Mass is extremely relevant for stability.
Mini 3 Pro beats Air2S in both photo and video
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Stability doesn't matter much since the gimbal takes care of that.
The real concern with dealing with wind is whether your drone can make it out and back again.
Not really. In gusty winds mass is extremely important for resisting any initial movement.
A gimbal can adjust for pitch, yaw and roll but not for horizontal movement.
More mass means more in inertia which means more airframe stability in gust conditions.
A gimbal can adjust for pitch, yaw and roll but not for horizontal movement.
More mass means more in inertia which means more airframe stability in gust conditions.
As it happens, my university degree was in physics, and I understand how this works very well. A number of other people in the thread with relevant experience are agreeing it's true, but let's go back to first principles and I'll explain it for you.
Power-to-weight ratio determines how well a drone maintains position against a steady-state wind of a given velocity, and also determines maximum speed, so in the steady-state case you're right. But, when the wind changes rapidly, the automated system in the drone has an inherent response time, and its responses will lag behind the wind's change. It can't adjust instantly.
During that short time that the wind's force isn't being accurately canceled out by the drone's control system and motors, there will be a force on the drone that causes movement. How much movement, and how fast, will be determined by a relationship between the drone's cross-sectional area, the net pressure of the wind gust, and the mass of the drone. Generally, a lighter drone like the M3P will have less mass per cross-sectional area, and thus move more. (This is because cross-sectional area scales roughly with the square of the length or width of the drone, and mass scales roughly with the cube of the length or width of the drone. These are rough approximations but they're not rough enough to change the real-life result.)
One major function of the camera gimbal system is to cancel this movement out, and this usually works very well because it responds much faster than the motors and flight control system can. If you set the drone to hover in a moderate wind at about eye level, you'll see that the drone moves around, and the camera gimbal cancels that motion. That's exactly the movement I'm referring to.
When wind gusts produce excess acceleration that the flight control system, motors, and the gimbal together can't cancel out, you get jerky or unstable moving footage, or motion blur in still images. A larger drone with more mass will tend to accelerate less in the same wind gust, for the reasons described above, and thus will be more likely to stay within the range of what flight control and the camera gimbal can correct.
Hope that helps.
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But it means nothing at all if the drone is battling winds that are too strong for the drone to make it home.
In incident analysis, I've seen a lot of lost drone problems due to flyers being unaware of wind strength and the drone not being able to make it home before the battery gave out.
Twitchiness isn't something that there are a lot of complaints about.
Complete different thing. And yes mass has an effect there as well (cross sectional area vs mass vs power available).
Any drone can get caught out by the wind by an operator that isnt aware or doesn't do due diligence prior to a flight.
All things equal though, mass will help stability. In a standard gusty wind you're going to get a more stable platform for images and video from a heavier drone than a lighter one.
Any drone can get caught out by the wind by an operator that isnt aware or doesn't do due diligence prior to a flight.
All things equal though, mass will help stability. In a standard gusty wind you're going to get a more stable platform for images and video from a heavier drone than a lighter one.
Its not. Ultimately max speed is only factored in with pitch limitations and GPS velocity limitations. There's nothing at all more detailed going on there.
Pedantic much?
Of course it is.
The max speed that your drone can make through still air is determined by the mass and thrust the drone can generate.
And because you have no way to vary the pitch and GPS speed limitations that DJI enforces, that's automatically factored in and there's no need to mention it.
"the weight (you should have said mass) of the drone is irrelevant." - Meta4
I just wanted to join the topic again so I can be a further voice to others that this misunderstands the physics behind mass and its effect on stability. The overall take on understanding the ability of the Mini 3 Pro to handle gusts and stabilize footage in gusty conditions is far more nuanced than simply saying it has to do with the top speed of the drone vs. the speed of the steady state wind. There simply is no question increased mass makes a significant difference in the stability of a drone maintaining position over a fixed position over the ground and avoiding horizontal or vertical movement that can appear in the image when the drone is at relatively lower altitudes. While software and quick and powerful response from the propellors can attempt to counter movement or reposition the drone once position is lost, ultimately mass itself goes the longest way at prevent the initial motion from being rapid and large enough that the drone ends up moving some in the first place. Absolute bottom line? You will observe greater stability with the heavier batteries vs. the lighter in the Mini 3 Pro when flying in gusty wind, and that's with just a 30 gram difference! I move aluminum tubing at high speed and high altitudes for a living.
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I don't think "they don't understand" comments are useful.
It seems to me that there are two very different issues being mixed into the same discussion. One is stability in turbulent air where mass matters and the other is top speed/position holding ability in generally laminar air.
globetrotterdrone
Well-Known Member
From pratical experiences I can acknowledge, the Mini 3 Pro had quite the struggle at some breezy coast panoramas ... it sometimes paused and tried to maintain its position to finish it and also canceled several times.
These gusts were really nasty with about > 50 km/h sometimes in about 120 metres AGL or nearly 200 m above MSL but I remember my M2P with its 1 kg cope better with it.
So, mass definitely matters for inertia.
These gusts were really nasty with about > 50 km/h sometimes in about 120 metres AGL or nearly 200 m above MSL but I remember my M2P with its 1 kg cope better with it.
So, mass definitely matters for inertia.
Fair enough so I added more detail to my post explain the issue and toned down what I agree may have looked like I was singling out a particular user's misunderstanding of the issue. There are two issues like you said but some are not acknowledging the role mass plays in stability which is very different than your poor drone getting blown away and unable to return to a safe landing site due to not having the power and overall speed to work into the headwind.
Here's a bit from post #111 of this thread in case some of the newcomers missed it:
In short:
- Max airspeed is what dictates ability to fight against a wind, regardless of mass.
- Mass influences how stable the aircraft will be in that wind, regardless of whether it is making progress against the wind or is getting overwhelmed by it and blown away over the countryside.
In short:
- Max airspeed is what dictates ability to fight against a wind, regardless of mass.
- Mass influences how stable the aircraft will be in that wind, regardless of whether it is making progress against the wind or is getting overwhelmed by it and blown away over the countryside.
This focus on "stability" is a new thing on the forum.
For years, the big problem people have had dealing with wind, has been losing their drone because it could not fly fast enough to get home from wherever it was.
This is a big problem and one that causes drone losses on a regular basis.
For a long time people have made the spurious suggestion that a heavier drone can fight wind better.
I came into this discussion thinking this was the issue, as it usually is.
How big is the problem of movement of a drone in turbulent air?
I don't remember there being a lot of threads about this issue.
If you want to get excited about what I believe is a trivial issue, go for it and I'll move on.
YVRGUY
Well-Known Member
Like Covid…it’s a diseaseDon't worry. The next drone to come out will be better. It's always the next one. They keep improving, and you keep buying. Upgrading forever.
and they haven’t found a cure. 
…YET
Well said, and I agree mass is important, all else being equal.. But there are other factors as well, that perhaps can overcome the mass difference between the two drones. Do those differences in fact do that? I'm not sure. None of us have all of the accurate data to make these calls.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge about this topic.
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