How do you judge the wind at 300 feet or 400 feet?

[Saigondroner]

to be quite honest with you, i personally would not be taking my MM to 300ft to 400ft to begin with, it is so small and at those sort of heights, you would be struggling to see it at any sort of distance, apart from studying how the trees are moving and going up in stages ,i have found a good way to have a safe flight with my drone is to go up to around 20ft ,and hover, and observe and listen to the drone as it fights the wind ,you will get a good idea if it is to windy to fly,one other way to judge wind speed is to look at the clouds and see how fast they move across the sky in spite of the specs of the MM it is more at home being flown lower and nearer than something like a MPP or M2P

+1 on this advice.

 

[Saigondroner]

I have a mavic mini on the way. How do you know? Does it change quickly?

With all due respect, if you are new to the drone hobby, focus on proper flight procedures, AC control, and stay lower....say 200 feet and below. UAV forecast does a pretty good job regarding conditions. I always want to see, how far, or how high I can go. But larger drones require pilots to maintain VLOS, visual line of sight, without binoculars. It gets more and more difficult as you ascend...and depth perception is weird; you won't believe the app says the AC is 150 feet away from you, and you'll swear it is straight above you. There are fewer obstacles at higher altitudes, so wind speed and direction can change quickly. Have fun with your Mini!

 

[Boonpop]

I’m a meteorologist by trade. The quickest and easiest way for you to know what the wind is at that level is to download an app called Windy and play around with it. They have an option to check winds at 100 meters (roughly 330ft) and it’s fairly accurate. If you get used to using this app it will be a breeze... pun intended.

 

[jwblair]

You don't really need to know the actual value of the head/tail wind, but the following math will give you that:

1. Fly up to altitude.
2. Briefly fly full speed in the direction you want to go.
3. Note your ground (GPS) speed.
4. Briefly fly full speed in the opposite direction.
5. Note your ground (GPS) speed.
6. Subtract the two ground speeds and then divide by two.

That's the head/tail wind component. The two speeds are the speeds you'll have going out/coming back, which is what your really want to know. To be safe, use the lower speed as your max speed for flight planning/battery management.

If the wind speed is higher than your max drone speed, you need to allow for negative speeds (the ground speed is in the opposite direction from the direction you are trying to go. Land, go home, watch TV.

A more simple go/no go test:
1. Take off and ascend to 10 feet above take off point and let the drone hover. If it drifts, the wind is too high (and will only get worse if you go higher). Land, go home, watch TV.
2. Fly up to altitude and let the drone hover. If it drifts, the wind is too high. Land, go home, watch TV.

 

[Dakarenduro]

.

A more simple go/no go test:
1. Take off and ascend to 10 feet above take off point and let the drone hover. If it drifts, the wind is too high (and will only get worse if you go higher). Land, go home, watch TV.
2. Fly up to altitude and let the drone hover. If it drifts, the wind is too high. Land, go home, watch TV.

Hmmm. Option 2 could end up with a lost bird or a crashed bird. If the wind is too strong at altitude it may be too late to 'land. Go home. Watch TV'.....

 

[Maviculous]

All good info...wish I'd joined the forums sooner than I did! ?
I lost my M2P due to a blowaway.

Ground winds AND high clouds were still. Weather data from apps was showing light winds 4-10 mph.
At (very high) altitude I experienced what I thought might have been a "flyaway" but was unpredictable high winds.
Thanks to the data interpretations of the folks here in this forum (thanks again) I learned...

My novice mistake of not knowing how to interpret (from the DJI flight interface) high winds for what they were and not having a planned response for these conditions + pushing the signal/distance/controller response time; blindly entrusting RTH = lost a great drone and (probably keeper) video footage days in the planning.

But a chunk of money later and wiser for the loss, I'm back at my controller with replacement.

So I guess my points/lessons are (as AMAZING as the hard and software has become):

• don't blindly trust RTH
• don't push too far the distance/strength of the signal even when all the weather app data and physical observations point to great conditions unless increased risk of loss is ok; which we all know the risk increases the further out of VLOS one gets...
• maybe invest in a recovery device - 3G GPS or radio transponder - and/or insurance (all of which there are lots of forum threads of recommendations + mavichelp.com).

Welcome to the forums! GREAT place to learn the easier way. ?

 

[mlash]

I have a mavic mini on the way. How do you know? Does it change quickly?

Use this website and you can set the parameters to your specs

Ventusky - Weather Forecast Maps

Live wind, rain, radar or temperature maps, more than 50 weather layers, detailed forecast for your place, data from the best weather forecast models with high resolution

www.ventusky.com