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I have a dream.. (question about video signal strength flying through the trees). Mavic Mini, Air or Pro?

Stisyklaren

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Hi there!

So I have a dream to film my mates on their mountainbikes while they ride through the forest trails with a drone. I am looking at buying either the Mini, air or pro (not pro 2, its too costly for me).
With that dream in mind, I wounder how the video signal holds up when there are some trees between me and the drone. Is it at all possible or does the video signal suffer too quickly when trees get between me and the drone?

Do any of you have some experience with flying through the woods with any of the the drones mentioned?

Just to mention it; I used to have drone flying as a hobby 5-6 years ago and know I have to practice before flying through the woods.

Really looking forward to hear about your experience with these drones and forest-flying.

Cheers,
Paul
 
To start with: I strongly advice you not to try to fly through the trees but to fly around them. Safes a lot of money.

Then: the more obstacles between you (controller) and the drone, the higher the risk of loosing control. Under optimal circumstances, your drone might just "freez" when the signal is lost - to start an autmated RTH. From between the threes. Up to 30 or more meters... You see the problem? If you fly between trees, you need to turn off the RTH function if the signal is lost.

Generally, the less room there is to move free with the drone, the more difficult it gets to fly. The same is for the speed you fly with, the higher the speed, the more difficult it gets. Ad these two components (small trails between trees and relatively high speed, you can estiate how difficult it will be. To realize your dream, you only can do one thing: practice, practice, practice. The more confident you are with the control of your drone, the more you can concentrate on the path it has to fly.

Over all, I do have a drone for quiet a while now and I do have some practice but I feel far from experienced enough to start a bikerchase between trees with the drone.
 
The bigger problem is what happens if you loose control signal and /or GPS with the drone somewhere inside the tree canopy.

Autonomous tracking may be a more practical approach in the proposed circumstances. Rules out the mini as a prospect unfortunately.
 
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Generally, most trees are transparent to Radio Frequency - UNLESS - they are wet!
Water on leaves/needles/branches/trunks tends to short out the RF energy to earth and you'll lose connection between the controller and drone if you get a significant 'wet' tree between the two.
 
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Hi there!

So I have a dream to film my mates on their mountainbikes while they ride through the forest trails with a drone. I am looking at buying either the Mini, air or pro (not pro 2, its too costly for me).
With that dream in mind, I wounder how the video signal holds up when there are some trees between me and the drone. Is it at all possible or does the video signal suffer too quickly when trees get between me and the drone?

Do any of you have some experience with flying through the woods with any of the the drones mentioned?

Just to mention it; I used to have drone flying as a hobby 5-6 years ago and know I have to practice before flying through the woods.

Really looking forward to hear about your experience with these drones and forest-flying.

Cheers,
Paul
I've gone through my forest, near ground level, out over 600 feet with no signal problems. Be sure to change the action for RTH to hover.

Also, maybe this might help...
 
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You should make it clear that the 600ft with no signal problems was probably with a pro not a mini.
I'd guess a mini would fail far sooner than that if the trees were dense
 
Generally, most trees are transparent to Radio Frequency - UNLESS - they are wet!
Water on leaves/needles/branches/trunks tends to short out the RF energy to earth and you'll lose connection between the controller and drone if you get a significant 'wet' tree between the two.
Leaves and trunks of trees are full of water.
Just a few small branches won't make much difference but keep adding more between controller and drone and signal just dies.
 
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Hi there!

With that dream in mind, I wounder how the video signal holds up when there are some trees between me and the drone. Is it at all possible or does the video signal suffer too quickly when trees get between me and the drone?

Do any of you have some experience with flying through the woods with any of the the drones mentioned?


Really looking forward to hear about your experience with these drones and forest-flying.

Cheers,
Paul
I can fly a Pro across the street from my house & through the woods.
Googles help with head tracking on:
 
I agree on the Skydio 2 comments. That drone is currently and arguably the best drone on the market right now for that type of activity. Problem is if you ordered one now you’d probably not get it until November or so.

I’m hoping the Mavic 3 will have improved capabilities like this but likely would be out of your price range.

mom terms of signal strength Around trees I filmed this a few years ago with the Mavic Pro. May give you some idea about range:


Z
 
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