steady wind and gusting wind forecasts as well as a wind profile from 0 to 5000ft. You would be amazed how much stronger the wind can be just 100ft higher.

I am also amazed at how well my MA handles the wind. I've flown it in less than ideal conditions and i know its not the drone's inability to handle windy days, its the pilot's!

I'm only 3mos into this and started using the UAV Forecast right away mostly to see how many sats were available and if I was goo to go but soon found it was often wrong at Cape Canaveral..It would often be red no fly because of only 8 or 10 sats but I finally went out and there were 18-22 sats when the Forecast was no fly.. That said though I really like you brought this up again because I never even noticed the altitude box and that we can check gust speeds up there.. Thanks for posting that and waking me up.

 

[Dakarenduro]

Yeah. Agreed the sat forecaster thingy is off or doesnt match real world. Wind seems better. I plan my weekend flying using the 7 day forecast

 

[dronerdave]

I flew my MP in 20 MPH ground winds and really didn't like it much. I stayed very close to home just to get a feel of how it reacted. I think it's good to know how to fly in windy conditions but I avoid breezy conditions over 10 MPH. It doesn't happen too much around where I fly but once I encountered a sort of wind shear that hit my MP. Very light breeze at the home point but my quad was showing high winds. Before I landed the wind shear hit me and it was almost instantly a good 25+ wind speed. Luckily I was up wind at the time and the only issue was manually landing. Glad I had prior experience landing in windy conditions. UAV forecast did not show the wind shear and I've found the good to fly or not good to fly isn't always correct. But I do use it to get an estimate and it's pretty good for that. I also use Ventusky and really like that app.

 

[Slade]

It doesn't require a lot of genius. You're launching your drone and you feel the wind at your back. You're amazed at how fast your drone flies and how little battery you are using. You have blissfully launched your drone without considering the headwind you will have fight on your way back. You're a mile out and decide to come home, only to discover your drone's top speed is 6 mph. Eventually, you run out of battery and crash. I see this ALL THE TIME in this forum. This scenario is easily avoided.

The list of things we have to do and be aware of pre-flight is as long as your arm. This is why I do all my pre-flight drone checks the night before I go out on site. I know that I'm going to have to deal with ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES that add to the long pre-flight list. So, on site, I do NOT want to worry about the drone.

For any drone professional, "wind" is our nemesis and should be treated with respect. We check wind reports days and hours BEFORE going out to the job site. I prefer Windy as forecasted. Anything over 20 mph gusts is usually a deal-breaker...but I may go out on site and do a real-time assessment. 25 mph gusts are a deal-breaker.

Taking on-site real-time assessments are pretty darn easy. Put the wind in your face, fly your drone into the wind @ 100' AGL. Once about 500 or 600 feet out, throw her in ATTI mode and record your speed. Do the same thing for 200' AGL, 300' AGL and 400' AGL. This kind of data collection takes literally 5 minutes and will give you real-world, real-time data that will insure a successful flight and will mitigate disaster.

When you launch your first test flight, if you find your drone won't overcome the wind, then it was too windy for you to launch in the first place. You have to exercise some common sense in this regard.

I have been flying for a long time both professionally and for phun. I learned VERY early on to be in tune with the wind. In my entire career I have lost only one bird because I didn't plan for wind, and that was a Phantom 1 VERY early on in my career. That bird was recovered the next day with very little damage. LOTS of luck involved there. Lesson learned.

The bottom line is this; If you fly Willy-Nilly withOUT taking wind into consideration, you will get what you get. It doesn't take a genius to know that flying AGAINST the wind is going to be slower and require more energy than flying WITH the wind. Hell...even your car does better with a tail wind.

I hope this helps.

D

 

[Slade]

I’m a newbie but I’m very aware of changing winds along the Front Range, Colorado. I use UAVForecast to check wind direction, speed, and gusts at various altitudes. Happy Flying?

 

[Meta4]

I'm only 3mos into this and started using the UAV Forecast right away mostly to see how many sats were available and if I was goo to go but soon found it was often wrong at Cape Canaveral..It would often be red no fly because of only 8 or 10 sats but I finally went out and there were 18-22 sats when the Forecast was no fly..

You don't need an app to tell if there will be enough satellites in your sky to fly.
There will always be more than enough sats visible anywhere you want to fly.
If your app suggested only 8-10 sats, it was probably only showing US sats, your drone showing 18020 included Russian Glonass sats as well.
The default settings for your app aren't always useful .
The amount of cloud cover can help put it into the red.
That might matter if you were flying a plane but is no problem with a drone.