Inconsistent descent speed?

[Thor]

Hey y'all,
So I have a air 2s and can't figure out what's going on with the descent speed. I know its rated for 6m/s in sport and normal mode and sometimes I can achieve that, but other times it slows to 3m/s and I'm not sure why.
I've tried all kinds of things and it seems very hard to get repeatable results. Even flying at full forward speed at 300 feet above me, sometimes it will descend at 3m/s, sometimes at 6m/s.
Does anyone know the exact parameters that dictate descent speed?
I film a lot of skiers and I bought this drone specifically for the descent speed. I keep blowing shots because I can't keep up!
Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Meta4]

Does anyone know the exact parameters that dictate descent speed?

Normally there shouldn't be much to interfere with descent speed.
If you post flight data for a flight where you had this problem, it might help shed some light in the issue.

 

[Thor]

here's an example, the whole time I was filming I couldn't descend faster then 3m/s. then after I finished filming, I was doing a couple test runs and I could achieve 6m/s. any ideas??

 

[Meta4]

here's an example, the whole time I was filming I couldn't descend faster then 3m/s. then after I finished filming, I was doing a couple test runs and I could achieve 6m/s. any ideas??

Your data confirms what you dewscribed.
The drone can descend at 6 m/s in normal, but some times it won't exceed 3 m/s descent rates in normal.
The only thing that shows in the data is that you were shooting video for the times descent wouldn't exceed 3 m/s and when you could descend at 6 m/s, you weren't shooting video.

There doesn't appear to be any other factor that would prevent fast descent .
Perhaps this is an undocumented "feature".
A little testing would confirm if the drone consistently keeps to 3 m/s descent when shooting video

 

[Faster]

By any chance those videos were taken with any kind of zoom? I've noticed my Air 2S moves very slowly when taking zooming videos no matter what flying mode the drone is.

 

[Thor]

Has anyone else noticed that they can’t descend faster then 3m/s while filming? Just trying to isolate the issue

 

[slup]

...Perhaps this is an undocumented "feature".
A little testing would confirm if the drone consistently keeps to 3 m/s descent when shooting video

...can’t descend faster then 3m/s while filming?

If looking closely this doesn't seem to be connected to filming or not ...

Below is a portion of the flight, that in the beginning (the left side in the chart below) show you filming (dark pink background=filming in normal mode). You have there where you film the stick (dashed black graph) for full descent & you reach a max vertical speed of 6,9mph (3m/s), (positive value=decent, negative=ascent) with some exceptions where your drone comes close to tree tops & the VPS sensor feel something is close (green graph doesn't flat line).

At 246sec you stop filming (light pink background=not filming in normal mode)... you ascend up some with a full stick command (seen on the red graph=barometric height above HP) & reach negative 13,4mph (6m/s) ... then again apply full stick for descend, but there again only reaching 6,5mph in descent speed (have placed the chart marker there at 256sec).

Then at 259sec you switch to sport mode (yellow background=not filming in sport mode) & keeping the stick for full descent, but the descent speed doesn't change.

You go back to normal mode... ascend up some & then at 281sec apply full descend again ... and there you get the specified vertical speed of 13,4mph (6m/s).

So no ... the vertical speed doesn't seem to be connected with filming or not.

Contact DJI with this ...

(Click on the chart to make it larger)

 

[Meta4]

If looking closely this doesn't seem to be connected to filming or not ...

I unscrambled my spreadsheet and looked again.
It's not related to filming, but it's hard to tell what's going on.
Many tests without filming descend at 3 m/s.
Some times the high speed descent slows part way with no indication of why.
Here's a summary of what I saw:

Start full stick descent at 2:04.7 to 4:04.2 (video on)
Descent speed = 2.9-3 m/s
After 3:46.2 VPS = 2.7-9m - descent speed slows to 1 m/s when VPS = 3m
VPS = >9.5m until 3:46.2

Start full stick descent at 4:12.6 to 4:23.2 (video off)
Descent speed initially reached 4.8 m/s but after one second dropped to 2.9-3 m/s
VPS = 10.7 m

Start full stick descent at 4:41.6 to 4:48.7 (video off)
Descent speed = 6 m/s but slows to 3 m/s in the last 2.5 sec.
VPS = 13 m

Start full stick descent at 5:05.5 to 5:16.9 (video off)
Descent speed = 6 m/s but slows to 3 m/s in the last 4.5 sec
VPS = 13 m

Start full stick descent at 5:24.9 to 5:33.1 (video off)
Descent speed = 3 m/s
VPS = 13 m

Start full stick descent at 6:09.2 to 6:13.8 (video off)
Descent speed = 3 m/s
VPS = 13 m

Start full stick descent at 6:17.8 to 6:23.3 (video off)
Descent speed = 3 m/s
VPS = 13 m

Start full stick descent at 7:39.1 to 7:48.5 (video off)
Descent speed = 6 m/s but slows to 3 m/s in the last 4 sec.
VPS = 25 m

Start full stick descent at 7:52.7 to 8:00.2 (video off)
Descent speed = 3 m/s
VPS = 25 m

 

[Thor]

So any theory’s on why it’s happening? Could it possibly be related to flying at a higher altitude? A lot of these flights were between 6000 and 8000 ft??

 

[Meta4]

So any theory’s on why it’s happening? Could it possibly be related to flying at a higher altitude? A lot of these flights were between 6000 and 8000 ft??

Probably not ... 6000 ft doesn't make much difference for the drone.