Normal Cruise Speed

787steve · Jan 6, 2018

Newbie here. I have been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot on this board to try to learn as many do's and don'ts as I can without jeopardizing my Mavic. One theme I have seen is people flying too far away and not making it home due to wind factors. I watched one and saw his outbound speed was 11MS, and his inbound was down to 4-6 MPS. Wet landing, lost drone.
Has anyone done any still air tests to see what normal max fwd speed is in MS in P mode? Seems that knowing what you normally get would give you an early heads up to potential wind issues if your numbers were overly strong some day. If the flyer in this video knew that he normally averaged 8MS and today he is doing 11, he wouldn't have continued outbound for an extra minute after the first RTH warning and MIGHT have made it home.
I'm looking for rough figures to just store in the memory banks. And we haven't had a calm day since I got the MP.

Exphantomflyer · Jan 6, 2018

3 modes on the mavic
GPS and Obstacle avoidance enabled
GPS and Obstacle avoidance DISabled
Sport mode

Speeds are

20mph
30mph
40mph

People who dont bother to see what the wind is at a set height and then expect their quad to return are just stupid and deserve all they get, if Im planning a long flight I will do a short test run first to see what the wind conditions are and then factor that in to the final run

787steve · Jan 7, 2018

So normal cruise speed would be 20mph. (I don't know why they give us MPH, when the only thing we can see is MS.)
I agree with your assessment Besides, to be legal in my country you have to maintain VLOS. To be safe in any country, you should do the same. It would seem simply flying out, checking speed, a quick turn back, check speed again would give you a good heads up to your actual winds on site at the altitude you are operating. I don't see it being a problem if you are operating safely. But things can get off tract sometimes, and a good ball park figure could be very nice to have.

flyboy · Jan 7, 2018

Of course if you only fly outbound into the wind the problem is considerably mitigated. You fly to half battery power and come home pretty much quicker.
I follow this rule since almost not making it home on one fly when I was careless and didn't watch the wind speed

Jac89 · Jan 7, 2018

The more you fly the more you wil understand your drone. If i plan to fly out i check speed if its fast i know it with the wind and dont go as far. If im slow i fly a little exstra because i know it will get back alot faster

Exphantomflyer · Jan 7, 2018

787steve said:
So normal cruise speed would be 20mph. (I don't know why they give us MPH, when the only thing we can see is MS.).

That can be changed in the app, I quoted in MPH as im in the UK

787steve · Jan 7, 2018

Of course! I forgot about that setting. i haven't even noticed my speed in early flights, and haven't wandered far enough to worry about it. Thanks for the reminder.