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Maximum wind conditions - Mavic

The Mavic Pro

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I know DJI says "don't fly the Mavic in over 10 m/s winds (22 mph)" or something like that?
But I'm more interested in real world experiences with the Mavic when it comes to wind conditions.

Up to how strong winds can you fly your Mavic and still have perfect and unaffected video recordings, and also safe flights?
 
Flew with an average wind speed of 15MPH at the weekend, recording gusts of 23MPH, no issues with recording video, here is a link, which also includes a RTH segment and a precision land in faily choppy conditions.

Only issue I had on the return was I switched to sport mode for a bit (not in this vid.) and got some gimbal max movement errors.

Vid here if you're interested:

 
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Flew with an average wind speed of 15MPH at the weekend, recording gusts of 23MPH, no issues with recording video, here is a link, which also includes a RTH segment and a precision land in faily choppy conditions.

Only issue I had on the return was I switched to sport mode for a bit (not in this vid.) and got some gimbal max movement errors.

Vid here if you're interested:


Thanks for your answer and nice video. I just want to confirm that winds of about 15 mph doesn't give you problems with the picture tilting and drifting? I don't see any of those kind of problems in your video recording.
 
Thanks, one of my first attempts at editing, I have much to learn.

Nope its not bad at all, I hand flew the pan down the river and it never flickered once. There is a bit of a glitch in the gimbal at present where if you decelerate rapidly it can jump, but I guess f you are panning or following a subject you're not going to be changing direction suddenly. This jump used to be very precedent when rapidly yawing, but that seems to have been fixed in the latest firmware.

Its rock steady in moderate winds, I have flown it in gusty conditions to see how it behaves, it seems to be able to compensate quite well. I flew it in a strong breeze where the aircraft was tilted about 5 degrees to maintain position. The gimbal was perfectly level and on the feed you couldn't really tell it was being blown about.

Also, I flew upwind on the day I shot the bridge, it was only making 9KPH into wind! the run down to the bridge was downwind.
 
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I flew in gusts of about 30mph yesterday... she handled it well, though I wouldn't want to fly in much more as it was looking a little unstable on the descent


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
 
I flew in gusts of about 30mph yesterday... she handled it well, though I wouldn't want to fly in much more as it was looking a little unstable on the descent


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
I always fly the quad forward while descending to aid in stability. Also I had to fly full power in a 30 degree decent into the wind to overcome extremely higher headwind. In this configuration I could make better ground coverage.....
 
Interesting, so none of you haven't noticed any tilting or drifting due to winds, even in those wind conditions you have been flying in?

They say the Mavic should handle winds just like the Phantom 4, don't know if thats true but thats what I've read people saying?
 
I think that high wind can overcome the power and forward penetration of any RC model but I have not experienced that yet and use common sense when the wind is extremely high.
 
Well in theory, the max forward speed is 45mph in sport mode, so you should be able to make headway in anything less than that!

I would not like to test this and it wouldn't be much fun I wouldn't have thought! Drift should only occur if the wind speed exceeds the maximum for any given mode, the GPS & IMU should be able to resolve its position and motion and keep it in position.

Once the windspeed exceeds that then it will drift. Not sure how it would compensate this, would it apply higher and higher power settings to stay put or just point its self in the direction it needed to go to get back to its point in space but just helplessly drift until its forced to land. No idea, just take a sensible approach and explore it and your limits till you scare yourself!

A few have made a strange assumption that the RTH function somehow negates the laws of Physics and that it will always bring the Mavic home!
 
My self imposed limit is 15 km/h with up to 25 km/h gusts. I get warnings at this level but am comfortably in control with the Mavic leaning pretty good into the wind when it hits sideways.
I am not interested to find out where the absolute limit is and come back here with yet another "lost drone" report :) .
 
Interesting, so none of you haven't noticed any tilting or drifting due to winds, even in those wind conditions you have been flying in?

They say the Mavic should handle winds just like the Phantom 4, don't know if thats true but thats what I've read people saying?

Have them both and fly frequently in winds from 15 to 25mph specially this time of year with the trade winds blowing.
The fact is that the P4 has much more punch flying into a strong head wind.
Most flying I am using the FPV Camera App. For same mission at same preset speed the Mavic takes up to 20% longer loosing time on up wind legs.
Plan well how you fly long range missions in stonger winds with the Mavic.
Video quality is no issue in stronger linear winds as long as you do not fly behind objects where you may encounter turbulence.
 
I always fly the quad forward while descending to aid in stability. Also I had to fly full power in a 30 degree decent into the wind to overcome extremely higher headwind. In this configuration I could make better ground coverage.....

I was flying it forward, I think the gusts were just a bit heavy and destabilising, overall still handled well


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
 
Check this video:
Mavic PRO in strong wind
I was flying with wind in gusts 24-27 Mph (10-12ms) in Sport mode. In general mode it wasn't possible to fly against wind (hovering, but not flying forward). I think I could handle little bit higher wind as well
 
I flew with the plastic done covering the gimbal for two batteries today and noticed some rather strand behavior. The gimbal, on two separate occasions, gave me a "Gimbal vibration abnormal" warning. I also received several warnings about the gimbal reaching it's max throw. On the third battery, I took the dome off and none of those errors appeared even once.

Also, my Mavic is constantly giving me wind warnings when I switch to Sport mode. It was dead calm today on the ground, but winds were possibly up to 13mph at 200 feet based on aviation weather data for the KBUF airport. The Mavic flew well but that wind error was rather annoying as it kept popping up.

Does any of this sound familiar to you guys? Normal bugs/issues?
 
I get wind velocity message all the time. I just ignore it. I wrote DJI online support and didn't got any answer about it (just advice to make IMU calibrations as usual =)))) ) So I think it not working properly, or maybe they made it just to blame pilots if somethings happens. For example: there was wind velocity message and you not stopped flying so all further problems/crashes can be taken as pilot error

Sent from my SM-N910C using MavicPilots mobile app
 
I always fly the quad forward while descending to aid in stability. Also I had to fly full power in a 30 degree decent into the wind to overcome extremely higher headwind. In this configuration I could make better ground coverage.....
While it makes sense to think flying the drone forward when descending for added stability I wonder if it is actually the case given there is no air foil to help stabilize the craft. Perhaps the forward momentum in itself is enough to stabilize the craft... Any thoughts out there on this topic. I am still learning.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using MavicPilots mobile app
 
I understand that winds do affect the crafts, and especially lighter and smaller crafts, but i guess at the same time the gimbal should be able to compensate for the wind effects up to a certain point.
So i wanted to know up to which wind speed the Mavic should be able to compensate and keep the video recordings nice and smooth.
Or am i wrong?

But it seems that for example 22 mph winds should not affect the video recordings on the Mavic if you have a normally functioning Mavic craft and gimbal?
 
Based on my flights: The Mavic 'works harder' as the wind increases. It is pretty darn stable, overall... but if really beautiful video is what you are after, you might not want to fly in winds over 15mph or so. Also, when the wind is up, be careful using 'Cinematic' mode when you are close to obstructions. It decreases gain and allows the Mavic to drift. Good for smooth shots, but you may crash. Also, if you fly downwind a ways, you may have to switch to sport mode to return upwind.
 
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