Reading About a Lot of Fly-Aways

[ajkm]

Use this religiously:

https://www.heliguy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/drone-pre-flight-checklist.pdf

Ok as far as it goes, and following checklists every time is the professional’s protocol. I would have issues with his Immediately before flight checklist, it seems to be in a completely random order - who would check signal and satellite strength (aircraft powered up) before checking physical items like the props and the battery installation?
Checklists are as much about logical flow of procedures as they individual items they contain.

 

[Meta4]

it also makes no effort to return to the correct location if it's been blown off course; the best it will do is to try and hover.

Did you really mean to say that?
Because it's not correct.

 

[Ian in London]

Did you really mean to say that?
Because it's not correct.

Well that was my experience when flying it in the strong wind. With strong wind the Mini drifted with no stick input, and when the gusts died down, the Mini just stopped drifting, without reverting to its correct GPS position. So which element of my statement isn't correct?

 

[Thomas B]

Well that was my experience when flying it in the strong wind. With strong wind the Mini drifted with no stick input, and when the gusts died down, the Mini just stopped drifting, without reverting to its correct GPS position. So which element of my statement isn't correct?

Isn’t the GPS location a real-time informational reading and not a setting? Seems that the issue is really too much wind velocity at the altitude used.

 

[Ian in London]

Isn’t the GPS location a real-time informational reading and not a setting? Seems that the issue is really too much wind velocity at the altitude used.

So what I said is correct then? And of course we're talking about wind being too strong, so you're just stating what has already been stated. Are you just trolling?
As I said, the issue with the strong wind drift is that It only tries to stay still when no stick input and won't try and revert its original location from where it started to drift. So ultimately it just continues to drift further and further away.

 

[Thomas B]

So what I said is correct then? And of course we're talking about wind being too strong, so you're just stating what has already been stated. Are you just trolling?
As I said, the issue with the strong wind drift is that It only tries to stay still when no stick input and won't try and revert its original location from where it started to drift. So ultimately it just continues to drift further and further away.

I don’t troll.
My point was that if you don’t want autonomous movement you don’t want the position change that you describe, unless I misunderstood.

 

[Ian in London]

I don’t troll.
My point was that if you don’t want autonomous movement you don’t want the position change that you describe, unless I misunderstood.

My original point is that blowaways are compounded by the fact that a pilot will take their hands off the controller trying to stop it in its tracks, but gusts of wind will intermittently just drift the Mini away from its location, with no reversal correction if the wind drops. This is the correct function of GPS, I was just pointing out it further complicates the situation.

 

[NMguy]

My deal would always be to lower altitude.
That is why I couldn't get to the train I was chasing.
Came out high but should have hugged the ground (30ft)
But the up to 30mph headwinds was just too much for the Mavic Air I was using.
In sport mode - 17mph or less at full throttle:

Cool music... from a spaghetti western?

 

[Meta4]

Well that was my experience when flying it in the strong wind. With strong wind the Mini drifted with no stick input, and when the gusts died down, the Mini just stopped drifting, without reverting to its correct GPS position. So which element of my statement isn't correct?

You said:

it also makes no effort to return to the correct location if it's been blown off course; the best it will do is to try and hover.

When the drone in RTH is blown away by a strong wind, the poor Mini doesn't give up.
It's still working hard to try to fly towards the home point.
If the wind is stronger than the drone can fly against, it's going to be going backwards.
But it's not a case of the best it will do is to try and hover.

 

[Ian in London]

You said:
When the drone in RTH is blown away by a strong wind, the poor Mini doesn't give up.
It's still working hard to try to fly towards the home point.
If the wind is stronger than the drone can fly against, it's going to be going backwards.
But it's not a case of the best it will do is to try and hover.

I was talking about when you take your hands off the sticks for it to stay still, as I've repeatedly stated.
This is going nowhere. Done

 

[Meta4]

I was talking about when you take your hands off the sticks for it to stay still, as I've repeatedly stated.
This is going nowhere. Done

Whether it's in RTH or not, if the drone is blown from its position, it will attempt to hold position.
It does not just give up and get blown away.

 

[DanMan32]

I was talking about when you take your hands off the sticks for it to stay still, as I've repeatedly stated.
This is going nowhere. Done

You're original statement was about MM giving up RTH on wind drift. Then you abruptly changed to essentially state that MM won't go back to original GPS coordinates from where wind drift started. That's two different things. None of the DJI products will go back to where wind drift took it off course. It will just resume to hover where the wind took it if the drift was significant enough.
Anyone can test this by hand pushing their DJI several feet.

 

[Ian in London]

You're original statement was about MM giving up RTH on wind drift. Then you abruptly changed to essentially state that MM won't go back to original GPS coordinates from where wind drift started. That's two different things. None of the DJI products will go back to where wind drift took it off course. It will just resume to hover where the wind took it if the drift was significant enough.
Anyone can test this by hand pushing their DJI several feet.

Very poorly worded original statement on my part; I was indeed talking about two separate scenarios, hence I said 'also'; the first part of statement was about RTH being overcome if wind too strong; the second part was simply about losing its position when hovering with no stick input. I've hand-pushed the Mavic 2 pro many a time to demonstrate the GPS hold on my videos....
Apologies for the blunt late night words.... Ian

 

[TDZHDTV]

Quick dash out to catch the sunset today, only two power warnings at 60m (22mph/ 45mph gusts UAV app), I still think this little drone holds if you respect it. Panorama stitched in Affinity Photo for iPad.

 

[sar104]

Very poorly worded original statement on my part; I was indeed talking about two separate scenarios, hence I said 'also'; the first part of statement was about RTH being overcome if wind too strong; the second part was simply about losing its position when hovering with no stick input. I've hand-pushed the Mavic 2 pro many a time to demonstrate the GPS hold on my videos....
Apologies for the blunt late night words.... Ian

In a situation where a pilot is actively flying the aircraft and it is being moved by the wind in uncommanded directions, it's hard to know exactly where you might want the aircraft to return to if the wind decreases enough for it to regain positional control. And any such attempts on the part of the aircraft would potentially end up conflicting with pilot stick inputs.

 

[DanMan32]

Not to mention that path to before stability loss might encounter obstacle. Safer to stay put than autonomously move to another position without pilot's say so.