Is This The Dumb Question Department?

[TR Ganey]

I wonder if sensors reduce the RTH speed, because 20 MPH is about max speed in P mode.

The maximum speed I generally see in "P" mode is 30 to 31 mph. If I see it in the mid 20's going out I can bet it is fighting a head wind and it will haul butt on the way back. LOL

 

[sar104]

I wonder if sensors reduce the RTH speed, because 20 MPH is about max speed in P mode.

Are you sure - I thought it was nearer 30 mph in P-GPS and 40 mph in sport.

 

[Former Member]

Are you sure - I thought it was nearer 30 mph in P-GPS and 40 mph in sport.

Nope Im not sure, but the max I ever get in P mode is around 22. Thats why I was wondering. Can a pilot diable the sensors thereby upping the RTH speed in Pmode? Im just wondering what the options are for a pilot who is too nervous to RTH, and has to fight a head wind.

 

[sar104]

Nope Im not sure, but the max I ever get in P mode is around 22. Thats why I was wondering. Can a pilot diable the sensors thereby upping the RTH speed in Pmode? Im just wondering what the options are for a pilot who is too nervous to RTH, and has to fight a head wind.

Which Mavic are you referring to?

 

[Former Member]

Which Mavic are you referring to?

MP.

 

[Former Member]

Which Mavic are you referring to?

Im glad youre on your toes, and following the OPs post. Im not. He is talking about an M2 and Im talking about an MP. Havent had my coffee yet. lol

 

[Jackcutrone]

The only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

 

[sar104]

Im glad youre on your toes, and following the OPs post. Im not. He is talking about an M2 and Im talking about an MP. Havent had my coffee yet. lol

I was really just talking generically about the MP or M2P - I just wondered if you were talking about the Air. I don't generally fly either the MP or the M2P at full speed, which is why I don't actually recall how fast they go. Sport mode for the M2P is clearly specified as 40 mph, but I don't see anything quoted for P-GPS other than the 25° pitch. Maybe it is only 20 mph with OA on.

 

[Pontoon-pilot]

YOU all are putting out some really good information out here. Like it!

 

[Cymruflyer]

Thats another good question. Does the Mavic judge its speed as ground speed or true airspeed? I believe that the Mavic uses ground speed as its speedometer, because that will actually measure its RTH progress in position and distance instead of angle of attack. Also, by measuring RTH progress by distance traveled, it can more accurately measure if it will be able to make it back based on the amount of battery it has left. If it is only able to maintain position, even though the motors are spinning at max RPM to try and get it back, the RTH low battery indicator will tell you that it is RTH automatically, even though it will never make it back. It will simply stay in the position, fighting the wind, until it runs out of battery, gets to critical, and lands.

The Mavics internal flight computer is a very complex calculator, takes into account many variables, and can mostly be trusted. In heavy winds, it cant, and I never trust it to accurately measure how much battery I have left. I always lean towards conservatism, and try to land with 40% battery, just in case. Yes, thats a little extreme, but in thousands of flight, I have only had to force land a few times due to low battery, when the winds aloft were greater than expected during an oncoming storm.

Just so you are aware, an on coming storm can send out a gust front up to 50 miles ahead of itself. Also many real pilots have been caught out by the winds from an approaching storm. They go out in the field, check the wind and see where the storm is. The wind direction seems to be flowing to the storm so the uneducated/inexperienced pilot would assume the storm is moving away from them, so it would be safe to fly upwind.

They jump in their aircraft and go off flying about upwind with their perceived safe knowledge that the storm was moving away from their airport. They then turn to go home and land and are shocked to see that storm very close to their airport now. How could that be, they wonder and some will not be able to return to land because the storm is now too close to their take off point and growing and getting closer. What was actually happening, was that the storm was growing and moving towards them from winds aloft. However, because it was growing so quickly, it was sucking up all the air around itself as it was building and despite it moving toward their airport, the wind on the ground was moving towards the storm (being sucked in to the base). This makes the pilot on the ground think it was being blown away from them when it was really getting closer.

Some pilots have been killed in a crash when trying to quickly get back to their airport to land before the storm got right overhead, but the gust front shot out and caused them to lose control when trying to come back to land. Now this most probably will not affect any drone flyers, but it is something to bear in mind when flying with a big storm nearby. The ground wind direction will not necessarily be your indication of which way that storm is heading. You too could get caught out, flying upwind with your back to the storm and then before you know it, it might almost be upon you and the wind direction could suddenly change, as that storm suddenly dumps out onto the ground, and you are now well down wind and have a storm almost upon you.

If you are flying with a storm near by, keep checking over your shoulder if it behind you, to see if it is getting closer and larger. And remember that in such conditions, your wind direction could possibly change quickly.

 

[Former Member]

Just so you are aware, an on coming storm can send out a gust front up to 50 miles ahead of itself. Also many real pilots have been caught out by the winds from an approaching storm. They go out in the field, check the wind and see where the storm is. The wind direction seems to be flowing to the storm so the uneducated/inexperienced pilot would assume the storm is moving away from them, so it would be safe to fly upwind.

They jump in their aircraft and go off flying about upwind with their perceived safe knowledge that the storm was moving away from their airport. They then turn to go home and land and are shocked to see that storm very close to their airport now. How could that be, they wonder and some will not be able to return to land because the storm is now too close to their take off point and growing and getting closer. What was actually happening, was that the storm was growing and moving towards them from winds aloft. However, because it was growing so quickly, it was sucking up all the air around itself as it was building and despite it moving toward their airport, the wind on the ground was moving towards the storm (being sucked in to the base). This makes the pilot on the ground think it was being blown away from them when it was really getting closer.

Some pilots have been killed in a crash when trying to quickly get back to their airport to land before the storm got right overhead, but the gust front shot out and caused them to lose control when trying to come back to land. Now this most probably will not affect any drone flyers, but it is something to bear in mind when flying with a big storm nearby. The ground wind direction will not necessarily be your indication of which way that storm is heading. You too could get caught out, flying upwind with your back to the storm and then before you know it, it might almost be upon you and the wind direction could suddenly change, as that storm suddenly dumps out onto the ground, and you are now well down wind and have a storm almost upon you.

If you are flying with a storm near by, keep checking over your shoulder if it behind you, to see if it is getting closer and larger.

A good reason to limit distance to VLOS, check the Metar, and dont try to outrun a storm.

Some pilots have been killed in a crash

Most pilots prefer the term "bought the farm."

 

[Former Member]

Just so you are aware, an on coming storm can send out a gust front up to 50 miles ahead of itself. Also many real pilots have been caught out by the winds from an approaching storm. They go out in the field, check the wind and see where the storm is. The wind direction seems to be flowing to the storm so the uneducated/inexperienced pilot would assume the storm is moving away from them, so it would be safe to fly upwind.

They jump in their aircraft and go off flying about upwind with their perceived safe knowledge that the storm was moving away from their airport. They then turn to go home and land and are shocked to see that storm very close to their airport now. How could that be, they wonder and some will not be able to return to land because the storm is now too close to their take off point and growing and getting closer. What was actually happening, was that the storm was growing and moving towards them from winds aloft. However, because it was growing so quickly, it was sucking up all the air around itself as it was building and despite it moving toward their airport, the wind on the ground was moving towards the storm (being sucked in to the base). This makes the pilot on the ground think it was being blown away from them when it was really getting closer.

Some pilots have been killed in a crash when trying to quickly get back to their airport to land before the storm got right overhead, but the gust front shot out and caused them to lose control when trying to come back to land. Now this most probably will not affect any drone flyers, but it is something to bear in mind when flying with a big storm nearby. The ground wind direction will not necessarily be your indication of which way that storm is heading. You too could get caught out, flying upwind with your back to the storm and then before you know it, it might almost be upon you and the wind direction could suddenly change, as that storm suddenly dumps out onto the ground, and you are now well down wind and have a storm almost upon you.

If you are flying with a storm near by, keep checking over your shoulder if it behind you, to see if it is getting closer and larger. And remember that in such conditions, your wind direction could possibly change quickly.

Thats a great point about the gust front. Even seasoned pilots get overconfident about outrunning a storm, and find that as soon as they are at altitude, they are in trouble.

 

[brett8883]

I don't know where you got the 60° value from, but that's incorrect. The maximum tilt available with stick input is 25° in P-GPS and 35° in sport mode. The maximum tilt that it will use to hold position is 25°.

There is a parameter called
g_config_control_wind_anti_intensity=60

Now I could be wrong but I always took it to mean that it it could use up to 60 degrees of tilt to defeat the wind.

 

[sar104]

There is a parameter called
g_config_control_wind_anti_intensity=60

Now I could be wrong but I always took it to mean that it it could use up to 60 degrees of tilt to defeat the wind.

No - that doesn't mean 60°. At 60° the aircraft is plummeting to the ground. It may be a percentage of maximum tilt per mode.

 

[brett8883]

No - that doesn't mean 60°. At 60° the aircraft is plummeting to the ground. It may be a percentage of maximum tilt per mode.

Well no I have my sport mode set to 60 degrees and it does just fine. If you look at racing quads they very nearly get to 90 degrees. That may not be what that parameter means but at 60 degrees the drone is just fine. 60 degrees is the maximum you can set the parameter for tilt so it seems like a pretty big coincidence if that’s not what this is referring to and if it doesn’t have anything to do with wind given it’s name.

The RC scale parameters are the % of max tilt per mode and there’s one for each mode.

 

[brett8883]

This brings up another good point. Some pilots like to push the limits of their Mavic, and fly at altitudes of 1,000' and higher AGL (not to mention taking off at high ASL altitudes). Since TAS is 2% higher than IAS per 1,000' in altitude, your Mavic could actually be further away and take more battery to get up and back than it would at 100'. The props will need to spin more just to attain the same ground speed as they would at a lower altitude. This will increase battery consumption by as much as 10% at 5,000' AGL. Going up is the easy part, coming back down might be a little more interesting, and it might fall way short of the home point.

I took some flying lessons years ago in the then named Jeffco airport, now Rocky Mtn, and it was unnerving how much was necessary to compensate for the density altitude on a hot summer day. Leaning upon takeoff was just counter intuitive and scary to me.

Is it possible for the Mavic to actually be applying full power to forward flight and still be flying backwards due to high density altitude?

Yea but there’s also less air resistance for the same reason. I’m in Salt Lake City and regularly take off in the mountains at 8000-10000 feet in the mountains and then go up even higher and I find that the drone actually flies better at those high altitudes. It takes less to build up inertia and then it just kinda coasts. Harder to stop though. I always thought this was also why jets climb to high altitudes as well?

I was surprised looking at my flight records that my longest flights (in the 25 min range for MP) were when I climbed a couple 1000” feet and also were among my furthest flights.

 

[sar104]

Well no I have my sport mode set to 60 degrees and it does just fine. If you look at racing quads they very nearly get to 90 degrees. That may not be what that parameter means but at 60 degrees the drone is just fine. 60 degrees is the maximum you can set the parameter for tilt so it seems like a pretty big coincidence if that’s not what this is referring to and if it doesn’t have anything to do with wind given it’s name.

The RC scale parameters are the % of max tilt per mode and there’s one for each mode.

I'd be very interested to see the flight log for a Mavic in level flight at 60° pitch.

Obviously anything approaching 90° is physically impossible, racing quad or otherwise.

And of course the parameter is related to wind - what it is not is the tilt that the aircraft will apply to resist wind. That's trivially obvious. 60 is the default setting. At just 35° in sport mode, which is its maximum tilt in that mode, the Mavic will achieve an airspeed of 40 mph. If it could use 60° to resist wind then it would be able to hold in winds of much higher than 40 mph, when in fact the Mavic 2 maximum wind resistance is 24 mph.

 

[sar104]

Well no I have my sport mode set to 60 degrees and it does just fine. If you look at racing quads they very nearly get to 90 degrees. That may not be what that parameter means but at 60 degrees the drone is just fine. 60 degrees is the maximum you can set the parameter for tilt so it seems like a pretty big coincidence if that’s not what this is referring to and if it doesn’t have anything to do with wind given it’s name.

The RC scale parameters are the % of max tilt per mode and there’s one for each mode.

I just took a look at the intensity parameter - its range is 0 - 100. It's certainly not a tilt angle. It's going to be a percentage, probably of maximum tilt as I suggested earlier.

 

[brett8883]

I'd be very interested to see the flight log for a Mavic in level flight at 60° pitch.

Obviously anything approaching 90° is physically impossible, racing quad or otherwise.

And of course the parameter is related to wind - what it is not is the tilt that the aircraft will apply to resist wind. That's trivially obvious. 60 is the default setting. At just 35° in sport mode, which is its maximum tilt in that mode, the Mavic will achieve an airspeed of 40 mph. If it could use 60° to resist wind then it would be able to hold in winds of much higher than 40 mph, when in fact the Mavic 2 maximum wind resistance is 24 mph.

I’ll go fly today and send you the log that’s np.

It may be only able to overcome 24 mph winds and maintain full speed but it doesn’t make sense that a craft that can reach speeds of up to 40 MPH as you say can only withstand winds of 24 MPH. Going 0 mph into a headwind of 40 mph is the exact same thing as going 40 MPH in no wind

 

[brett8883]

I just took a look at the intensity parameter - its range is 0 - 100. It's certainly not a tilt angle. It's going to be a percentage, probably of maximum tilt as I suggested earlier.

Ahh you know what I bet that refers to gain somehow. All parameters that are a percentage of something usually are a decimal like .60 except for gains. At any rate I’m sure you are correct it’s not tilt, at least not in degrees.