Hello all, we (Vancouver, BC) had our first snowfall of about 3 inches last night (Dec 21) so I went flying just before the sunrise this morning
It was starting to fog over very thickly (1/8 mile vis), so I checked our roof for heat leaks, none to be seen. Followed a few bunny and raccoon tracks, images quite grainy as I forgot to take off the filter from the lens and it was very low light, the Christmas lights could still be seen glowing.
Near the end of the battery, the drone was acting less stable in holding altitude so I landed on my sheltered front porch and shut down.
I then conducted my post flight inspection and found a lot of ice on the underside of each rotor blade and on top of each rotor arm. I have had many instances of icing in my real world rotary-wing days but did not see any indications on the DJI instruments that would indicate an icing issue. I would have expected some motor speed error notices but none appeared.
It certainly brought back memories of my High Arctic winter flying days in ice fog and -40 degree C temps although no icing occurred in that area, it was the summer flying in the Beaufort Sea going to drill rigs in fog where the ice was very intense, one time I landed with 1.5” of ice on the radar dome, those were the days..
Cheers, stay safe.
It was starting to fog over very thickly (1/8 mile vis), so I checked our roof for heat leaks, none to be seen. Followed a few bunny and raccoon tracks, images quite grainy as I forgot to take off the filter from the lens and it was very low light, the Christmas lights could still be seen glowing.
Near the end of the battery, the drone was acting less stable in holding altitude so I landed on my sheltered front porch and shut down.
I then conducted my post flight inspection and found a lot of ice on the underside of each rotor blade and on top of each rotor arm. I have had many instances of icing in my real world rotary-wing days but did not see any indications on the DJI instruments that would indicate an icing issue. I would have expected some motor speed error notices but none appeared.
It certainly brought back memories of my High Arctic winter flying days in ice fog and -40 degree C temps although no icing occurred in that area, it was the summer flying in the Beaufort Sea going to drill rigs in fog where the ice was very intense, one time I landed with 1.5” of ice on the radar dome, those were the days..
Cheers, stay safe.
