Just after NO RETURN LIMIT distance, How to bring back your drone ?

[KBerrah]

Hi Everyone,

I found myself something nearly too short to make a safe return to home fly. What are your best practices if you went nearly after the "NO RETURN LIMIT" and the wind start blowing against your drone ?

I found the following options, any other "hint" ?
- taking off against the wind brings a bonus of a few minutes with a wind in the back of the drone when coming home
- switching from 4K Video to Photo mode looks like consuming less energy (can someone confirm?)
- flying in SPORT MODE allows the drone to fly a longer distance with the same remaining energy
- dropping some altitude why flying back consumes less energy and increase the drone's speed.

Any other hint ?
Thx
KB

 

[Kilrah]

- switching from 4K Video to Photo mode looks like consuming less energy (can someone confirm?)

No

- taking off against the wind brings a bonus of a few minutes with a wind in the back of the drone when coming home
- flying in SPORT MODE allows the drone to fly a longer distance with the same remaining energy
- dropping some altitude why flying back consumes less energy and increase the drone's speed.

Yes

 

[CamoGreg]

Why altitude did a lower consommation ??

 

[Kilrah]

Becasue typically the higher you are the stronger the wind (up to a point).
Obviously it means if you have a tailwind it's good to stay up, but if you have a tailwind when coming back you don't have a problem in the fist place.

 

[KBerrah]

What I wanted to say is: instead of flying back horizontally, flying with a small vertical speed down (up to 1m/s down) increase your drone speed with no extra energy cost (thanks to Newton) except losing some altitude.

 

[gnirtS]

- taking off against the wind brings a bonus of a few minutes with a wind in the back of the drone when coming home

Yes, Down start your flight by heading merrily downwind.

- switching from 4K Video to Photo mode looks like consuming less energy (can someone confirm?)

Absolutely no difference

- flying in SPORT MODE allows the drone to fly a longer distance with the same remaining energy

Most likely the opposite mode will use more power unless you're very disciplined and hold back on the speed. There's a sweet spot of about 30 mph in no wind for distance, go over that it drops off quickly. And as the mavic shows ground speed thats less than 30mph if you're going into a head wind.

- dropping some altitude why flying back consumes less energy and increase the drone's speed.

Wind speeds generally get higher the more altitude you have. So dropping lower may provide less wind for it to right.

 

[NCTurner]

I have not heard anybody mention this but maybe lowering the 'critical battery level' even lower than the default 10%, which will give you a bit more time to fly it before it auto lands.

 

[gnirtS]

You cant lower it below 10%. You can however "fight it" with up stick.

 

[PDXteriors]

You cant lower it below 10%. You can however "fight it" with up stick.

Actually you can.

 

[Will.i.am]

What are your best practices if you went nearly after the "NO RETURN LIMIT" and the wind start blowing against your drone ?

Find a safe place and set it down. Then start running.

 

[motard]

Another option is not to fly against the wind, drive it, in straight V's, I can't explain in English, like you are drunk, not in straight line.

 

[dirkclod]

Find a safe place and set it down. Then start running.

That's what I do is just find a place to land . And have several times .
Got dead center of the spot and just autolanded .

 

[KBerrah]

Hi Everyone,

I found myself something nearly too short to make a safe return to home fly. What are your best practices if you went nearly after the "NO RETURN LIMIT" and the wind start blowing against your drone ?

I found the following options, any other "hint" ?
- taking off against the wind brings a bonus of a few minutes with a wind in the back of the drone when coming home
- switching from 4K Video to Photo mode looks like consuming less energy (can someone confirm?)
- flying in SPORT MODE allows the drone to fly a longer distance with the same remaining energy
- dropping some altitude why flying back consumes less energy and increase the drone's speed.

Any other hint ?
Thx
KB

One important action:
- stop immediately recording

 

[Kilrah]

Another option is not to fly against the wind, drive it, in straight V's, I can't explain in English, like you are drunk, not in straight line.

That won't help, will actually be detrimental. You would be doing a longer trajectory, but still ahve to fight the same amount of "total headwind".

- stop immediately recording

Completely pointless.

 

[KBerrah]

Not sure about how pointless it is. Let me clarify.

Technically, if you fly and record simultaneously a 4K video flow and write it (transcode) on an SD Card, you do consume more energy than if you just fly and transmit the video flow by radio (no video processing, no writing operations on the SD card). So if you stop recording, you're saving some extra energy.

Practically I've observed, in identical weather conditions, that my MP can fly longer (and far away) than when recording in 4K for example.

Proof point: Try to fly without recording (no wind) the longest distance you can, and come back. Redo the same test with a fully charged battery (and no wind), and recording video @96FPS for example. Can you reach the same max distance ?

 

[TheLightSpeed!]

You cant lower it below 10%. You can however "fight it" with up stick.

Not true. You can make it when you go below 10% it just blinks instead of landing.

You can set it to do nothing.

 

[flightmike]

Becasue typically the higher you are the stronger the wind (up to a point).
Obviously it means if you have a tailwind it's good to stay up, but if you have a tailwind when coming back you don't have a problem in the fist place.

You have to be careful not to drop too low as to get signal blocked from obstacles.
Best thing is to plan and RTH with enough battery.